Motherboards

[BurneR:]

What's the advantage of socket 939 over 754?
Secondly what is the proformance difference between manufacturers. if so who's the best?

[V_LESTAT]

939 allows dual channel memory which is faster, but not like a huge OMG! amount, its just faster. 939 chips are just in themselves faster but not much.
you dont see the speed increase until you get an FX53 or FX55 chip. an then your looking at 600-900 bucks just for the chip.

as for faster motherboards. the Nforce 3 is better than the VIA. Dont even think about the Nforce 4. there isnt one NForce 4 mobo out there that is any good. they all have serious issues. But this is what happens when hardware is rushed and shoved out the door without any kind of in house testing.

Its hard to say who is better cuz they all have issues whether its 754 or 939.
My rig is a 3200+ Clawhammer CG core. the best 754 clawhammer to get. The CG core is just the best core to get.
It's 2.0ghz and i can overclock mine to 2.5ghz without any problems at all.(which btw is the limit for almost all clawhammer chips. they just stop at about 2.5ghz) I can do this with 3 motherboards.(yes i have 3 mobo's and actually have a 4th that i havent used yet. i actually have 2 3200+ CG Clawhammers.) DFI Lanparty UT 250GB, Asus K8N-E Deluxe, Chaintech VNF3-250 and an MSI K8N NEO Platinum. The chaintech VNF3-250 is the worst. The Best is a craw between the Asus and the DFI. And the ASUS would be best but the Vdimm only goes to 2.7v. a very foolish move by ASUS.


939 boards are the same each has its problems and i honestly dont know which would be best. Supposedly there is a Gigabyte board that is about the best 939 but it has a nice long wierd name like the other gigbyte boards lol k8nxsnmakjhweoruiyouhf lol something like that.

Asus Gigabyte DFI are probably your best bets. the MSI K8N NEO2 Platinum is nice but it has serious memory issues. and some of these boards dont support DDR400 at full 200mhz FSB when you use double sidded Ram sticks.

Overall if your using a 754 now that overclocks to atleast 2.5 there isnt any reason to upgrade unless your going to a FX53 or FX55 then your going to see a pretty good jump.
I believe Tom's Hardware has a huge Review of a bunch of the motherboards with side-by-side comparisons of all the 939 boards. might want to head over there and look around.
they also have a review of the different chips all side by side also.

[Akherousin]

Not quite true.

Yes, the 939 does support Dual Channel Ram and the 754 doesnt.
There are still differences other than that. For example, the Socket 939 is futureproof, which means you most likely don't have to buy a new motherboard if you decide to buy a dualcore amd processor later this year. Also, there are processors with the Winchester Core (90nm instead 130nm Newcastle). The lower nm allows the processor to consume lesser power which means it runs cooler. Plus Winchester CPUs are like 4% faster than Newcastle ones. Considering theres no price difference between them, go for the 90nm winchester by all means.

Conclusion: DO NOT get a Socket 754 motherboard because it's a dead socket. AMD doesn't make new CPUs for it so you 3700+ max which costs quite a lot.
Get the 939'r and I'd suggest you to get a CPU with winchester core. (So far, only 3000+,3200+, 3500+).

Lastly, the motherboards.

There are quite a few good out now. The majority of the mobo makes have nForce 4 built in which is NOT a bad thing. It performes a lot (~5-7%) better then a nForce 3 chipset and the story about so many problems is not true anymore.

Asus has two mainboards for the 939 out which are in an awesome quality. One supporting SLI and Dual Raid, the other without Dual Raid. However, MSI is good too and performes about the same as the Asus mobos.

I am not quite sure about the quality of the VIA chipsets but I know they perform some percents lesser. Plus if you want to overclock, nForce is the way to go. Also, 939'r cpus with winchester core are best for overclock because of the lesser power consumption what makes the cpu run cooler.

Bottom Line:
754 is old stuff, don't get it unless you want to upgrade in less then a year again. The 939 is futureproof (940 is a server socket, although there was a fx53 out for it, so I let it out). Mainboards, I'd either go the Asus or MSI way but there are other good makes out there. I'd however go for a nForce chipset for sure.

[theGrayFox]

v_lestat is rich...

[BurneR:]

:thumbup: cheers, makes it a lot easier to choose now!

Ha ha ha burner... joining the 64-bit race is a huge gamble against cost per Mhz and future-proofability... I dont envy you at all m8! :thumbup:

If I were you I would by a 939 chipset and CPU and a x850 from ATI or a 68xx chip from nvidia... but it will cost you! :P

939 is dual Channel where as 754 is not as far as i am aware. ;)