Question about AGP Socket 939 board

[Ustauk]

I may be buying Mr. A's old CPU and board if he chooses to upgrade.  In the event he doesn't, I'm looking at going to a socket 939 board with an AGP slot and with room enough for three sticks of RAM.  Below are the boards I could find at Memory Express that matched my criteria

ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 - ULI chipset
ASus A8V - Via chipset
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 - Nvidia chipset

Which one of these boards would you guys recommend, or would anyone have another suggestion of a board I could ask Memory Express to order in if they can?  Thanks.

[Shayne]

Im rather suprised about the lack of "transition" motherboards, boards with both an AGP and a PCI-E allowing for a incremental upgrade.

Personally, since about 1995 ive been using ASUS exclusively so I truely cannot comment on other board manufactures so my advise on brands would be biased.  Honestly it should come down to features that you till truely use.

Ive also never heard of ULI as a chipset manufacturer.

[Melbosa]

Both Cova and myself have ULI Chipset mobos, and even though I've only had mine a month and a half (ASUS Board), seems to be solid enough.  Cova has been running his far longer, so maybe he has better insite into them.

[Ustauk]

Im rather suprised about the lack of "transition" motherboards, boards with both an AGP and a PCI-E allowing for a incremental upgrade.

Personally, since about 1995 ive been using ASUS exclusively so I truely cannot comment on other board manufactures so my advise on brands would be biased.  Honestly it should come down to features that you till truely use.

Ive also never heard of ULI as a chipset manufacturer.

The ASRock board is the only AGP/PCI-E transition board I've seen.  ULI southbridges have been used on ATI Northbridge chipset boards for a while now, since they were superior to the ATI southbridges until the latest generation of ATI boards.

A review of the Asrock board can be found at Anandtech, which is mostly positive.  Browsing the reviews at NewEgg, there were a some problems reported, but the majority of the reviews were postive.  Does anyone have any experience with Via Athlon 64 chipsets?

[Cova]

Both Cova and myself have ULI Chipset mobos, and even though I've only had mine a month and a half (ASUS Board), seems to be solid enough.  Cova has been running his far longer, so maybe he has better insite into them.

Our boards are based on an ATI chipset - we have a ULI chip to provide the IO capabilities of the board (SATA controllers, PCI bus, legacy IO stuff), but to call the board a "uli chipset mobo" is very misleading.

As for the original topic - if I was to pick one of those, I'd go with the ASRock.  There is no way I'd recommend a board to anyone without a PCI-e graphics slot on it (unless it was for someone who was getting integrated video with no expansion slot at all - and there's not many people I'd recommend that to)  Otherwize, that ASRock board is kinda funny looking - odd placement of the power circutry, only 2 SATA ports, not even mini-heatsinks on any of the power circuits.  It is passively cooled (no chipset fans) which is a nice feature, as those fans tend to be very high-pitched and whiny, and die fast.  I'm not a huge fan of a ULI northbridge - but on AMD systems the northbridge isn't responsible for much so I wouldn't not buy this board just for that little detail (if it was an Intel board with the memory controller in the chipset, there's no way I'd buy ULI).

[Melbosa]

Both Cova and myself have ULI Chipset mobos, and even though I've only had mine a month and a half (ASUS Board), seems to be solid enough.  Cova has been running his far longer, so maybe he has better insite into them.

Our boards are based on an ATI chipset - we have a ULI chip to provide the IO capabilities of the board (SATA controllers, PCI bus, legacy IO stuff), but to call the board a "uli chipset mobo" is very misleading.

True enough.  Guess I should have been more specific.

[Adams]

Ok... heres what I am going to do for you... Just you.

I have an ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe.... 2... Count em 2 ASUS N6600GT Extreme Editions.
That would cover your new board / PCI-E dilemma. I have an AMD Athlon 3000+ 64Bit.
I also have an Antec Sonata Case too. Just needs a PSU. (No I did not overclock it... OK once just to see and that was when I first bought it about 1.5esk years ago) I think. I didn't overclock the Video Cards, since I had to flash the bios on them to get the SLI working.

I would be willing to sell it to ya for a low low price of... (To be continued.)
Just Kidding.

A8N-SLI Deluxe --> $150
ASUS N6600GT --> $165 / Each
AMD Athlon 64 3000+   --> $80 with heat sink
Antec Sonata w/o PSU --> $60

All of this is already mounted and ready to go.
Anyways If anyone wants more info... just email me aseniuk AT gmail DOT com
I can break up the set since well... its collecting dust.

[Ustauk]

Ok... heres what I am going to do for you... Just you.

I have an ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe.... 2... Count em 2 ASUS N6600GT Extreme Editions.
That would cover your new board / PCI-E dilemma. I have an AMD Athlon 3000+ 64Bit.
I also have an Antec Sonata Case too. Just needs a PSU. (No I did not overclock it... OK once just to see and that was when I first bought it about 1.5esk years ago) I think. I didn't overclock the Video Cards, since I had to flash the bios on them to get the SLI working.

I would be willing to sell it to ya for a low low price of... (To be continued.)
Just Kidding.

A8N-SLI Deluxe --> $150
ASUS N6600GT --> $165 / Each
AMD Athlon 64 3000+   --> $80 with heat sink
Antec Sonata w/o PSU --> $60

All of this is already mounted and ready to go.
Anyways If anyone wants more info... just email me aseniuk AT gmail DOT com
I can break up the set since well... its collecting dust.

I'll think about it, if Mr. Analog doesn't upgrade, since I already told him I'd by his old CPU and mainboard in that instance.  However, I'm thinking of of taking a trip in the fall which, combined with the windows/exterior fixing levy for my condo, will severely limit how much I can spend on the upgrade.  Your setup may be an option if the trip doesn't cost as much as I think it will, but I'll have to see.  Thanks.

[Adams]

Sounds good. Let me know what you want to do.

Thanks.