Looking for advice.
I am going to be upgrading from a Abit KT7A-R in a bit and my choices have
been
narrowed down to either the NF7-S v2 or the A7N8X Deluxe v2.
It depends on how attached you are to the plusses and minuses of each
manufacturer.
I've never tried an Abit board, but I've used Asus boards since the K6-2 was
introduced. I *have* used SuperMicro, Tyan, Gigabyte, Epox, and MSI, and I
like Asus, for the most part, better than those.
As far as the A7N8X, I have the revision-2 board. It has worked flawlessly
since I installed it in March.
My system:
A7N8X Deluxe Revision 2, 1007 BIOS
Corsair XMS 3200 512MB, 2 sticks
Googlegear black case (a Chieftec case made by Chenming, the same chassis as
the Antec KS-282) and 420W power supply
Thermalright SLK947U through-the-hole heat sink, 60mm Sanyo-Denki fan
80mm adjustable-speed Enermax case fan
Maxtor 6Y080P0 80GB IDE (8MB cache)
Pioneer DVR-106D (black) DVD+-R/W
Plextor PX4824A (black)
Sony black floppy (used once so far
MSI Ti4200 128MB AGP8X Vivo
Belkin black ergo keyboard
Logitech MX700 cordless, rechargeable optical mouse
Viewsonic VG191B 19" LCD
USR 2976 PCI controller-based modem (for backup)
Motorola SB5100 cable modem and Adelphia Powerlink (Amherst, NY)
So with all of that, here are the only strange things I've noticed:
1) I use the nVidia LAN port for my cable modem. Disabling the 3com port
produces a very high-pitched whine, but it's very faint. Enabling the port
makes it go away. Strange...
2) Asus insists on a faster-than-2000RPM CPU fan, if you don't want to be
warned that your "CPU fan failed". It doesn't matter now anyway; I found
that the very quiet 60mm Sanyo-Denki actually produces better cooling with
the SLK947U than either the 80mm or 92mm adjustable-speed Enermax fans I
originally bought for it---about 34C at the diode, and 36C at the socket.
3) The settings in BIOS do a lot of flickering whenever you change
something. It seems kinda flaky; my previous A7V333's BIOS seemed much more
stable. It's hard to explain, but not very confidence-inspiring. It does
WORK well, though.
4) The Winbond Voice Wench will occasionally kvetch about a "Failed memory
test", but nothing is ever wrong. I've never had a problem with the system.
I've disabled the Voice. Much better.
5) I update the entire system---video card and motherboard---with just
three drivers: the GeForce drivers, the nForce motherboard drivers, and the
nVidia WDM driver for the video in and out. Sweet.
Oh, and Windows 2000, SP4. I still like it better than XP. That's just me.
That's about it. The system is VERY fast, and it just plain works. No
surprises.
HTH...
