nForce4 Ultra Roundup

AnandTech: nForce4 Ultra Roundup: Charting the Mainstream
I am so overdue for a desktop upgrade. I am toying with building a box, and just buying an off the shelf HP with an AMD processor.

So, out of seven boards in this roundup, two clearly rise to the top. The Epox 9NPA+ at $110 is an amazing performer with virtually everything that an Athlon 64 enthusiast could want - except official support and voltages for OCZ VX and Mushkin Redline memory. It will, however, handle every other memory with abandon. If you want all that the Epox offers, a little better bus overclocking and official support and voltages for OCZ VX and Mushkin Redline at a little higher price, then the DFI LANParty nF4 Ultra-D is your choice.

You should also consider the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum a winner here as well. The SLI version of the MSI was a Gold Editor's Choice in our SLI roundup, and the Ultra version should perform at the same excellent levels we saw with the MSI SLI. The MSI has had issues in the recent past with overclocking the latest Venice and San Diego processors, but MSI has recently released a BIOS that is reported to bring Venice/San Diego performance in line with the excellent performnace we saw with a 4000+ clawhammer on the MSI SLI.