Which mobo for best performance? soc 754

chaikovski2002

chaikovski2002

2[H]4U
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Nov 19, 2003
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K8N Neo Platinum or EPoX EP-8KDA3J, both are nForce3-250gb

what mobo will give me best performance with these parts? yes i am going to overclock

antec trueblue 480
2 x 512 Mushkin lvl 2 pc3500 ddr433
Thermalright "SLK948U" with 80mm thermaltake fan (72.5 CFM)
amd 64 3000+
x800 xt PE(CDW still on backorder) currently using g4 ti 4200
120 gb HD Western Digital
Audigy 2 ZS

is 7 months old AS5 tube still good to use?
will i be able to run my ram at ddr400?
 
Performance wise they're the same, the EpoX motherboard tends to be a better overclocker though.

Yes your AS is still fine to use so long as you kept the tube covered up so it didn't dry out.

As for your RAM, I'm not sure but most likely yes it will as I haven't heard many problems with RAM and this motherboard (I'm using the 8KDA3+ myself).
 
How is the epox a better overclocker? I know epox has this reputation, but comparing these 2 boards, the msi has better voltage range for everything, especially mem voltage. I can't see the msi not overclocking higher than the epox.
 
Is the Asus K8N-E Deluxe not in the same league as these other two motherboards?
 
In my opinion it's not. The MSI runs nearly flawlessly, has a wide range of voltage controls (and i'm sure with it's popularity that vmods are floating around as well), whereas the Asus board is relatively new and quite a few people have been having problems with it, or so I've read.

With boards performing nearly identical nowadays it's time to start looking at features. And, imo, the MSI is untouched in this dept.
 
Along the same lines as the AS question...do thermal compounds have a specific shelf life? I've got some AS3 of indeterminate age from a box of gubbins from a mate, and just wondered if it was still usable. It doesn't look to be in bad shape, silvery and even in colour.

And is that crap bad for your health? Silver is good for you, I know that much, but what about the oil it's suspended in. One of my mates reckoned you could get cancer from it. I said "So what?" and took another pull on my cigarette! :D Are there any dangers to using that stuff apart from being labelled a freak with silver fingers?
 
I don't know if it has a shelf life per se but I do know that it should last for years without any problems.

As for my opinion of the EpoX motherboard, while it has slightly less voltage range for the CPU it tends to be a more reliable overclocker than the MSI motherboard. FYI I actually bought the MSI motherboard first as I read the reviews and it looked so good, but the thing was FUBAR out of the box and wouldn't overclock for spit. Lots of other people were having the same trouble that I was on MSI's forums too, though there were a handful of people that got the thing to work and OC as the reviewers did most only could get 15Mhz FSB/HTT 1:1 overclocks, and even by lowering the HTT mult. lots couldn't get much higher.

Not long after that the EpoX motherboard came out and almost on the same day so did the volt mods for it too on the xtremesystems.org forums. Stock the motherboard will almost always do at least up to 240Mhz 1:1 FSB/HTT and many, many more were getting higher than that.

FYI my EpoX 8KDA3+ gets to about 235Mhz 1:1 FSB/HTT @ stock mult. no problems, I can post at 2.7Ghz or so but that is it. I plan on doing the volt mods to it, but gotta practice first as I don't wanna toast my motherboard.
 
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