Hello,

I am looking for a socket 939/AGP motherboard to stick A64-E 3000+ in once they become available.

I have found 3 possible choices so far, thermalright XP-120 compatibility is a huge plus.

Abit AV8 (Via chipset)
Asus A8V Rev 2, (Via, + wireless LAN)
MSI K8N Neo2-54G (NF3 Ultra, Wireless, possible XP-120 problems)

According to the thermalright compatibility list, the Neo2-Platinum is not compatable, however, according to the website I am browsing these products on, the Neo2-54G has a completely different layout with the DIMMS to the right as opposed to above the processor socket on the Neo2-P.

I will be trying to make the system as quiet as possible and I have heard bad things about the NF3 in these circumstances. I have used via in the past and been less than impressed, though I understnad they are a lot better than they used to be.

Can anyone recommend any of the above or perhaps a different model?

as far as i can tell, the MSI neo2 platinum is still basically the only viable s939 AGP mb, kind of amazing. not sure about the -54G, hard to find info/accurate pics, if it's the same aside from wireless it should still be great. can't really comment on whether an xp-120 will fit though, sorry. the only major/common issue i'm aware of is that with mixed SATA/IDE hard drives, it'll simply refuse to boot off of a SATA drive; this might only occur on certain SATA ports or might have been fixed by now regardless.

and yeah, its NB comes stock with a stupid little fan on it, but most other motherboards also seem to nowadays...

The only other thing with Nforce boards is the position of the chipset, often it's right next to the agp slot making passive cooling dificult.

Hello:

Then there is the rumored issues between the nForce 3 and 4 chipsets and the 'E' stepping... Hopefully it is "just" a BIOS upgrade away, but one never knows until we get the new Athlons, I guess.

I've heard that Soltek's K8TPro-939 (VIA K8T800 Pro) is compatible with the XP-120. I saw the article about the rev. E nForce problems. Don't know if this will affect VIA chipsets as well...

I'm running an Asus A8V rev.2 without the wireless card. 3500+ Winchester, XP-120 w/Nexus 120, Matrox P650 AGP card, etc. in an Antec 3000B, stock exhaust fan right now. Not quite done with the HDD setup yet but very happy with it so far.

The Gigabyte nV4's are compatable with the bit Thermalright. You need the steel adaptor plate though. You could go with the K8-N Ultra or the K8N Ultra-SLI, both of which come with a pasive HS on the northbridge.

I have the Soltek K8TPro-939. It is compatible with the XP-120, but you will have to forego use of a DIMM slot (the heatpipes get in the way), much like with many of the other motherboards on Thermalright's XP-120 compatibility list.

According to a previous post, Soltek support says that one can use DIMM slots 3 and 4 if you have only 2 DIMMS, and still get dual channel memory access.

Thanks for all the response so far.

I notice someone mentioned an SLI board... well I need AGP so NF4 boards are out of the question.

What are peoples thoughts on Via vs NF3?

It's compatible. I have an XP-120 on my K8TPro-939 currently. I can comfortably recommend this motherboard. It's very stable and I've had no problems at all with it since installing it a month or two ago.

As mentioned above, you do lose the ability to use your first DIMM socket, but you can still run dual channel by using slots 3 and 4. It's worked well for me. I really don't see myself needing more than 2 slots (currently 1 gig) of RAM anytime soon.

*rechecks title of thread* *smacks forhead*

whoops, i forgot about the possible E-stepping issues too. assuming that's not a problem, if at any point it's just deciding between the two chipsets, nf3 hands down imho. it's like trying to compare an osprey to a rusty bike.

I'm trying to run almost exactly the same setup, and am having a stability problem. I posted this on a website.

"I have an A8V problem that only occurs after a period of about a half hour of idling. After Power Management turns off the monitor for about this length of time, either the screen won't wake up or the system spontaneously reboots at some point. It works fine if the system is kept active, e.g., I've run Prime95 for 5 hours and these problems don't occur.

I'm using OCZ Gold, Rev.2 and it runs Memtest with no errors. I have done several clean installs of XP SP2 along with the latest VIA and video card (Matrox P650) drivers. This happens both with CnQ enabled and not."

Several suggestions were that it might be my PSU and that A64's should have one with 24A on the 12v line. It looks like your FSP has only 15A, so I'm a bit skeptical. Is that right?

Also looking for others experience and diagnostic suggestions. Thanks.

I see very little diff between our systems. I am running a 2x512 Patriot kit PDC1G3200LLK at 2-3-2-5-T1. Win XP SP2 from the MS OEM disk (not an upgrade) installed on an ATA133 120 GB Maxtor disk (I know, but I had beginner problems with the serial P80 Spinpoint getting seen by the Win Install program) eventually this will go into a USB box for backup. Sorry I cannot help more but my last build was a 486 and I was very glad that this one worked once I swapped the HDDs