very last mobo question

[diabloII]

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-136-152&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-131-523&DEPA=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=13-130-484&DEPA=0

i'm considering to buy one of those boards (just these, please don't suggest anything else)

setup:
athlon 64 3200+ (winchester)
1 gig (2x512mb) ram
40 gig IDE HDD
leadtek nVIDIA 6600gt pci-e

-i've heard that asus has problems with the 6600gt and it's latest bios still doesn't fix it for some people
-some people have had their msi's blowup, is this an issue in many MSI boards?
-is DFI worth it if i don't overclock?
-also, is this gigabyte board not going to boot up and have major problems or fry my cards?
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-128-268&depa=1
i'm considering that because saving that much money is a lot to me since i have a budget

and i'm not an OCer, so i don't care about that department, i want the best performance and most stable board out of these 3

ty

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

From what i have heard about the DFI it is the most stable and fastest. They have yet to put out a bad (non budget) product from what i know.

 

[phosho510]

yea dfi is one of the stablest. also there arent that much problems with the bios, and the board
but what sux about the nf4 is the 24pin, you either have to by a adapter or a better psu

 

[asdco]

If you're not up for suggestions I guess I better not say that chaintech boards and AMD go together like ducks and water.

 

[diabloII]

yea dfi is one of the stablest. also there arent that much problems with the bios, and the board
but what sux about the nf4 is the 24pin, you either have to by a adapter or a better psu

is this true for ALL nforce 4s?

if so, which kind of psu's will give u a 24pin adapter?

 

[Nubius]

if so, which kind of psu's will give u a 24pin adapter?

Well some come with an adapter. My 560w Thermaltake PSU did. Some probably naturally come that way.

If you're not up for suggestions I guess I better not say that chaintech boards and AMD go together like ducks and water.

I would never suggest chaintech. They aren't bad, but

DFI
ABit
MSI

would be my choice in that order although DFI and ABit are basically tied for 1st IMO.

 

[Sui]

Well I have the gigbyte board, hasn't given me any problems, only complaints I have are its only a 4x htt board, and the front panel audio connectors are at the back of the board. Lack of a system temp sensor kind of seems cheesy too. Those are all minor problems to me. Everything else worked fine..... Plan on using XP, becuase the only other os supported is win2k, and win2k crashes every other time you use the sata. With XP I havn't had a crash. If you have amassed a collection of usb junk the 10 usb ports might come in handy(but I doubt it). One thing that is nice is that it doesn't require a 24 pin atx PSU, you can use just a normal 20 pin psu.

If I had the funds I might have tried to swing the dfi board, but I don't have any regrets.

 

[Nubius]

Well when I say a board isn't good, I don't always mean that it wont work. If that was the case those companies wouldn't be producing boards.

I personally consider gigabyte midrange quality. I've seen quite a number of posts with people having various troubles with them.

They aren't built for OC'ing really, but that's something only I (and OC'ers of course) look at.

For just normal computer use they are no problems. Infact the gigabyte nforce4-4x board when they turned the HTT link speed up to 5x from default 4x it was beating out the ASUS Sli nforce4 and one other board, so you might consider upping that HTT multi to 5x Sui, but I take no responsibility for any damages that may occur

 

[Sui]

I'd have to make a bunch of upgrades to make sure it could do it ok. I'd have to add active cooling on the chipset, and that would require another fan controler(or one with more controls), and at least 1 more temp sensor. When performance becomes an issue I'll probably start O/Cing again. I think the cheap 6600 will be holding me back before the rest of the comp though. Tell ya the truth I didn't know you could up it to 5x, I havn't played around in the bios much, so thank you for that bit of info.

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

Well some come with an adapter. My 560w Thermaltake PSU did. Some probably naturally come that way.

I would never suggest chaintech. They aren't bad, but

DFI
ABit
MSI

would be my choice in that order although DFI and ABit are basically tied for 1st IMO.

DFI would be alot better if they ever released more mobo's. Where is their socket 939 AGP board? non existant