Gigabyte K8NF-9 ~ or ~ Asus A8n SLI

[IceRaptor]

Hi All,

I'm building a gaming computer and its my 1st time. I have a Fairly low budget at the moment of around £400.

I've decided to go for the 64bit 3000+ Winchester Cpu, which will come at about £90, I then plan on overclocking my CPU as much as i safely can without killing its life in less then 5 years.

According to "http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=gbnf44x&page=1"

The gigabyte board outperforms the Asus board. I dont really think i'm gonna use a double GPU since my budjet is low so i dont think i will need the SLI features.

However the Asus Board Is better for overclocking since it has more overclocking features and the bios has more flexiblity.

So which one should i go for and are there any others which i should consider which will build me a better system with my £400 budget.

The Gigabyte Board costs £63
The Asus Board costs £90

[cadaveca]

I'd take the ASUS board. It will allow you to easily upgrade video in the future, which should be all you need to do in the next 2 years or so, should you want decent gaming.
Do you need to buy harddrives or optical drives? RAM? I assume you need a vidcard too...
Although 939 offers dual-channel, there is not much difference between 754 and 939. You can still get a 3000+ winchester on 754, but it may not offer 64-bit functionality, but could lower you overall cost. Check out the 3dmark scores in my sig...out of all a64's and x800xt's that are in the 3dmark ORB, i am on page3, so almost in the top20 fastest out there...and noone else is on 754. I know that the overclocking that has happened on 939 is very promising, but i'm about to try out a winchester on my platform, and see if it scales as well. Might be something to keep in mind.

If you do not plan to go windows64, then the sempron line may be your best bet. You get the same functionality as the a64s, processing wise.

[GrahamGarside]

Don't go for the gigabyte, it's an nforce4 4x board, I think this means theres something wrong with the HT bus on these and they are limitted to 4x speed
Just go for a none SLI nforce board, the DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D is the best choice for overclocking, it's about £35 more than the gigabyte bu it's worth it. If your budget is really to tight then you would probably be best scrapping pci-e and going for an Nforce3 board

[IceRaptor]

Hi the system i'm building is frm scratch so yes it will need ram harddrives and a graphics card etc.

I am planning to run windows 64 eventually but i've heard from freinds thats it needs alot of work because at the moment its crap.

Also how much do u think i can overclock my cpu without its life going lower then 5 years.

I am not an expert on Mobo's but the DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D Appears to be more expensive then the Asus Board even though the asus board supports SLI...

so wouldnt it make more sense getting the Asus one?
again my knowledge on motherboards isnt that good so you'll have to explain to me why the DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D would be a better choice.

Also in the Review "http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=gbnf44x&page=1"

It said that the NF4 4x didnt make much of a difference and could be changed to 5x in the bios.

Also i hopefully in the near future will have goten more money to spend on my computer so i want a board that is upgradable.

[cadaveca]

The DFI boards allows for more voltage options and memory option s that may allow you to overclock furhter than the ASUS board, is IS a better option if you plan on overclocking to the highest reaches.

[dolanenwindrift]

I am a bit biased, but I would go with the Asus board over the DFI unless overclocking is your main goal. The DFI likely has more headroom for overclocking but my firends that have the Lanparty boards have commented that they are 'finicky' WHile I have no recent experience with DFI my past experience would make me think twice before buying one of their products over Asus.

[IceRaptor]

I do want to overclock the cpu but i dont want to kill it off.
Basically i want to build the best possible system that £400 will make. And if this means i have to overclock then overclock i shall.

[GrahamGarside]

If you want SLI yes it does, but the DFI is the best overclocking board.
With such a limitted budget It might make more sense to go for a socket 754 sempron system, 64bit is still in it's infancy, XP64 has some rough edges and driver support will take a while to reach the level of XP32.
I'd recomend a sempron 2600+, a DFI LanParty UT nF3 250Gb Socket 754 and a 512mb dimm of DDR400

[GrahamGarside]

Overclocking wont kill a cpu, its increasing the voltage that does it

[IceRaptor]

Ok Graham....I think i'm gonna go with ur motherboard advice....

Heres what my system will have

DFI Lanparty UT NF4 Ultra-D - £108.63 Gladitorcomputers
Amd 64 bit 3000+ winchester - £96.34 Micro-direct
elixir 512 pc 3200 ddr400 Ram- £29.98 aria.co.uk
160Gb harddrive Sata - £55.21 micro -direct.
Gigabye 6600 128 DP version - £68.00 Dabs.com

Total :- £357.16

This stil leaves a some ££'s which i can spend on a case and speakers



Please Please Please give me any advice on any other parts which may better suit my system. Or if you can getbetter prices for any of the above also please let me know.

Also if you recomend or recommend against one of the shops please let me know.

Thanks

[IceRaptor]

Also which GFX card is better :- X600 or 6600?

[cadaveca]

6600gt, if you can. sm 3.0 functionality will "futureproof" you a bit more

[GrahamGarside]

the 6600, the X600 is just a pci-e 9600, a 6600Gt would be best, but on a budget a 6600 will do once overclocked, you should get near 6600Gt speeds anyway.
You're looking at a lot of excess p&p cots going to so many places, it may be worth pricnig the lot up and each one on it's own and seeing if it works out cheaper overall from one of them.
I recomend this drive if it isn't what you plan on already

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Product...87&GroupID=601

Is that a dual channel kit for the ram? if it's not it's really worth going for one, this one's £41 and it's worth going for as performance is much better than a single dimm

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal..._ValueRAM.html

[IceRaptor]

6600GT.... I look in to if i can get one of those.

Also the harddrive link you gave me was the one i was going for....

What exactly is a dual channel kit? Is is just 2 sticks of the same ram rather then 1?
Or is it some special type of Ram?

[hoinar]

Please read this: http://www.crucial.com/kb/answer.asp?qid=3751 about dual channel, they explain better than me .

edit: I would go for the Asus if I wanted the best stability and for an Epox/DFI for overclocking gl

[GrahamGarside]

Originally Posted by IceRaptor

6600GT.... I look in to if i can get one of those.

Also the harddrive link you gave me was the one i was going for....

What exactly is a dual channel kit? Is is just 2 sticks of the same ram rather then 1?
Or is it some special type of Ram?

Good choice
And yeah a dual channel kit is a matched pair of dimms, you can run dual channel with none matched pairs but it just makes things more simple for stability and performance to have them matched. You could always get the 512mb dimm now, setle for single channel until you can afford another dimm and have a 1gb dual channel setup, but there are significant performance gains to be had from dual channel, it's the main advantage of socket 939 over 754, for instance a 2.2ghz S754 chip is rated to 3200+, a 2.2ghz S939 is rated to 3500+ thanks to the extra memory bandwidth.

[IceRaptor]

Originally Posted by GrahamGarside

get the 512mb dimm now, setle for single channel until you can afford another dimm and have a 1gb dual channel setup.

Yeh i think i'll do just that.

If i buy the asus board i'll still be able to OC it right,
The asus board will let me overclock as much as i need but its the processor that will stop me from overclocking too muh right?

So do i really need to go for DFI.... its not like i'm doing major OCing i only relly want to overclock it to about 2.2Ghz...

So do you think i should go for the Asus board of the DFI?

[kellamne]

Obvious and boring I know - but as your on a budget quite important

You look like you're using a few suppliers - as your on a tight budget > have you counted in for delivery costs to your build? That may rack up a bit so is worth sitting down with you budget and see if you can scrimp back on this (possibly using same suppliers/various delivery times etc). I know it may sound tight _ but if it was me I'd rather spend the money on the system than city link.

[IceRaptor]

Nicely put^

well i can buy everything from 2 shops at same price!

Dabs:-

6600
DFI Lanparty UT NF4 Ultra-D

Micro-direct:-

512ram
3000+
160GB harddrive

[GrahamGarside]

2.2ghz from a winchester, don't be silly, you should settle for anything less than 2.5ghz
Where abouts in lancs are you? would it be cheaper for you to drive to microdirect with it being in manchester?

My instincts tell me to go with the dfi, though I do think you'd be just as pleased with an asus, they still overclock well and have enough features. If you can keep to your budget without making other sacrifices then go for the DFI, if that cash would be more useful else where go for the Asus