NForce2 MOtherboards

**MBatson** · April 11th, 2003, 03:51 PM

I am trying to decide if I want to go with an ASUS A7N8X or a Chaintech 7NJS mothboard for my next system.

I am planning on going with Western Digital's new Raptor (Serial ATA) drives in a RAID 0 format with two drives. I am have not read anywhere if the ASUS has built in RAID support for the A7N8X. I know the Chaintech does support RAID for the Serial ATA.

I like both motherboards for various reasons. The Chaintech one just plains looks good with the black PCB and yellow expansion slots. The ASUS board has better audio on the board and from the reviews I have read, has a better BIOS for overclocking.

My question is which to decide?

**Diver01** · April 11th, 2003, 04:59 PM

I would vote for A7N8X delux for sure. Awesome board,maybe overkill depending on what you want to use it for.. theres also a non delux mode as im sure your aware. I believe it does support Raid BTW.

**Budd** · April 11th, 2003, 05:44 PM

the A7N8X Deluxe from Asus does have serial ATA and is on sale now at Newegg for $140. simple rule of thumb, if you have the $ always go Asus

**Jediab** · April 12th, 2003, 02:13 AM

http://www.asus.com.tw/mb/socketa/a7...cification.htm

Here is where Asus says that the SATA supports raid 0/1

Asus is known to always be a stable and reliable board. Chaintech I really haven't heard that many things about.

**NooNoo** · April 12th, 2003, 04:48 AM

I would put chaintech just above pcchips/ECS and below msi....

**confus-ed** · April 12th, 2003, 06:23 AM

Right we know what I am

, well I am again .....

Both these motherboards are 'Dual Channel' DDR ??? for which you need matched pairs of DDR ??? so why do both have three memory slots .... ? ! ?

**MBatson** · April 12th, 2003, 09:37 AM

Thanks for the replies. From what I hear over in Europe the Chaintech motherboard is selling 3 or 4 times what the complany has expected it to sell.

I think I will stick with the ASUS board. All the extras with the Chaintech are nice, but I don't really like the audio chip they put with the onboard sound. I am not really planning on putting in a sound card into the system. From what I hear the one on the ASUS board sound just as good as an Audigy card.

**Matridom** · April 12th, 2003, 10:02 AM

Originally posted by confus-ed
Right we know what I am , well I am again .....

Both these motherboards are 'Dual Channel' DDR ??? for which you need matched pairs of DDR ??? so why do both have three memory slots .... ? ! ?

2 banks, and one bank has 2 slots...

so three memory sticks make for 2 used in dual channel, and one used in single channel. all nfroce2 boards are like that..

For boards thought, i have an epox 8rda+, love it

**Stalemate** · April 12th, 2003, 10:03 AM

Originally posted by confus-ed
Right we know what I am , well I am again .....

Both these motherboards are 'Dual Channel' DDR ??? for which you need matched pairs of DDR ??? so why do both have three memory slots .... ? ! ?

I own an A7N8X-DX and love it. Apart from some minor config issues initially (caused by my lack of knowledge) everything was great.

More info about dual channel DDR on the nForce2 can be obtained here:

http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=feature_dualddr
http://www.nvidia.com/docs/lo/2281/S...onous_Mode.pdf

**Stalemate** · April 12th, 2003, 10:05 AM

Originally posted by MBatson
...From what I hear the one on the ASUS board sound just as good as an Audigy card.

Pretty much, but I haven't tested it with a 5.1 system yet.

**confus-ed** · April 12th, 2003, 04:55 PM

Originally posted by Matridom
2 banks, and one bank has 2 slots...

so three memory sticks make for 2 used in dual channel, and one used in single channel. all nfroce2 boards are like that..

Oh so I get 2/3 the memory going 'fast' and the other 1/3 going normal ?? So why don't they have four slots or two ? Just seemed a bit daft

**Speed Racer** · April 12th, 2003, 09:17 PM

Originally posted by Buddy Holly
the A7N8X Deluxe from Asus does have serial ATA and is on sale now at Newegg for $140. simple rule of thumb, if you have the $ always go Asus

Even tho Buddy died in a plane crash many years ago, he's right about a coupla things : Always buy ASUS and always shop NewEgg. I have 3 A7N8X Deluxe boards and my son has two; we bought the first ones as soon as they came out, and quite frankly were, at first, sorely disappointed... Had some problems with the early BIOS versions; particularly temperature reading and overclocking, but now, after about 5 different versions, everything is nice. (1003 out recently) The onboard sound was a complete surprise with really high scores on 3D Mark and even Tom's gave it a top rating... As for SATA, I am not convinced that it's better than RAID 0/1 for now; especially with those darn converters... and I definetly prefer expansion card over onboard. I use the RocketRaid 404 and love it...

**Tacit_k** · April 13th, 2003, 04:44 AM

I have the asus a7n8x-d board, I have always been a fan of ASUS and Tyan, I strayed from the fold once when the FIC kt7a-raid board came out and dearly regret my folly.

I did not have any config issues with the board I always flash the bios before I set up a machine so I have the latest version. but there was a grounding issue with the audio riser for the speaker outputs. It seems the positives for the front speakers were crossed to the grounds and this required a replacement of the board. Took about a week to turn around from ASUS. Although having to listen to N-sync for 10 minutes on hold was torture,

For me the board has been a dream, it supports raid on the serial connects, and it just rocks for speed. I run PC2700 drr dual channel two sticks of 512MB kingston and a xp2500+ barton core

this makes the timing of the cpu bus and the memory the same. PC3200 is fine but the time to sync with the cpu makes it a maginal increase in speed at best, so you may wish to think PC2700 for real value.

My drives are set up as

c: 40 gig 8mb buffer for operating system and apps
d: 80 gig 8mb buffer for video storage and editing
e: 40 gig 2 mb buffer for MP3 storage and editing
f: 80 gig 2 mb buffer for Ghost images and other back ups
g: 48x cdrw
h: 16x DVD
I: External SCSI DVD-ram (I wish I knew I was going to get a firewire board before I got this drive.)

all of this is tucked into a ANTEC series II with 420 watt PS

My next project is to rewire the PS for a custom fit wireharness and water cool it. BTW chrome splitloom from an auto parts store like Kragen or Pep-boys looks great in a black case.

**Matridom** · April 13th, 2003, 07:26 AM

Originally posted by confus-ed
Oh so I get 2/3 the memory going 'fast' and the other 1/3 going normal ?? So why don't they have four slots or two ? Just seemed a bit daft

Oh tis Daft. But i try to make best use of what's available.

**confus-ed** · April 13th, 2003, 07:36 AM

Originally posted by Matridom
Oh tis Daft. But i try to make best use of what's available.

Oh I do like the 'reply with quote' button !

So I don't want either of those two boards then I want one like this MSI GNB Max Motherboard (Review)

That's got 4 slots, and a maximum memory capacity of 4GB (whoa! Who needs a swapfile

)...I dunno whether they are actually any good but the review is nice enough.....