Best S939 MoBo for the money

[Nosada]

I recently upgraded my little brother's pc from it's 80's build to a respectable budget gaming machine. I had pretty much all the parts lying around, all I was missing was a motherboard.

I had a S939 AMD XP 3700+ San Diego I wasn't using, as well as a Gig of Corsair XMS3200C2, so the decision to get a S939 board was an easy one. Being a loyal costumer of Asus, I ordered an A8R-MVP. Big mistake it seems, as this was over 2 months ago, I'm down to my third RMA (#1 No Post, #2 Dead LAN, #3 horrifyingly unstable even at stock settings) and the store has finally agreed to let me trade it in for another brand.

And this is where you guys come in:

I need a S939 motherboard that's stable as a rock, has few complaints, is mildly overclockable and has a respectable RMA service. SLI and Xfire are not needed. Basically, I'd like personal experiences from people who've handled large quantities of certain brands/types of motherboards.

Thanks for any and all replies.

PS: I was thinking of DFI LANparty UT nF4 Ultra-D myself. Yay or Nay?

 

[C0mrad3]

the Lanparty seems like a solid board and certainly is popular, I would say go for it.

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

nForce 4 Ultra-D FTW!!! Have it myself, great board, great overclocking options.

Also, if you can pick up a Conductive Pen (from RadioShack or similar) you can mod it so it's an SLI Board.

 

[Aevum]

if you want all the pimp daddy boards, DFI, MSI, good boards, but you might end up paying for stuff you dont need or not use

if you want a board that WONT fail under any condition, Tyan is the way to go,
tyan boards dont bring alot of glitter, but its like a land rover santana, its ugly, you need to push 3 levers to get the lights on, and it looks like its been made in the 1970´s in east germany, but you can drive trough a brick house and all it will need is a new layer of paint,

if you want best price quality, get a asrock with ULI 1697, extremly reliable, really cheap, and has decent features.

 

[KennyT772]

i agree with azn. this board makes overclocking way too easy.

i was just messing around and set a 270fsb no problem. i didnt even expect it to boot.

 

[Frick]

i was just messing around and set a 270fsb no problem. i didnt even expect it to boot.

Hey, I can do that on my DUal-Sata2.

 

[technicks]

Asrock 939 dual Sata.

 

[regan1985]

asrock does the job! worked first time and u can get a good overclock out of them u want plus works well with the sandy 3700

 

[Judas]

The ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe has been stable for me ocs nicely too.
MSI and DFI also have nice boards

 

[Tatty_Two]

I would recommend my current board (check my specs) its got almost the overclocking options of the DFI for a fair bit cheaper, it is lightening fast and being the NForce 4 Ultra chipset has most of the "add ons" that you would expect, I have found it excellent. Ohhh and as far as overclocking, again, check my specs!

 

[Nosada]

After considering the Abit, DFI and Epox for a while, and checking costumer satisfaction of all these boards on newegg, I've decided to go with the DFI. Only question I have left is this: Is the active southbridge cooler to be trusted? And can it be replaced by a passive one if there is a X1900XT in the PCIe slot, or alternatively: can I use the second PCIe slot as primary, and mount a high passive cooler anyway?

Thanks for all the replies so far, you've all been very helpful ^^

 

[Frick]

After considering the Abit, DFI and Epox for a while, and checking costumer satisfaction of all these boards on newegg, I've decided to go with the DFI. Only question I have left is this: Is the active southbridge cooler to be trusted? And can it be replaced by a passive one if there is a X1900XT in the PCIe slot, or alternatively: can I use the second PCIe slot as primary, and mount a high passive cooler anyway?

Thanks for all the replies so far, you've all been very helpful ^^

DFI is always a good choice nowadays. I don't know about the cooler though..

 

[i_am_mustang_man]

jetway 939gt4-sli is pretty good

only has 3 pci slots, but a 1x pci e and sli capabliiltes. i've had over 310fsb too

 

[steve258]

Ummm... either you are very unlucky or I'm very lucky. Got my A8R-MVP for nearly 2 months and it posted on first boot and has been really stable ever since. Though I have to say it doens't oc nearly as good as DFI ones.

DFI is good but you have to put in the time and effort to fine tune it then it will perform like no others. I'd say do some homework over @ dfi-street.com before you get this board it may save you a lot of troubles later.

Another cheap alternative is the DFI RDX200, which uses the same ati express 200 chipset as the A8R-MVP, cost only £35 here in the UK

 

[ryboto]

the board layout leaves a little to be desired, but the abit at8 32x is only $99 after rebate right now, i've seen users get the htt up to 340mhz.

 

[Ketxxx]

the a8r mvp never was a very good board, if you want a STABLE platform based on the ati chipset, the asus a8r32 mvp dlx is easily the best board. rock solid and clocks very well.

 

[rhythmeister]

I just got the Foxconn Ket, that and the x2 3800 ROCK! 50% higher SiSoft Sandra arithmetic benchs at stock speeds, with 4x256Mb pc3200. Now to try the X800 and Gb of pc3500 HyperX! I think you know I'm rcommending the Foxconn Winfast 6150K8MA-8KRS. No firewire but SATA 3Gb/s second support with hot plugging...now to get a SATA drive :s

 

[Aevum]

i would avoid foxconn like the plague, their quality control is worst then ECS,

 

[rhythmeister]

All I can say is it's a fine overclocker from what these folks say:

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:T7QBAOi9vo0J:www.hardforum.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D993989+FOXCONN+6100-939+overclock&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=1&lr=lang_en&client=firefox-a

Now, I'm having trouble deciphering the bios on the thing and getting it to boot above 215Mhz isn't happening yet but it seems to be pretty darn packed with treats and only scores about 300 points less in 3Dmark05 than the dfi board with the same ram and gfx card but with the venice at 2.4GHz... New Rebel's haven bios time methinks!

 

[mikek75]

Consider me a noob as I built my first rig this week (had a pc for about 3 years now but prebuilt). !

I was recommended the DFI Lanparty CFX3200DR board by one of the mods on the sapphiretech forum. Its a crossfire board with the xpress3200 chipset. Pukka tip!!

He specifically advised me not to get the RDX200 board, despite it being cheap.

All I needed to do was set the time and specify cd boot to get up and running, installation was a piece of piss and the board seems very well thought out, with the ram to the left of the cpu surrounded on two sides by a case fan and the psu fan.

The bios is comprehensive to say the least so theres plenty to play with when you're ready

Cost me 60 quid from ebuyer