Best socket A motherboard

Vonhelmet · 11 May 2006 at 12:18

I'm transferring my socket A rig from a SFF system to a tower, so I'm looking for a decent motherboard for it. I'll be getting it second hand from somewhere, so costs will be low, so I'm just looking for guidance on which the best ones to look out for are.

I gather that the Asus A7N8X-E and the Abit NF7-S are very good. Any thoughts on these, or any others that I should look for?

Cheers guys.

DoubleCheese · 11 May 2006 at 12:25

Abit NF7 or NF7-S
Epox 8RDA3+

split · 11 May 2006 at 13:05

Anything you can get would be good, as socket A boards are hard to find these days.
We have had a couple of threads on this, and the ABIT is a damn good board, but in short supply.

mattio1980 · 11 May 2006 at 22:15

yeah you would def be luck to get someic look on the bay you might find somic but my vote goes for the nf7s-v2

Stellios · 11 May 2006 at 23:04

NF-7S if you can get one.

Minstadave · 11 May 2006 at 23:22

DoubleCheese said:
Abit NF7 or NF7-S
Epox 8RDA3+

DFI Infinity NF2 or DFI LanParty NF2 (same boards essentially, the latter of the two has Gigabit Ethernet and SATA) are my favourite Socket A boards for air cooling, due to their high Vdimm and out of the box high FSB hitting capabilities.

NF7-S Rev2.0 would be my pick for watercooling though due it having a much better than Vcore than the DFI's (which top out around 1.85V).

Not a fan of Abit boards, they're fine for light overclocking, but tend to give up at a pretty mediocre FSB.

Biggles 266 · 12 May 2006 at 00:12

I've hit high speeds on my NF7-S. By that I mean 250+ MHz.

Look out for the Soltek NF2 boards. I forget their name now, they were never that popular. But a lot of them hit as high as 250 MHz FSB. Only issue with them was the lack of mounting holes for some of the fancier heatsinks.

deadeyedic30 · 12 May 2006 at 16:16

NF-7S if you can get one. It's the only one to get.

Street · 12 May 2006 at 20:49

Yeh, NF7-S v2 without a doubt

Especially with the Mantaray BIOS on... One of the best boards I've ever owned!

deadeyedic30 · 12 May 2006 at 21:06

Mantaray D26 if i remember correctly. Oh good times where they.

mosfet · 13 May 2006 at 01:06

NF7-S v2 and AN7 from Abit are your best bet.

Gwyn · 13 May 2006 at 08:37

Another vote for NF7-S
best board iv owned

hp7909 · 13 May 2006 at 09:06

vonhelmet said:
{snip} Asus A7N8X-E {snip}

malccy · 13 May 2006 at 09:06

NF7-s v2. vote here as well; such a great stable board and best overclocking sock A board about.

SinaiSound · 13 May 2006 at 17:00

I've used both the DFI Infinity and the Abit and prefer the Abit as it seemed to be more stable @ the same clocks.

tickle me elmo · 13 May 2006 at 17:16

get a dfi nf2. nf7's are overated, ive had about 6 and theyve all been pathetic at overclocking.
if you cant find a DFI, get the asus!

Biggles 266 · 13 May 2006 at 23:51

You had no luck with six of them? Sure it wasn't the rest of your hardware or some sort of problem with your overclocking process?

Most people who have had both prefer the NF7-S. It was just that bit more refined, more stable, better support and fewer issues. On average it didn't get as high on the FSB, but it would generally give higher CPU overclocks. And the thing with high FSB was that it wasn't as efficient as the NF7.

I had a decent NF7-S so got both high FSB and high CPU. And without any cold boot issues. The NF7-S is one of the greatest motherboards of all time.

Yoko · 14 May 2006 at 00:51

i love my nf7-s
only downside is the northbridge fan that insists on dying but that can be replaced with a passive zalman heatsink for under a fiver
my only regret is i dont have an unlocked multi to fully test its limits

tickle me elmo · 14 May 2006 at 01:49

Biggles 266 said:
You had no luck with six of them? Sure it wasn't the rest of your hardware or some sort of problem with your overclocking process?

Most people who have had both prefer the NF7-S. It was just that bit more refined, more stable, better support and fewer issues. On average it didn't get as high on the FSB, but it would generally give higher CPU overclocks. And the thing with high FSB was that it wasn't as efficient as the NF7.

I had a decent NF7-S so got both high FSB and high CPU. And without any cold boot issues. The NF7-S is one of the greatest motherboards of all time.

i got ~230fsb on one, which was ok till i did something else in the bios and then it wouldnt go that high anymore and eventually got stuck at 200fsb. others did 199/200fsb max and a couple more did ~215max.

spookywillow · 14 May 2006 at 10:06

NF7-S V2

make sure you get the V2 board

best socket a board, end of.

it ran my 2800xp (2.08ghz 333fsb) at 2.5ghz 200fsb 24/7 with no problems at all. i even managed to get it to run just shy of 2.7ghz

http://pcpitstop.com/pcpitstop/Summary.asp?conid=12145172

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3376713

Best socket A motherboard

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