Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: bloom25 on December 15, 2001, 10:06:00 PM
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I just thought I'd tell you guys that I'm about to put together an nForce system (not for myself).
I'm actually kind of excited to get to work with this board, as I'm curious as to how stable and fast it should be. (Early reviews show stability to be EXCELLENT, but the board is not highly overclockable.)
Here's what I'm going to use:
Microstar nForce 420D based board
Athlon Tbird 700 Mhz
Thermaltake Volcano 6 heatsink
2 x 128 Mb PC 2100 DDR ram (in slots 1 and 3 for 128 bit memory performance)
20 GB Western Digital WDC204 Hd (7200 RPM, ata 100)
Diamond Supra 56k modem
Acer 56x Cd Rom
Acer CRW2410 (24x, 10x, 40x) cd writer
Teac Floppy drive
300W ATX mid tower case (AMD approved power supply ;) )
Video is going to be the integrated GF2 MX core
Sound will be the integrated sound (Dolby Digital 5.1 output)
OS is Windows 2000 SP 2
Total cost will be around $650 US. Keep in mind that the CPU is only a 700 Mhz Tbird, as the cost needed to be under $700 and I had a used 700 tbird. (It would be very easy to put an Athlon XP in there.) You should also see that that 24x CD burner in the list, which is a large chunk of the cost right there. A fast CD Writer is the main concern of this customer, as he is totally uninterested in games. Unfortunately the system will have to endure (be violated by) AOL 7.0. :(
The customer's current computer is a 486SX 20 Mhz with a huge 4 MB of SIMM memory, so I think he'll be happy with this. ;) (It quite truthfully takes 4 minutes for AOL 6.0 to load! :eek: Windows 98 FE takes about 5 minutes.)
This system is quite ideal for cheap upgrades due to the absolutely unrivaled sound quality of the onboard sound (same as the XBox), and the integrated video is a GF 2 MX, which isn't that bad really.) The board costs about $200 US.
I should have the components Tuesday or Wednesday, so I'll let you guys know my opinion of this board as soon as it's done. :)
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Price includes the OS too?? ;)
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No it doesn't, customer supplies OS.
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I hope you gave him a *generous* trade in on that powerhouse of a computer he's giving ya in trade :eek:
I have an AMD Athlon 700 at work. Its so tempting to bring that box home and replace it with my P3 550. I don't think anyone would notice, except my sudden and frequent use of sick days! :cool:
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Well the MB came in today, still waiting on the rest of the stuff. (Should be in tommorow.)
From what I'm reading the board has been very stable. There are some minor issues (well, inconvienences really), the onboard sound does not yet support EAX. Newer drivers should fix that. :)
If everything comes in as planned I'll report back late tommorow evening.
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The system went together pretty easily last night. The board itself is amazingly well layed-out and as far as I can tell very stable. The onboard sound is EXCELLENT. I'm used to cheesy onboard sound like found on most boards with integrated sound, but this is truely incredible. It has at least the sound quality of a SB Live! Platinum, absolutely crystal clear with no audible background hiss that I could detect. In addition the CPU utililization of the sound system is almost 0%, meaning hardware accelerated, rather than software driven like AC 97 codec onboard sound found on most boards with built-on sound.
I did end up with a bad stick of ram, but thanks to the nice little diagnostic LEDs that was easily tracked down. Unfortunately that means I have to make a "house call" tommorow night to install the replacement stick.
MSI really gives you a lot in the package:
2 USB add on cards (one has the dianostic leds)
1 ATA 100 ribbon
1 Floppy ribbon
1 CNR riser card with the SPDIF (Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio output and connections for front and rear speaker pairs). This can be used in addition to the standard three audio inputs and outputs.
Other nice things:
Lots of room around the processor socket for large heatsinks.
CPU socket is near the edge of the board, meaning if you slip when attaching the heatsink (which usually requires a screwdriver), you won't poke a hole in the board.
IDE connectors were literally 3 inches from the hard drive.
ATX power connector very close to the top of the board (good for a full tower case).
USB extra headers are near the lower front of the board and the extra port cards supplied have long cables. (Front of case USB ports would be easy to get to.)
PC speaker is built on.
Since the chipset doesn't require it's own fan you don't have to worry about that fan going out.
The bios has the option to shut down the system if the CPU temp gets too high. (You set the temp.)
The COM 2 connector on the motherboard is about a 1/2 inch from PCI slot 3, so if you need a second COM port you can just use the little add-a-port cards.
As soon as the system detects all the components the system has for the first time, the system POSTs and begins loading Windows in about 1 second after the system is powered on. (Speeds up boot time.)
The AGP slot has a latching clip to secure the AGP card. (Eliminates the annoying tendancy of the AGP card to pop out of its slot when tightened.)
MSI's CD included has the chipset driver (AGP, sound, USB, etc). A plus is only 1 chipset driver is needed. No 4 in 1 drivers on this board. :) Next is the integrated video driver (which was just the standard Detonator drivers, as it's just a GF 2 Mx built on.) Also on the CD is DX 8.0a, an antivirus program, fuzzy logic (fsb minor overclocking utility), PC temp and fan monitoring utility, and a bios and driver autoupdater (which I would never actually allow to flash my bios in Windows ;) ). I think Acrobat Reader was also on there.
There was one minor thing that I noticed. The picture quality of the onboard video was not quite a good as a stand-alone video card. If you were at 1024x768 res you could notice just the slightest amount of bluring in the corners of the screen. At 800x600 this wasn't present. Unfortunately I could not test at 1280x960 as the customer's 17" monitor would not allow it. Other than that, it performs just like a standard GF 2 MX (supports all modes and refresh rates as any other 32 MB GF 2 MX 400 card). Most people would never even notice if they weren't looking for it specifically. (Perhaps fixible with newer drivers or bios??? )
Another possible turn off for some users is the lack of multiplier adjustment, and thus the potential for serious overclocking. This IMO is a fair trade for the rock solid stability this board seems to have (and reviews have stated it has).
The onboard sound does not yet support EAX (Creative's standard) surround, but newer drivers will add support for this I'm sure.
The board only has the 2 IDE channels. (IE no onboard Promise or Highpoint RAID controller is built on.) For most users this isn't something to worry about. If it had the integrated RAID controller the cost of the board would be significantly higher.
All USB peripherals I had to test (wireless M$ mouse and USB printer) worked perfectly.
Now that all that is said I did run into one thing: After AOL 7.0 was installed (it hurt me to do it ;) ), after AOL dialed up and tried to get its access numbers the system would totally lockup. :( Updating the modem drivers (Diamond Supra model SUP2750 ) had no effect. I've determined the fault is AOL's software, which was not a big surprise. MSN worked perfectly, as did my dial-up account, which I used to download the modem driver. I've ran into this exact problem with AOL 5.0 and certain versions of Internet Explorer, but I would have assumed AOL might have actually removed *some* bugs from their terrible software. :rolleyes: The fact that MSN works pretty much eliminates the computer hardware. As usual, AOL modified the TCP/IP protocols and changed Internet Explorer's logo and window title, which I fixed. All the cute little junk shortcuts on the desktop like "Refer a Friend and get $$$", "FREE instant messenger", and "AOL broadband" that AOL needlessly adds to the start menu AND desktop were annoying too.
(Friends don't let friends use AOL... )
On the plus side the customer called me today and said just how impressed he was with the system. (He said, "It's like going from walking to work to driving a Ferrari.")
Unless you are an overclocker, I highly recommend this board! Simple install, stable, and very fast. The single driver, rather than 4 like VIA chipsets, is very convienent. The onboard video uses the standard Detonator drivers. The onboard GF 2 MX, Dolby Digital 5.1 capable sound, and integrated ethernet (100base) are also VERY nice and work well, and can be easily turned off in the bios.
If I were to do another AMD system for a customer I would use this board again without any regrets or hesitation. At first I was worried that perhaps the board would have problems as a result of being so new and with only one set of drivers and bios version 1.0, but those fears have been removed. (I'm also guessing that since nVidia itself designed the chipset, they might actually be able to get AGP 4x with Sidebanding and FastWrites to work. ;) ) If you want to build a stable AMD based system this board is an EXCELLENT choice IMO. (This board has few overclocking features besides minimal FSB tweaking and RAM timing options though... )
(As a bit of a side note I've found out that the XBox game console uses this EXACT chipset, but with integrated GeForce 3 graphics and a P3 733 Mhz processor. I find it kind of ironic that Intel refused to allow nVidia to adapt the nForce to work with the P4, as the memory bandwidth on this board is actually far superior to EVEN RAMBUS PC 800 Ram when in dual channel mode! (4.2 Gb/s vs 3.2 Gb/s) The nForce would actually be the perfect OEM Intel P4 board if Intel were to allow nVidia to use the P4 bus. It's a good thing for AMD that Intel makes it's own chipsets and is very greedy about allowing others to build Intel supporting chipsets. )
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I realized I never told you guys the model number of the board:
It's a Microstar (MSI) K7N420 Pro.
www.msicomputer.com (http://www.msicomputer.com) is their website.
I'd also mention I changed out that Acer 56x CD-Rom with a Toshiba 16x DVD drive. (Which worked perfectly.)
[ 12-19-2001: Message edited by: bloom25 ]
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tell me how the mobo does
its impressive that nvidia made such a nice board on their first try, i thought they were going to flop
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Sounds interesting. If the onboard sound gets the EAX drivers, I might consider a mobo like that when I upgrade next year.
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I have a hard time getting excited about anything with onboard video & sound.
Otherwise sounds like a great board & system.
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Normally I'd COMPLETELY agree with you Ghosth, but this is different:
1. The onboard video is at least 5x faster than any other onboard video solution. This is a full GF 2 MX core build on that is linked to the northbridge by an AGP 6x (yes, 6x) interconnect. Since the board has DUAL CHANNEL DDR (the only chipset to support this, be it Intel or AMD processor supporting) ram support the bandwidth available to the video card is not much less than a standard GF 2 MX. (The extra bandwidth also increases the speed of DMA memory access transfers for hard drives.)
2. The sound is HARDWARE BASED, not just a silly driver you load that consumes tons of CPU power and sounds poor. The sound on this board is AT LEAST equivilant to a SB Live! Platinum with far less CPU power being required. (IMO better, actually.)
3. Integrated Ethernet is a useful feature, as it build into the south bridge, thus doesn't use a PCI slot interrupt.
4. All the integrated features can be turned off, and an AGP port is still present to override the onboard video.
Now given these features don't come for free, but the sound alone is worth that price to me. If you've ever fought with Creative's SB drivers you know what I mean. ;) The board is also very well layed-out with lots of USB ports and so far top-notch stability.
Given a choice between building a system with either the VIA KT266a or nForce chipset, I'd prefer the nForce in the majority of cases. I've always been able to get VIA based boards stable, but it often requires significant time spent in researching available patches and updated 4 in 1 drivers. This nForce board uses a single driver for everything, and no reported issues as of yet that I can find on the web. (Other than it's somewhat picky on the quality of the ram you feed it.) The one case where I'd give a big advantage to a VIA board is in overclocking potential. The nForce has only FSB adjustment, and only very limited in scope at that. (Future bios updates may change that though... ) If making a choice for a BUSINESS customer, where stability is of top priority and overclocking ability is basically useless, I'd go with the nForce for sure. This board would be very useful for a school because all the neccessary components are built onto the board and thus a program like Ghost could be used to create a lot of systems in a very short period of time with minimal effort. (Business workstations are usually similar, but a graphics workstation would probably require a higher performing video card than a GF 2 Mx.)
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Bloom,
I have to refresh this topic because you have me very interested in this board.
Could I use my old pc133 ram (temporarily)
Would AH play better with my Gf3 ti 200 or the built in videocard.
If i cant use the memory what type would you recommend, also what type of CPU would enhance my AH fun.
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It is a great board Pollock, but if I remember right your "old" system is a Tbird 850 right? Don't tell me that isn't PLENTY fast for AH? ;)
To answer your questions: No, DDR ram only. (Which is only a few bucks more than SDRAM.) For this system definately get DDR Ram and specifically PC 2100 type. This board is best if you get 2 identical sticks. (Ie 2 x 256 MB for 512 Mb ram total) For top memory performance you put one stick in slot 1, the other in slot 3.
AH would MOST DEFINATELY be better with your GF 3 Ti. The integrated video is "only" GF 2 MX. (The integrated video is actually plenty fast for AH, but doesn't hold a candle to a GF 3.)
This board supports ALL current Socket A CPUs. With that in mind, I'd say the best deal would be an Athlon XP 1600+. (They go up to 1900+, but those are much more expensive.) You could easily put your 850 in there as a stop gap until you can afford the faster one, but if you do that you won't really get any more performance, as you are likely CPU limited as it is with a GF 3.
Pollock, if I remember right your current MB is an Asus A7V133 right? If it is, you can (with a bios update) probably put in an Athlon XP into that system. Decisions, decisions... :D
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Hmmm Interesting Bloom, out of curiousity what did you pay for it?
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bloom
why the ram in slot 1 and 3 instead of 1 & 2?
is that for all mb's? How bout the IWILL KK266?
TIA
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You use 1 and 3 because the nForce 420 chipset has 2 independant memory controllers. Slot 1 is on one controller, and 2 and 3 are on the other. MSI recommends using slots 1 and 3 for optimal performance. Having 2 memory controllers means double the memory bandwidth. This only gives a small performance boost to most applications, but the onboard GF 2 MX is much faster with 2 sticks of ram present. The harddrive also benchmarks somewhat higher with 2 sticks in; my guess is Ultra DMA [direct memory access] likes the extra memory bandwidth.
My cost on which part of the system? The board (w/ shipping) cost me $205.