Heya, Slowly putting pieces together for my next AMD X2 4400+ based set-up. The only thing that make me neurotic at the moment is the motherboard selection, and things that it might affect. So basically, the question is "AN8 SLI" (~119e) or "KN8 SLI" (~125e)? I know the review on the site had a say about the issue, but it never hurt nobody to ask, right? Anyway - the biggest concern is of course compatibility. Which one of these boards would be the safer bet. Abit seems to be sweeping the AN8 off their sites. Thus the newer(?) KN8 becomes more attractive choice, as newer = learnt mistakes fixed ("yeah right" but let's be a bit naive here for a sec). One thing that buggers me is that they removed the Port 80 from the KN8 and knowing my luck, it might come in handy. But what it comes down to in the end - is that it works with the other components. I've been eyeing Kingston's HyperX memory (2 x 1 gb module), a Western Digital sata drive and the Antec's NeoHE line-up to power it all. Haven't found much complaints about either one of the boards and hard drives or memory. Some - but I doubt they're not much to worry about? How about the PSU then? Seems like it has had a fair share of problems with Nf4 based motherboards, but interestingly enough, I haven't been able to figure out whether the two particular Abit boards are in the danger zone. Any experiences? Again, the "new is better" might come into play - as later revisions and versions have been upgraded and made to be more compatible - but you never know what you're going to get before you open the box. Ah well - I think there's enough to chew on for a while. Just looking at some peace of mind and a scape goat to blame when everything turns sour - thanks for any responses!
Have you looked at the Abit AT8? That uses the ATI RD480 chipset and looks to be a very good board. It's also passively cooled so it's silent. There's one person's opinion of it here but if you look round the web there are many more positive views. Not sure how much it would be in Euro's compared to the nVidia based Abit boards but there shouldn't be any compatibility issues with the NeoHe.
I did consider it. However, the layout seems to be a turn off, as it seems to be quite cramped, and using a big graphic card, it'll render one pci slot unusable, as it needs to the installed in the lower PCI-E mount. Might be wrong of course. Plus it's some 10 euros more expensive. Asus has a A8R-MVP which might be also a possibility, but haven't read too much about it.
I have the AN8-SLi and it's a cracking board, i love mine with its easy to use bios etc. I have mine running an opteron, a 7800GT, 2GB of corsair XMS mem, maxtor and seagate ide and a samsung sataII drives, along with an enermax liverty psu and an nec dvd burner without any problems at all. I've also used 1GB of crucial ballistix in it with no problems at all. Stability seems to be excellent even at ove 300htt, and its completely silent which is great in my quiet system. The layout is really good with all the power connectors etc around the edge of the board. I also prefer the look of the cooler on the AN8 over that on the KN8 as it looks a little more refined and matches the colour scheme, whereas the blue KN8 cooler looks out of place on a board with very little other blue on it. My only grumble is the lack of a serial port header on the mobo, as im using it in my main work pc that i do pic programming and so need to be able to test serial comms, its just a small inconvenience as i can connect it to my media server which is next to it to test.
If you can get an AN8 SLI cheaper than the KN8 SLI buy it. Of course what you really want is an AN8 32X
