I know... yet another 'Which Motherboard' question.. got a few choices..

[farooqm]

Im looking to get a new motherboard... I will be using the following with it:

AMD 3000 Venice from LowestonWeb
Leadtek 6600GT EE or Gigabyte 6600GT SilentPipe
Corsair or TwinMos 1Gb (2x512Mb) Memory
Samsung SpinPoint P120S 250GB SATA2 8MB 7200RPM NCQ

Not really looking to overclock OR SLI ... just want something thats stable and not too expensive.

Narrowed down to the following:

Asus A8N SLI Deluxe
MSI K8N Sli Platinum
Epox 9NPA+ Ultra

Need to know:
1) Do any of these fully support the SATA2 NCQ drives ??
2) Any recs for which heatsink/fan to use AMD 3000??
3) Finally most importantly which motherboard of the 3 ??

[Dougal]

1) All NF4 boards are SATA 3.0GB/s compatible.

2) Any of the ones which are advertised to suit s939, the 3000+ is bottom of the range

3) Epox or Asus (fork out for the Asus premium if you can)

[RavenNight]

I'm building a new PC and I've been looking at motherboards till my eyes hurt. From the hundereds of reviews I've read the Asus comes out on top. The premium is £20 and the only major differnce is a heatsink and software based SLi switching, if you want a silent PC go for that but otherwise the Deluxe sounds great!

[farooqm]

1) All NF4 boards are SATA 3.0GB/s compatible.

2) Any of the ones which are advertised to suit s939, the 3000+ is bottom of the range

3) Epox or Asus (fork out for the Asus premium if you can)

Thanks.. 2 votes for the Asus so far.

I am buying AMD 3000 oem so no heathsink/fan. Want something cool'n'quiet - not more than £20. Heard the Zalman Products are quite good.. but i have no knowledge of which is good

[Dougal]

For quiet you won't do well under £20

Get a HSF with a 120mm fan and it'll do the same job as a cheaper one but quieter.

[mike_w]

1) All NF4 boards are SATA 3.0GB/s compatible.

So far as I was aware, only the nForce4 Ultra and SLI boards supported it, not the plain nForce4s or nForce4-X.

[Dougal]

So far as I was aware, only the nForce4 Ultra and SLI boards supported it, not the plain nForce4s or nForce4-X.

Sorry, my bad, shoulda said "All THOSE NF4 boards "

[farooqm]

For quiet you won't do well under £20

Get a HSF with a 120mm fan and it'll do the same job as a cheaper one but quieter.

You've lost me now with the HFS bit... is that a company or technology... soz for sounding so thick (it may be cause I am )

[Dougal]

HSF = HeatSink Fan.

The whole colling bit, I'm a lazy typist so I abbreviate the world.

[kasavien]

Either the Asus or the Msi board, both are very good, the reviews i've read would tend to push me towards the MSI board, but thats personal preference. If SLI isn't a must have then the review below might give you a better idea of what you would like.

http://www.tomshardware.com/motherbo...513/index.html

I know its not on your list but the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum edition would be my recommendation

Hope that helps.

[kasavien]

Sorry i meant to say that if your case has good cooling generally, the stock heat that comes with the 3000+ should be adequate, otherwise i would recommend the Zalman CNPS7700-CU or the Zalman CNPS7000B-CU, both would do a good job. If you go for either of these make sure you go for the all copper versions.

[farooqm]

Ill look both of these up - they need to be quiet though... I am going for an OEM version of the 3000 as I can get it for 82 inc VAT and Inc Delivery so I might as well spend 20 on the Heatsink/fan (£20=difference between oem price i am getting and how much the retail one goes for at the moment). Any recs on where to get the Zalman ones from?

[kasavien]

Websites i've used before are

www.ebuyer.co.uk
www.scan.co.uk
www.overclockers.co.uk
www.kotech.co.uk

All will probably ship this heatsink, i would guess that ebuyer are the cheapest.

[kempez]

And:

www.tekheads.co.uk

and (one of the best customer service on the web) www.kustompcs.co.uk

The Asus gets my vote - the most stable stock board there is

[farooqm]

Anyone else got the Asus or MSI board both seem to be good. ?? Need someone who has the MSI to comment, someone must have used it.

[kempez]

Anyone else got the Asus or MSI board both seem to be good. ?? Need someone who has the MSI to comment, someone must have used it.

Had bad experiences with MSI - won't go there again...same with a few of my friends