- Joined
- Apr 5, 2007
- Messages
- 561 (0.09/day)
I really like Asrock and their little nifty boards, they always cater to some specific needs: 2011 board with a floppy connector? check. 865G AGP based board released in 2012 for no apparent reason? check. A board drafted for 775 P4s that at its EOL supports Core 2 Quads? got you covered.
One of those curious boards is the AM2NF3-VSTA. It really shows a lot of Asrock's ingenuity: supports AM2, AM2+ and AM3 CPUs up to 125w, DDR2-1066 and AGP cards. Basically a dream machine for any AGP user with a "high-end" card (HD 3850/4670).
There's a caveat though: due to nVidia's shenanigans, the nforce3 chipset doesn't have a working multi-core GART driver for 64bit OSes; only single core CPUs work in that configuration and, because of that, the usefulness of using a modern OS is lost and if you stick to XP 32bit with a working multi-core GART then you can't take advantage of the 4 DDR2 slots. My intent is to research this issue and, hopefully, get to a working solution.
Will I be able to overcome all of that and become an internet hero or will I cry frustration tears like all others before me?
Targeted specs:
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/2548/77019892.jpghttp://img862.imageshack.us/img862/2925/shineget.jpg
Phenom II X4 965BE C3
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/8404/1205800426138065.jpghttp://img862.imageshack.us/img862/2925/shineget.jpg
HIS HD3850 IceQ3 Turbo AGP
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/1406/am2nf3vstam.jpghttp://img862.imageshack.us/img862/2925/shineget.jpg
Asrock AM2NF3-VSTA
http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/9533/pxtcddr2dc.jpghttp://img862.imageshack.us/img862/2925/shineget.jpg
4GB OCZ PC2-8500 Platinum LV (8GB if I can get 64bit to work)
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/427/buvnkfgcgkkgrhqnjcev10b.jpghttp://img862.imageshack.us/img862/2925/shineget.jpg
BFG Ageia Physx 100
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/5512/mainjm.jpghttp://img862.imageshack.us/img862/2925/shineget.jpg
Cooler Master Hyper N520
http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/9967/en1822325132.jpghttp://img862.imageshack.us/img862/2925/shineget.jpg
Cooler Master Extreme Power 600
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/666/tc101bcase.jpghttp://img862.imageshack.us/img862/2925/shineget.jpg
Thermal Master TC-101 (a.k.a. the old CM Elite 250)
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/9797/ev101100146.jpghttp://img862.imageshack.us/img862/2925/shineget.jpg
Cooler Master SickleFlow 120 Reds everywhere
Planned mods:
- Sleeve PSU cables
- Cut 2 120mm holes on the top of the case
- Turn the PSU up to make it draw air from the top
- Add red LED strips
Dude looks like a sweet rig. Just looking at it makes me want to configure one of my own again.