Make the switch to DFI or MSI?

[gweedodogg69]

I'm fed up with my A8N-SLI Deluxe...it's a great board, but I can't OC or anything really. I can't run my memory dual channel (yes I got a dual channel kit and I've read my manual) and the chipset fan is going bad (I've read this on many forums that it is faulty.)

Anydangway, I was thinking of switching to this DFI board
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136158

DFI LP UT nF4 SLI-D Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

Or perhaps this board
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130487

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

Which would be a better choice?

 

[duffers20]

I'd say that the DFI would be the better board if you plan on overclocking as I've heard of people getting rediculous FSB's with that board. Could check out some benchmarks for each too.

 

[gweedodogg69]

k, most of the top benchmarks were DFI and MSI.

 

[Asus]

What makes to so you can't OC? Don't have the settings or it isn't stable going that high? Does it have a AGP/PCI lock? FSB or Base clock adjustment with voltage?

Both the DFI and MSI have good OCing settings (DFI has more in the way of memory voltage increases). If you just can't get that high then it probably isn't the board but the CPU or memory itself and you'd have the same problem on a different board.

 

[gweedodogg69]

well i'd like to run dual channel, and the CPU voltage won't let me go that high. Since I got my 4800+ my board restricted me more.

 

[Ti133700N]

I own a DFI Lanparty UT NF4 Ultra-D and this board is impressive. It has tons of features in BIOS, it even has memtest directly in the Bios!! You can unlock very high RAM voltages by switching jumpers. Of course it's also very pretty with its UV slots and round cables.

Thing I dislike:
- The fan on the northbridge is too high and is right next to the first PCI-E 16x slot. If you have a big vid card (like my X850XT PE), you'll have to struggle with the vid card to make sure it's not blocking the fan from spinning.

- I don't know if it's common to all the PCI-E board (cuz it's my first) but the last PCI slot at the bottom of the board is really.... well it couldn't be more down than this so that makes it difficult to insert a PCI card in it.

I can't comment on the overcloking aspect yet since I got it this week but there is one thing I can tell you, well Asus already told you that but, if you can't get a high overclock, it might be more related to the RAM (or CPU) than the board.

 

[3ssence]

I would tend to agree, i've read reliable sources that the asus board is a very competent overclocker, and ram tends to be a limiting factor when overclocking as you need ram capable of high speeds in order to increase the fsb substantially. What ram do you have ?

 

[TheGrimSweeper]

For overclocking DFI is the way to go.

It has CMOS reloaded in the Bios which allows you to save multiple overclocking profiles directly in BIOS so you dont have to manually change them all the time.