Fatal1ty SLI, A8N SLI Deluxe, or DFI NF4 SLI ?

[Millennium]

Hi there,

Need to pick a mobo. thinking of getting it all from scan at present though this would mean i can only get the A8N as I havent seen the other 2 there...

I need first and foremost overclocking performance and stability. Obviously the fatal1ty probably wins at this but seems to come at quite a premium, £20-30 sound right? on the a8n? Thats quite a lot!

The other important thing is the SATA. I would really like 8 or so ports such as with the A8N Deluxe. I keep adding hard drives to my system and it might help in the future.

Also does anyone know if the SATA raid controller on the A8ND is any good? Or would you only use the NF4U one anyhow? Cause i've not seen a comparison and it would seem that you'd wanna use the quicker one...

Thanks for your help, any comments much appreciated. Joining this mobo will be a 3000+ venice and a 6800LE

N

EDIT: At Scan

CPU 88 , mobo (a8nd) 99, and 6800LE is 117.50. The have nice specials today!

[BUFF]

Scan also have the regular AN8 SLi which still has 3.55Vdimm, has Q-OTES silent cooling rather than active on Fatality but doesn't have the red PCB & LEDs & the Guru panel.
Fatality AN8 SLi £126 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=213550
AN8 Sli £104 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=213551

They also stock the ASUS http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=158259 but not the DFI.

I've just bought a regular (non-Fatality) AN8 Ultra ~£85 as I didn't ever see me sinking the money for 2 decent vga cards into a system.

[StormPC]

Go for ASUS if you want stability and quality. Go for DFI if you overclock and hate to solder. Go for ABIT if you are out of your mind or do not understand what the word "Fatal1ty" is based on, or what it means.

[speedy_s]

Abit only, and yes premium is worth it.

[Nox]

The DFI will also let you use a 4x pcie slot AND dual gfx cards in SLI at the same time. I believe this is the only motherboard that will do this. Only really a concern if you plan to SLI and maybe want a 4x RAID controller or something in there in the future.

Nox

[bujinkan-ka]

I've been using an a8n-sli for a few months now and it's a solid board, but I had to replace the fan on the northbridge chipset. The damm thing was about to give up on me and it was far too noisy.

[Dark Horse]

I have used DFI boards since nf2 and have been really happy with the overclockability.

Check this roundup at anandtech http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2358&p=1

or almost any other tech site on the internet and they will say the dfi nf4 boards are the best overclockers. Dfi also has an excellent support forum at

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/index.php

However if you're looking for a bit more functionality then the MSI k8n diamond is a good option. As for sata ports tbh considering the size of hard drives these days 4 sata ports isn't too shabby if you use 4 x 200gb drives

[StormPC]

I've been using an a8n-sli for a few months now and it's a solid board, but I had to replace the fan on the northbridge chipset. The damm thing was about to give up on me and it was far too noisy.

That's the case with most NF4 boards. I'd put a custom HSF on any NF4 board that is seriously overclocked. I don't know what these manufacturer's are thinking sometimes I swear!

[Nox]

oh, and one of the DFI pciex16 slots overlaps the motherboard fan, limiting your options on replacements :/ swings, roundabouts.

Nox