need help here

[wise man]

plz do me a favor. what u think which one of this mobo should i chose?
ASUS A8V Deluxe(via K8T800 Pro) or MSI K8NNEO2-Platinum (nVidia nforce 3 ultra)
both are Socket 939 and agp based. and i need agp based mobo for amd athlon 64 3500+.

[Akherousin]

I'd go with nForce based chipsets. They're quality and the unified drivers are ace and I found it always much easier to handle than the VIA 4in1 drivers.
Plus it has an OK onboard-sound (Soundstorm) and good network chips.

Then again, I find ASUS better than MSI. Isn't there an ASUS board with an nForce 3 chipset? :bucky!:

[papajoe]

I'd get this (http://www.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_product_spec_details_r_us.jsp?PRODUCT_ID=3160&CATEGORY_TYPE=LP&SITE=US) DFI's bios features cannot be touched!

[3izzarre]

Originally posted by wise man@Jun 19 2005, 07:34 AM
plz do me a favor. what u think which one of this mobo should i chose?
ASUS A8V Deluxe(via K8T800 Pro) or MSI K8NNEO2-Platinum (nVidia nforce 3 ultra)
both are Socket 939 and agp based. and i need agp based mobo for amd athlon 64 3500+.
I believe the A8V Deluxe is the better of the two and i've owned both.
Halflife 2 played alot smoother with the A8V(which alone proved its supremacy to me)it also felt the superior board in terms of build quality.
I ebayed the MSI within a month of purchase to buy an Asus A8n Deluxe.
The msi+a8v were both rock solid in terms of stability i just wasn't keen on the msi(hence going back to asus)
If you do go for the a8v make sure its a revision 2 as theirs still a few rev 1's knocking about.
This is my first hand experiance of both boards as papajoe stated the DFI maybe superior to both but i've not had chance to play with one :)

[ED] A8V Deluxe vs MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (http://www.digital-daily.com/motherboard/asus-a8v-deluxe/index06.htm)

[wise man]

thanks guys. :) then i think its wise to go for a8v deluxe but how can i check the bios version without install the mobo 3izzarre? can i find it on the box? help me out. cuz i know bios version 2 supports stepping 6 for amd processor.

[3izzarre]

Originally posted by wise man@Jun 20 2005, 07:28 AM
thanks guys.* :) then i think its wise to go for a8v deluxe but how can i check the bios version without install the mobo 3izzarre? can i find it on the box? help me out. cuz i know bios version 2 supports stepping 6 for amd processor.
A8V revision 1 and 2 support exactly the same bios's and processors the only difference is rev 2 has working agp/pci locks hence it overclocks a hell of a lot better.
Ask your retailer what revision it is more than likely it will be displayed beside the model number(A8V Deluxe Rev2)
I had a revision 1 which still pwned the msi although it wasn't nearly as good a overclocker.
Asus resolved this with the rev 2 implementing working pci/agp locks thus putting it on par with msi k8n neo2 in overclocking terms.
If running everything@stock speeds you won't notice a difference between rev1/rev2 both will run any skt 939 processor although obviously it would be wiser to buy rev 2.
As with most skt 939 boards you'll probably need to flash the bios for it to see amd's newer cores(winchester core and latter)
Hope this helps :)