Leaving Epox

[Genius]

Well after much deliberation I have decided to replace my Epox 8RDA non + with an Abit nForce 2 NF7-S rev 2.0. I'm not here to rub it in or anything, I just felt I should justify my decision to you guys (and to some effect myself :clown: ). Overall my 8RDA has been pretty good other than the initial bios problems that I now realize caused all my problems when I first got the board (i.e. multiple pci ide controllers causing my system to hose which now work flawlessly together). My system is stable and obtaining best performance at 185 fsb, though I'm sure the memory can handle a significant amount more. My reasons for leaving:

1). Weak Epox support in the area of bios releases for the 8RDA non + I feel us non + users are really getting the shaft here (untimely updates and reduced stability).

2). 8RDA3+ is still not available in the US (though it will be any day now, and from what I read it offers me no real advantage over Abit's offering and I should be able to achieve higher fsb without modding the board - Abit has a fan on the NB)

3). Abit offers 3 phase power where Epox only offers 2. Many will argue this matters little but Abit boards tend to be more overclockable in the CPU department.

My new motherboard and an Antec 550w TruPower PSU should be here Wednesday I hope, just in time for a 4 day vacation from work (which hopefully doesn't turn out to be 4 days of troubleshooting like my 8RDA purchase did).

Take care guys.

[DisposableHero]

see ya..

goodluck figuring out whats whats wrong with the nf7 without the LED's

[Genius]

I don't forsee it being a problem as I've only used the Epox LED twice. Once on my 8K3A+ with a code that translated as 'reserved' and a C1 error on the 8RDA. It won't really be missed

My 8RDA will make a nice server though.

[Lazgoat]

Oooh, too much mentioning of "other brands" in the Epox section Genius!
Good luck with the new board, I am very pleased with mine, never had a single hiccup.
Be sure to let us know how you get on with it.

Laz.

[GREEKRAGE]

Ok since you made the abit look like a God read this :

A) the abit has no midi port and most soundcards that do have one arent compatible in the midi department.

b) i know of at least 7 dead boards from bios to leaking caps and the bad part?...3 belonged to the same guy(bad batch ..hmmm)

c) abit has just as many incompatibilities as any other nF2 board

You took a lower epox model board and compared it to the newest in the abit fleet without having tried out the new epox(not much of a comparisin dont you think ?).

And never judge support just from the amount of bioses put out,i really dont think that its fair when in almost every other department the support is great(you should have had a Chaintech and seen what bad support really is)

and posting in the epox section about other boards is in my book....JUST PLAIN RUDE.

[Jay T]

Yeah, you're in the wrong forum for that board. The 8RDA3+ wipes the floor with NF7, shame you couldn't wait another week. You don't need to mod the 8RDA3+, just look at my sig. It will do 230 FSB sync, but I have to slacken the ram timings.

[Áedán]

Moved to AMD mobos/CPUS, otherwise I would have to delete the thread... Please make sure you read the rules for the section you are posting in.

[Genius]

Wow a few of you guys sure took this the wrong way. No need to get defensive eh? Another big factor in going with the Abit and not the 8RDA3+ is that I don't have to worry about any first revision issues. I'll let you know how it goes.

[ravenlot]

Hey Genius,

Three against one?! Hardly sounds fair. I'll get your back Genius
I'm a former EPoX motherboard owner myself. I had the 8RDA+.

Now I realize that all you guys had wonderful experiences with this board. I think that's great and I'm glad you didn't have any problems with it. Unfortunately, Genius ran into problems and so did I. So why can't we mention it? Isn't the purpose of these forums to voice different views, experiences, and tips concerning these products? Also, why can't we mention other brands? Is this supposedly open forum realy only for brand loyalists?

Anyway, I hope I made my point. I'll stop with that topic before I get overly preachy. :-D

Like I said, I used to have an 8RDA+ but I had a lot of problems with it. In the end, the board died. I won't go into the details of it right now since I get the impression that most of you probably don't want to read it but I'm open to write about it more later.

Coincidently, I switched to the Abit NF7-S 2.0 also. Setting aside the common problems that the Abit board has when compared to similar boards (e.g. nForce2 driver issues, SATA problems similar to that of ASUS), I'm quite happy with this board. I decided not to go with EPoX again because of that bad experience. Sure, my board may have been the fluke in the batch, or perhaps I actually did do something wrong to kill it. Nevertheless, I don't think it's so strange that anyone in that situation would want to try something else.

Originally, I wanted to replace the EPoX board with the ASUS one since it got great reviews on some hardware websites but I read that my Thermalright SLK-900U didn't fit right on that board without some bending of the surrounding capacitors. Later, I read on some other forums that the Abit board is a better overclocker than the ASUS.


And speaking of capacitors, I could be wrong but I believe I read somewhere that Abit and Intel (I think) were the only manufacturers to actually acknowledge the problem with cheap capacitors containing inferior formula even though the problem was widespread. As I understand it, Abit stopped using those capacitors a while back and are using reputable ones now.

Anyway, that's all I have to say. Please don't take my post to be some sort of verbal attack on you guys. It's not meant to be. I really enjoy reading everyone's opinion about this stuff since it helps me make better purchasing decisions.

[muzz]

2 phase?
I don't think so.
And the NF7 2.0 is the weakest board out of the 3 NF2 I have owned.

Good Luck Genius.

[Holst]

If you read the rules of the epox topic you will find that your not allowed to discuss other manufacturers products. The epox topic is for epox discution, not anything else.

But as this topic is now moved to the AMD section you can slag epox off and worship any other manufacturer you like (bar PC chips :P)

Abit offers 3 phase power where Epox only offers 2. Many will argue this matters little but Abit boards tend to be more overclockable in the CPU department.

This is just plain wrong, the 8rda+ has one of the best designed and performing 3 phase arrangments avalable. Ive heard several respected overclockers cryticise the NF7-S 2.0's power regulation stating that the 1.2's was better, but ive not used the board myself.
I think my 3gig barton overclocks show that with the right chip and cooling the 8rda+ is able to perform along with the best as far as CPU overclocks. My 8rda+ has no heatsinks on the mosfets BTW, just a 80mm fan at 7v.

I think you will do better with your new gear, but this will mainly be due to you PSU change (as many of your previous problems were probably related to PSU) and also that your moving to the better overclocking C1 chipset.

Best of luck with your new gear, let us know how you get on with it. I hope you can give the same crytical oppinions of the Abit as you have on your Epox board.

[Genius]

Hey Holst ;p

The issues I had with my Epox board were in no way power related. The problems can be reproduced by flashing back to an earlier bios (which I mistakenly did recently). All said an done, the 8RDA isn't a bad board by any means; just not overclockable enough without modification. Hope my 550w TruPower makes as much of a difference as you think though.... I'll be in heaven. I only bought it to blow some money

I just got my new board today and am in the process of backing up data before I swap 'em out. Teh capacitors are the 16v one's that are [to my knowledge] a gamble with the 8RDA3+ (meaning you might get weaker ones). I'd probably be pretty excited right now if I actually felt like tearing my system apart

[Pita^Norf]

Originally posted by Jay T
Yeah, you're in the wrong forum for that board. The 8RDA3+ wipes the floor with NF7, shame you couldn't wait another week. You don't need to mod the 8RDA3+, just look at my sig. It will do 230 FSB sync, but I have to slacken the ram timings.

I think this is an unfair comment if you have'nt used a NF7 (assuming that this is the case).

I had an 8RDA3+ and the board I got performed worse than my 8RDA+, the componets from my sig would only do 195 FSB. However I grant that the 8RDA3+ would do 210 FSB with slack timings but that was plain unacceptable for me. Needless to say I was a bit miffed especially with the reviews I'd read !

A friend of mine got hold of an NF7 V2 and I borrowed it for a few days, in that time I was able to do 225 FSB with memory timings of 5,2,2,cas2 and multiplier of 11.

I just wrote my 8RDA3+ off as a bad board and off loaded it.

My next board will either be the next revision of the 8RDA+ or the NF7 V2 (price on this is quite appealing).

[Genius]

Well the system went together without a hitch. Posted on the first try and cranked her right up to 200 fsb 5-2-2-2 right after Windows was installed. I'm still updating some stuff before I do a whole lotta testing but Prime 95 ran for 4 hours straight last night and I'm sucessfully completed a full loop of 3DMark 2001 scoring just a hair under 17,000 3DMarks (too bad the Catalyst 3.4's are known to be lower than previous versions). More overclocking and testing to come soon. This board is just awesome so far. I love all the features.

[Lazgoat]

Isn't it time you changed your sig then Genius?
Keep us all posted as I like to see what you get out of it with that RAM. I'm thinking of getting some Twinmos Winbond PC3200.

[Genius]

I'll update my sig after I find the sweet spot.

As far as TwinMos goes, I wouldn't hesitate to pick some up. I'm at 220 fsb right now (6-3-3-2.5 haven't tried lower). It's good memory, and my 512mb stick is a Winbond 4.5ns from hardcorecooling.com (not TwinMos branded I don't think, but it came with the heatspready already attached so I could be wrong).

[Genius]

Damn this NF7-S rev 2.0 is sweet. Combined with my new PSU I'm now able to get a much better overclock.
http://www.peerless.xohost.com/genius/wcpuid.jpg

It will go higher on the FSB but at higher latency timings than the 5-2-2-2 I have it at right now. I have no idea how much higher the processor will go. Current CPU voltage is 1.95. Voltages shown in the MBM dashboard are at full load with Prime 95 crankin away.

[Malakai]

I gave up on epox after the 8KHA+.

I took a chance and upgraded to an Abit KX7-333, and I'm glad I did.

I have been using Abit since, and I don't have a single complaint. I love my NF7 2.0, this board is a dream.

[noxarin]

Cool my post was deleted ? That's nice.

If you didn't want an Intel post in this thread it shouldn't have been linked to in the Intel forum.

The only reason to visit this forum is because there's the chance Epox might be reading it, but if you post something to highlight a problem or issue and it gets deleted anyway, why bother? There's plenty of other better forums where you can actually discuss things.

My personal opinion, Epox and this forum are dodgy. Good luck on the downward spiral to both.

[Daniel ~]

noxarin,
Here's hoping this means you won't be back. But I've learned not to count on it.