Hey there,I want to do some upgrading next month if possible, and was wandering about a couple of things. I will be purchasing an AMD Athlon64 3800 with the Venice core, and 1 gig of Corsair XMS DDR400 RAM. Can anyone recommend a great, reliable socket 939 motherboard that uses the nForce4 chipset and still has AGP? If it has AGP and SLI support, that's fine, but it must have AGP. The reason being, I do not have the money to go with an SLI setup at this time, so I'll be sticking with my ATI 9800Pro 128 video card for time being. I am also very apprehensive about going with a VIA chipset motherboard because of past bad experiences with VIA.Any information or ideas are most certainly appreciated, thank you in advance.ChuckC-130H Flight EngineerDyess AFB, TXAthlon XP 2800+ | ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe | Antec TruePower 480 PS | 1.0 gig DDR PC2700 | WD 120 gig HD | WD 80 gig HD | Twin WD 160 gig SATA HDDs | SB Audigy 2 | ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128 | CH Products USB Yoke | CH Products USB Pedals | Nostromo n52 | Windows XP Pro SP2http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/ng_driver.jpg

According to the NVIDIA Web site, nForce4 is a native PCI Express chipset so I doubt there is any motherboard out there that has an nForce4 chipset and yet also has an AGP port.I don't know what your budget is but you don't need to have SLI even if you buy a motherboard capable of SLI. If you can afford a new PCIe video card, then you could still get any nForce4 motherboard.Hope this helps.Edwin

Edwin, Thank you for the heads up. Also, I probably should have been more clear in my initial post, I do not have the money at this time to buy a new video card at all, just enough to get the motherboard, cpu and ram. Thanks for your input though, it is very much appreciated.ChuckC-130H Flight EngineerDyess AFB, TXAthlon XP 2800+ | ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe | Antec TruePower 480 PS | 1.0 gig DDR PC2700 | WD 120 gig HD | WD 80 gig HD | Twin WD 160 gig SATA HDDs | SB Audigy 2 | ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128 | CH Products USB Yoke | CH Products USB Pedals | Nostromo n52 | Windows XP Pro SP2http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/ng_driver.jpg

Hi Chuck,If that's the case, you might want to consider getting a slower CPU (the 3200+ or the 3500+) and then getting a NVIDIA 6600GT PCIe version. That combo should cost around the same as the 3800+ CPU. The advantages of doing this are that you get an immediate performance boost (faster CPU and almost equivalent video card) and you can just add another 6600GT PCIe further down the road to get an SLI set up when you have the money. (Note well: I have read FS9 does NOT benefit much at all with SLI. This is not verified but so people say.)Of course, the other option is simply to wait a bit longer, save up a bit more, and then plunge for both the faster CPU and the new video card! :)Hope this helps.Edwin

Hi Chuck, in addition to what Edwin suggested, perhaps opt for a San Diego core with 1MB cache (i.e the 3700) instead of the 3800? If you don't want to change your AGP adapter right now, Gigabyte, MSI and Epox offer socket-939 AGP-mainboards with nForce3 chipsets. Generally put, I would recommend nForce chipsets over those from Via (specially when using S-ATA drives). Another idea is to continue to use your PC2700 RAM since the performance difference is marginal compared to PC3200. Not upgrading your RAM could allow the purchase of a nForce4 board and getting a PCI-e display adpater? Hope this adds to thoughts, good luck and kind regards Jaap PS, I don't think the 6600 will do 1280x resolutions too well. For 1024x they're fine. In case you require 1280x, I'ld recommend a card with a 256-bit bus.

Before I start, let me caveat by saying that I haven't verified any of what I am about to say so take it with a grain of salt.But would PC2700 RAM work with an AMD Athlon64? I have my doubts. Even if it does work, I disagree that the performance difference will be marginal. The reason is that PC2700 RAM has a memory bus of 333MHz and your new Athlon64 has an FSB of 400MHz. Back in the day of CPUs have an FSB of 333MHz, Jaap would be right: PC2700 and PC3200 yields marginal performance difference (in fact, PC2700 is usually faster because the latencies for the PC3200 would be higher as the PC3200 has to keep waiting for the CPU to catch up). But with CPUs with FSB of 400MHz (like the Athlon64), even if it does work, the opposite would be true i.e. the CPU would have to keep waiting for the RAM.My gut feel is that it won't work. Even if it does work, your CPU wouldn't be running at full speed.Just my two cents worth.Edwin

Hi Edwin, thanks for your comments. AMD64s work fine at lower clock frequencies. In the past and in certain cases (i.e. w/ too many occupied RAM-banks and with certain AMD64 CPUs), the system's FSB would automatically clock to lower frequencies and there would be nothing one could do about it. With the latest AMD64 CPU-revisions (Venice and San Diego), AMD has told us users that this RAM bank issue has been solved but there are strong indications this isn't true for every combination. Hence, it's still recommended to use max two banks per RAM-channel and i.e. plugging 4pcs 512MB PC3200 modules (aka 8 banks in total) will often continue to 'provoke' those lower memory frequencies. AFAIK, operating a 400MHz CPU at 333MHz causes a general performance loss of ca. 4-6%. Hope this adds to thoughts, good luck and kind regards Jaap

hias you have an agp card and want a amd processor with socket939 this is the one i will be getting in a few monthshttp://www.it-supermarket.com.au/MBD-GA-K8NS-PRO939.htmlThere are not many choices as the new PCI-express is replacing agp with their 16X, compared to the 8X agp, but should still be great for flight sim.

Hi Many gamers and pc users are having this big problem of not being able to use there agp video cards with the new hardware thats out there now. but if you can just wait a little longer you can get this motherboard which supports agp with socket 939.http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2471

Everybody, I'd like to thank you for your inputs. I finally made up my mind to give VIA another chance, so I went with my favorite motherboard manufacturer, ASUS once again. I purchased an AMD Athlon 64 3700+, 1 gig of DDR400 RAM from Corsair and an ASUS A8V Deluxe motherboard. I bought everything from NewEgg and paid just $575.00 USD with shipping. So that put a smile on my face to begin with! Now as I said before, I have had my fair share of problems in the past with VIA chipsets, but I can happily say that this motherboard / RAM / CPU combination has been a real joy so far. Everything went very well on installation, I didn't have a problem one. Jaat hit the nail on the head by suggesting the San Diego core for the 3700+, it is great!! My computer runs cooler, a good bit faster and most of all, FS is rock-steady, so I am happy with it. My framerates went up a little bit, but it feels more solid, which is just as nice as high fps to me. If I do upgrade to PCI-e at some point, I may have to go with another motherboard, but I can always put that one in my extra machine I use for a file server, or get it to a friend. Thanks again everybody, I am a happy guy for now!ChuckC-130H Flight EngineerDyess AFB, TXAMD 64 3700+ | ASUS A8V Deluxe | Antec TruePower 480 PS | 1.0 gig DDR400 Corsair TwinX 3200XLC2Pro | WD 120 gig HDD | WD 80 gig HDD | Twin WD 160 gig SATA HDDs | SB Audigy 2 | ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128 | CH Products USB Yoke | CH Products USB Pedals | Nostromo n52 | Windows XP Pro SP2http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/ng_driver.jpg