AM2 Mobo Recommendations

[jcoltage]

I am looking for a Mother Board that can handle AM2 and was looking for some advice ? price under 300 .. not that interested in a Sli set up but will be sticking to Nvidia 88xx series card

[terrybear]

Sapphire Pure Inovation HDMI AMD690G is a exelent board for running a AM2 cpu on ... I have 1 & its been ALOT nicer then the Asus AN8-E ( nforce 4 ultra ) I had before. :)

[jcoltage]

thanks.. speaking of the a8n-e I put it on BST today cause the 939 chip die on me or something (booths up then freezes) I bot the AC 64 pro yesterday and put it on the 939 but same thing happened so I dropped and sealed my fate with the AC 64 Pro (AM2 only) so I need a good board that will last into at least 2009

[Polaren]

I use the sapphire RD580X board as I wanted the size of a full ATX board and the onboard video was useless to me.
The biostar Nforce boards or 690G boards are great as well and decently priced. There is no reason to spend $200+ on a AM2 board when they will be replaced shortly anyways. Better off to spend the money on a AMD chipset(690G, 690V, RD580X, RD480X) pick up the board for around a hundred bucks and go to town on it. The chipsets run nice and cool, and overclock nicely if that is what you are looking for.
Manufacturer wise, I would take a look at: Asus M2A Series, Gigabyte(they even make a full ATX 690G board), Biostar and Sapphire.

[jcoltage]

so you are saying the AM2 is dying tech. I know AMD got the quad cores coming up in the Fall but how long is the AM2 going to last? I don't want to waste 450 on dead tech. So you are saying buying a Crosshairs is like buying Betamax? I am going to buy a 5400 or more CPU and I want the best for that.. and want to be some what future proof.

[ASharp]

so you are saying the AM2 is dying tech. I know AMD got the quad cores coming up in the Fall but how long is the AM2 going to last? I don't want to waste 450 on dead tech. So you are saying buying a Crosshairs is like buying Betamax? I am going to buy a 5400 or more CPU and I want the best for that.. and want to be some what future proof.

I personally have an Asus M2A-VM and it's a decent board but doesn't have a lot of overclocking options. I've never used the Sapphire 690G board but if I could, I would have bought that one instead, not saying that the Asus is bad, just not as great as I could have hoped...with regards to your question though....

In theory yes, AM2 is "dying" in some senses in that it will be replaced by socket AM2+ (in the near future) and AM3 socket (further down the road). Anyway, IIRC, all future processors will work in the AM2 socket. They won't be able to utilize some enhancements that the future sockets will have but they will fit and work perfectly fine in AM2.

[Polaren]

so you are saying the AM2 is dying tech. I know AMD got the quad cores coming up in the Fall but how long is the AM2 going to last? I don't want to waste 450 on dead tech. So you are saying buying a Crosshairs is like buying Betamax? I am going to buy a 5400 or more CPU and I want the best for that.. and want to be some what future proof.

AM2 is a dying tech overall, it is nice and cheap hence my setup before phenom is released: $70 CPU and $100 board, OC'd it to 6000+ levels with no problem.
AM2+ will replace the current AM2 boards, so yes buying a crosshair right now is a waste of money. The AM2+ CPU's (IE:phenom) will be backwards compatible with AM2 boards but you won't have the full potential of the processor like HyperTransport 3 for example. Thus limiting the processor if it is stuck in a AM2 board and not a AM2+ board. How much of a difference we won't know until Phenom is released.

[Polaren]

future proof.

Also there is no such thing as future proof in this industry unfortunately.

[ASharp]

Also there is no such thing as future proof in this industry unfortunately.

Depends how you define the amount of time passed until you can consider it as being the future. ;)

[Polaren]

Depends how you define the amount of time passed until you can consider it as being the future. ;)

LOL 4 weeks :)

[jcoltage]

Well I totally agree that there is nothing that is future proof but a calculator I guess... would you recommend that I put off purchasing a new mobo and cpu till later... I was going to buy a Laptop closer to the school year but I can switch it to Laptop then Tower... Do you know when the AM2+ boards will come out .. I was looking at the 6000+ windsor with a 200 buck mobo.

[ppl4golf]

Well I totally agree that there is nothing that is future proof but a calculator I guess... would you recommend that I put off purchasing a new mobo and cpu till later... I was going to buy a Laptop closer to the school year but I can switch it to Laptop then Tower... Do you know when the AM2+ boards will come out .. I was looking at the 6000+ windsor with a 200 buck mobo.

It's actually a good time to get an AM2 rig now, CPU prices just dropped and that more than offset the DDR2 RAMs price slight increase from the basement.

As other mentioned, the appealing thing about AM2 is you can get a pretty decent mobo that has everything for <$100, you have to be on serious drugs to get any expensive mobo for AM2...Unless you're totally not into mATX mobos.

[ASharp]

I believe AM2+ comes out some time in the third quarter of this year...or so I've read. I honestly can't find any news on when it will be released, someone might be able to field this question better. AM2+ isn't suppose to last very long anyway as AM3 will come along soon enough (first half 2008?) to replace it.

If you've got some money to spend and you just want a nice cost-effective computer, ppl4golf said it quite well. Lots of cheap AM2 motherboards are on the market plus massive price drops on the Athlon X2's making even the most powerful X2 under $200. DDR2 memory is also not too expensive either so just taking the AM2 route now is pretty cheap and will probably leave a decent amount of money left over for you to save and upgrade later if you really want to.

[Polaren]

I believe AM2+ comes out some time in the third quarter of this year...or so I've read. I honestly can't find any news on when it will be released, someone might be able to field this question better. AM2+ isn't suppose to last very long anyway as AM3 will come along soon enough (first half 2008?) to replace it.

AM2+ is due November with the first Phenom releases according to AMD, who knows exactly. AM3 is due first half of 2008, so could be january, which I highly doubt, more like 6 months into '08 LOL.

It's actually a good time to get an AM2 rig now, CPU prices just dropped and that more than offset the DDR2 RAMs price slight increase from the basement.

As other mentioned, the appealing thing about AM2 is you can get a pretty decent mobo that has everything for <$100, you have to be on serious drugs to get any expensive mobo for AM2...Unless you're totally not into mATX mobos.

As ppl4golf stated, no point in spending $200 on a AM2 motherboard, it just doesn't make sense, and getting a 6000+ and a crosshair per say would be quite useless as well, the 6000+ doesn't overclock next to at all and if it does, it is miniscule and creates a lot of heat. The features included in a $100 AM2 mobo is more then enough for the normal person unless you are looking for bragging rights at which point in buying a AMD currently you have no bragging rights to begin with.

[terrybear]

here are my sugestions on the boards to be lookin at:

Biostar Tforce TA690GAM2 mATX AM2 DDR2 AMD 690G 1PCI-E16 2PCI SATA2 RAID Gbe HDMI VGA Motherboard

Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H 690G mATX AM2 1PCI-E16 1PCI-E4 2PCI HDMI Video Sound GBLAN 1394 Motherboard

Sapphire Pure Element 690G HDMI mATX AM2 DDR2 PCI-E16 2PCI SATA2 RAID Video Sound GBLAN Motherboard

[gman1975]

This board looks like the best for the least amount of money:

MSI K9NU NEO-V ATX ULI M1697 AM2 DDR2 PCI-E16 1PCI-E1 3PCI SATA2 RAID Sound LAN Motherboard

Costs $73.83 at NCIX or $62.76 for an open box one.

Here is a website that ranks AM2 boards:

http://www.neoseeker.com/Products/best_of.html?sid=1483

This board is ranked #6 out of 25 and is cheaper than the 1st 5 boards by far.

Here is some reviews on this board:

http://www.digital-daily.com/motherboard/amd_socket_am2_roundup/index1

http://www.madshrimps.be/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=25250

Hope this helps.

[apvm]

How do you know it is not your motherboard but your cpu is dying? Did you try the board with another cpu? your cpu should have 1 year warranty left why not rma it and wait a while longer since buying an AM2 system mean new mobo, cpu and ram and DDR2 are also soon to be replaced by DDR3.

I have an S939 Opty 165 (no overclocking) at one system and an AM2 X2 3600+ overclocked mildly to 9.5x250mhz and I can't tell which system is faster, I think you are better off buying a new S939 cpu like the one from TD and wait a while longer instead.

This board looks like the best for the least amount of money:

MSI K9NU NEO-V ATX ULI M1697 AM2 DDR2 PCI-E16 1PCI-E1 3PCI SATA2 RAID Sound LAN Motherboard

Costs $73.83 at NCIX or $62.76 for an open box one.

Here is a website that ranks AM2 boards:

http://www.neoseeker.com/Products/best_of.html?sid=1483

This board is ranked #6 out of 25 and is cheaper than the 1st 5 boards by far.

Here is some reviews on this board:

http://www.digital-daily.com/motherboard/amd_socket_am2_roundup/index1

http://www.madshrimps.be/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=25250

Hope this helps.

A very good board for the price imo but two things you have to watch out for it...1) this board don't have option for increasing vcore so if you are into overclocking, it may not be your cup of tea...2) it uses ULI chipsets and Nvidia only have a beta driver release for Vista and there is no telling if Nvidia going to further support it but I heard there are ULI drivers embedded with both Vista 32 and 64 so no need to download drivers.

[ppl4golf]

This board looks like the best for the least amount of money:

MSI K9NU NEO-V ATX ULI M1697 AM2 DDR2 PCI-E16 1PCI-E1 3PCI SATA2 RAID Sound LAN Motherboard

Costs $73.83 at NCIX or $62.76 for an open box one.

Here is a website that ranks AM2 boards:

http://www.neoseeker.com/Products/best_of.html?sid=1483

This board is ranked #6 out of 25 and is cheaper than the 1st 5 boards by far.

Here is some reviews on this board:

http://www.digital-daily.com/motherboard/amd_socket_am2_roundup/index1

http://www.madshrimps.be/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=25250

Hope this helps.

haha,
my mobo ranked #5
the ranking has not much basis and they got the specs wrong.
my mobo is NF570 and not 590 as descibed by them

[jcoltage]

How do you know it is not your motherboard but your cpu is dying? Did you try the board with another cpu? your cpu should have 1 year warranty left why not rma it and wait a while longer since buying an AM2 system mean new mobo, cpu and ram and DDR2 are also soon to be replaced by DDR3.

Yea I thought of that too but if I get the TD 3800+ and it is the mobo I would have to send it back to Asus for 3 weeks then have to find some deal on ddr1 ram .. I missed the Ncix 1 gb for 30 bucks.. Worst time for a system failure... I have a set of DDR2 2 gb sticks so I thought that upgrading would be the best option... I thought it was the paste but I bot the AC 64 pro and same thing happened .. so I guess it was the chip.. Mobo has till August 2008 for warranty..Hmm


Thanks for your help guys...

[gman1975]

haha,
my mobo ranked #5
the ranking has not much basis and they got the specs wrong.
my mobo is NF570 and not 590 as descibed by them

PPL why do you say the ranking has no basis?

Is there a better sight that ranks AM2 boards?

[jcoltage]

^ because they rank it without any comments.. like what is good or bad


anyways ... my 939 board is now being RMA again - second time in 45 days ... I like AM2 but AM2 in Nov looks even better.

[ppl4golf]

PPL why do you say the ranking has no basis?

Is there a better sight that ranks AM2 boards?

FROM HERE BUDDY!

It looks like they are based on some sort of users' feedback...it is better than nothing...but I'll take words from Amourek, Polaren and the likes any day, anytime :~)