nForce 4 motherboards --- where are they all?

[CityK]

Maybe its just me, but I haven't noticed too many nF4 mobos. In comparison, ~5 months after the nF2's launch there was a plethora of that platform.

 

[time]

You're joking, right? I've been beating them off with a stick, and this is the Antipodes.

Recently, instead of an Opteron setup, I went for an A64 on an Asus SLI nForce4. It's smirking at me while I type this. It may well be the twin 10000rpm drives, but by God it's fast - in both Windows and Linux.

I skipped the Opteron setup because it used a Tyan Tiger. Unlike the Thunder solutions, it relied on a PCI Gigabit-E controller and RAID was just software anyway.

Due to a stuffup from Gigabyte with their product variants, the Asus was cheaper. To my relief, it presents way better than cheaper stuff from Asus (eg, made in Taiwan rather than the other place). For anyone in the market however, models from both brands are pretty much identical - same chips, same functionality, similar layout.

These boards fix just about all my nForce 3 reservations: true high speed GbE and four native SATA ports, as well as the benefits of socket 939 such as four DIMM slots and vast memory bandwidth. No longer any need to feel intimidated by Intel chipset solutions.

I just had a fight with myself over getting another one - to replace yet another motherboard with infected capacitors - but financial reality reared its ugly head and I settled for a socket 754 nForce 3.

The only downside I can think of is the cursed 8000rpm chipset fan. It may be quiet, but we all know the little bastard will fail eventually.

 

[Gilbo]

I think you're restricted to DFI, Chaintech, Gigabyte, Asus, and MSI right now. So you're right, the selection isn't huge, but there are enough quality boards out there that you shouldn't have difficulty finding anything you need.

From what I've read it appears that these new PCIe boards are initially somewhat difficult to design. DFI is the only manufacturer to go it alone and do their own design, while the other four got exclusive help from nVidia as favoured partners. Other companies should be getting assistance from nVidia now that the favourites have all got their boards on the market, so we should see some more competition in the next couple months.

I recently picked up a pair of DFI nForce4 Ultra-Ds and I'm very pleased with them.

 

[Buck]

Indeed, my disti has:

Asus A8N-SLI DELUXE
Asus A8N-SLI
Asus A8N-E

Gigabyte GA-K8N ULTRA-SLI
Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI
Gigabyte GA-K8N ULTRA-9
Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9

Plus the Abit, ECS, and MSI variants.

Interestingly, the Asus boards are listed as having 1394a connectors, while the Gigabyte boards have 1394b.

 

[Gilbo]

Are the Abit and ECS variants available to you yet Buck? I haven't seen them around up north yet, but we are a little behind the times generally...

 

[Buck]

Plus the Abit, ECS, and MSI variants.

Abit AN8

ECS KN1 EXTREME

MSI K8N NEO4-F
MSI K8N NEO4-Platinum
MSI K8N NEO4-Platinum SLI

 

[time]

Interestingly, the Asus boards are listed as having 1394a connectors, while the Gigabyte boards have 1394b.

Oops! I forgot about that. You're right of course, the Gigabytes are the best - if you can get them. The other reason I went with an Asus is because my Gigabyte distributor forecast no stock for weeks (except for the top of the line model). Gigabyte + nForce anything often seems in short supply here.

 

[Groltz]

It looks like the only two Nforce4-Ultra boards that have four 32-bit PCI slots are the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum and the Foxconn NF4UK8AA-8EKRS. Has anyone seen others?

 

[Buck]

None that I know of Steve.



Time, I personally like the Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9, it doesn't have any fans.

 

[Mercutio]

The better, and in my opinion more interesting question is,
Where are the socket 939 motherboards with PCI-E and native SATA from the good people at Via?

 

[Buck]

Good question Merc.




Time, what PCI-E video card are you using with these nForce4 boards?

 

[Handruin]

Xbit had a review of the KT890 chipset on an asus A8VE.

 

[time]

Time, what PCI-E video card are you using with these nForce4 boards?

Because it's a server, the cheapest I can get. That happens to be a Sapphire X300SE. I haven't checked lately, but there was a Gigabyte GF6600 or 6600GT that was exceptional value (high clock, low price).

The GA-K8NF-9 was my first choice for a board, but I still can't get any. In any case, the Asus SLI was actually cheaper - believe it or not.

 

[Gilbo]

You could always just use a PCI video card. Every Nforce4 board has at least two PCI slots still. In fact, that's what I did to get the two NForce4 mobos I just bought up and running as servers.

 

[Handruin]

Gigabyte GA k8VT890 review.

 

[CityK]

Whatever happened to Via's VT8251 southbridge?

Anand[/url]]their new VT8251. It is a substantial upgrade in features from the others, as it includes not only RAID and SATA support - this time with native support for 4 SATA drives - but it also adds in some other goodies. For starters, the SATA controller now supports Native Command Queuing. There are also two PCIe lanes, allowing either two X1 PCIe connections or one X2 PCIe connection. Here, the faster Ultra V-Link will definitely help out. On the audio side, the VT8251 adds support for 8 channel High Definition Audio (192 KHz/32-bit sampling). AC'97 audio is still supported as well, as is VIA's Envy 24-bit audio chip. Finally, the ACPI controller is 2.0 compliant, which allows for additional power saving features.

 

[CityK]

On a positive note, making use of one of the available PCI-e lanes for the gigabit nic was a nice touch.