Guys, which board (Asus Vs. Abit)

**KraidSaves** · July 31st, 2005, 05:29 AM

These are two motherboards I'm getting narrowed down to.
I guess I'm looking for which would run my system cooler (since I plan to OC a 3000+ Venice) and which is just overall better. I'm looking for Sata II support. I'm also wary of the heat pipe on the Abit. Is that enough to keep the chipset cooled? This model only having 3 reviews on Newegg make me worry a little, although it does have 5 gold eggs. I'm also going to buy a 7800 gtx so I'm not sure if that's gonna heat up the chipset beyond what that heatpipe can cool.

Asus A8N-E
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131530

Abit AN8-Ultra
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813127212

EDIT
Sorry a new board has come into the mix
DFI Lan Party UT NF4 Ultra-D
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813136152

Please help me choose, need expert opinion.

**nwo75200** · July 31st, 2005, 05:42 AM

Well.... the best for OCing is DFI, a heatpipe is sufficient and it will work great if you have a good AIR HSF as well as exhaust fans in the back of your case, if you do not, then the heatpipe will not work well.

Have you looked at DFI NF4 Ultra-D?

**KraidSaves** · July 31st, 2005, 05:46 AM

Hmm yes that board does looked like its packed with features, really packed. This was actually the very first board I was considering buying when I thought I was going the SLI route, until I found out that board is not* an SLI board yet has 2x16 PCI-E slots which is weird. Looks like im going back to this board. I think I read there was a way to 'unlock' this board and enable SLi on it but then I also heard that they were making it so that you couldnt turn it into an SLi at all.

**KraidSaves** · July 31st, 2005, 06:19 AM

Originally Posted by nwo75200

Well.... the best for OCing is DFI, a heatpipe is sufficient and it will work great if you have a good AIR HSF as well as exhaust fans in the back of your case, if you do not, then the heatpipe will not work well.

Have you looked at DFI NF4 Ultra-D?

It looks like a very tough thing to put one of the new huge video cards on the board. How is a 6800 much less a 7800 going to fit on there without hitting the chipset fan? Nooo

**nwo75200** · July 31st, 2005, 06:43 AM

I have an MSI K8N Neo Platinum, my vanilla 6800 goes way past the chipset fan, yet, it fits perfectly, so I wouldn't worry about the chipset fan since they are made low profile so that the graphics card doesn't hit them.

-p · August 1st, 2005, 10:45 PM

asus..

**Ramen** · August 1st, 2005, 10:52 PM

Vote for Asus one also.

**DarkStar02** · August 1st, 2005, 10:54 PM

I vote ABIT, they are really good about their RMA's and customer support.

I've built two computers using ABIT.

**mpc** · August 2nd, 2005, 12:40 AM

DFI

**#43 fan** · August 2nd, 2005, 12:45 AM

DFI, or Asus.
Flip a coin.

**nwo75200** · August 2nd, 2005, 09:25 AM

DFI for OCing, ASUS for overall quality.

**andy1984** · August 2nd, 2005, 10:34 AM

did you look at the regular abit an8? do you need sataII and dual raid? It looks like a good option if your not goin sli as its basically the board the fatal1ty was designed from, only cheaper

**KraidSaves** · August 2nd, 2005, 01:19 PM

Originally Posted by andy1984

did you look at the regular abit an8? do you need sataII and dual raid? It looks like a good option if your not goin sli as its basically the board the fatal1ty was designed from, only cheaper

This'll be my first build and I"m going for Sata II yes. The particular model I'm buying ( HItachi 80 gb) comes in SATA1 by default and must be unlocked to SATA II speeds by going to the Hitachi website where they show you how to unlock it. As far as RAID goes I don't really know what that is except that it means having multiple hard drives, but I wouldn't have an idea right now about how to use it. Yea ever since the ABIT NF7-S days when I started reading and getting inrterested in computer building I've always held abit in high reguard because I know that was 'the' motherboard to get. Now I'm ready to build my own computer and things have changed alot since then and I've been following those changes very closely. I wanna learn about RAID soon.

**andy1984** · August 2nd, 2005, 03:22 PM

Thats interesting. I wasnt aware you could hit sataII speeds with a single drive. Let alone a 7200rpm one. Tho hitachi do make good hd's . Got a link to this info?

**#43 fan** · August 2nd, 2005, 03:31 PM

You can't saturate the ATA133 bus [usually] with a single a single drive, let alone the SATAII bus.

**andy1984** · August 2nd, 2005, 03:37 PM

Originally Posted by Reather

You can't saturate the ATA133 bus [usually] with a single a single drive, let alone the SATAII bus.

Yeh thats what i thought. Hence you dont need sataII or dual raid so i'd go for the cheaper non-ultra version of the abit. (I should be gettin one fri so i'll post my opinions on it)

**Ultima** · August 4th, 2005, 05:13 AM

All dfi boards can be made into SLI.

There have been calculations that DFI has made such a stockpile of Ultra-D boards that for at least the coming 4 months all Ultra-D's can be modded into SLI's.

I did it to mine and it works fine. The chipset is being detected as an SLI chipset, look here for the how to do it guide:

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10736

Good luck