Im glad the the flame is over but my question seems like it hasnt been answered. :-(. I have never overlcoked and dont know who, I just posted a message to ask what motherboard is good for someone like me who wants to build a high class computer (ex. rolls royce and bentley of computers). So, would the Asus A7N8X Deluxe be the best choice for me or the Chaintech that comes with a whole bag full of stuff? Can someone give me some good suggestions, without flames ;-). Thanks again. And is the coolermastewr atc-201b-sx2 a good case and what is a top heatsink(with or without fan-no problem) to cool the amd xp 2700, which im getting OEM? Thanks like always and hope to overpower my friends with my computer bentlet/rolls royce.

The A7N8X is an excellent board, go for it. As for heatsinks, I like thermaltake. Go with nothing less than a Volcano 7+.

Andrew - All of the nForce2 boards work extremely well, and all should be able to outperform similarly configured systems based on alternate chipsets. I can understand your passion for having "the best of the best" when building a custom system, but you have to be the one to weigh the options available on each motherboard to decide which will fit best in your dream machine. We all have different requirements for a system. Some like to spend money on certain motherboards because they have a lot of features and look pretty, even if those additional features you're paying for are never used. Some prefer to buy "cheap" boards because they throw in some cheap extra rounded cables, etc. Some people look for the best overclocking ability. Others base their decision on technical support for the product and/or past experiences with various manufacturers. I bought the EPoX 8RDA+ because it fit my needs best. Inexpensive, fast, great tech support, and it still had all the features I needed. The Asus A7N8X looks like a decent board, but it's biggest selling point versus the competition are: 1. SATA 2. dual LAN Ask yourself these questions: Do you have SATA hard drives? When (or if) they become available, are you willing to pay the price premium for SATA drives? Are you familiar with SATA drive specs and if so, is it even worth upgrading your hard drives simply for a thinner cable connector and (supposedly) a very slight performance gain over ATA100? How many computers do you have connected/networked, and how do you connect to the internet? 56K? Cable/DSL? Via a router or ICS? Those are a lot of options, but unless you're using ICS, you're going to pay for a 2nd LAN connector that you probably don't need. Are you familiar with the different companies/brands of motherboards? What have your past experiences been? Do you have a preference? I've "owned" 4 Asus boards in the past, two of which were defective and had to be RMA'd. RMA always took several weeks. I'm only on my 2nd EPoX board, but both have run flawlessly. I've owned several Abit boards, and have been fairly happy with them. My MSI boards have always run solid, but they seriously lacked in overclock ability and BIOS support. To close, you say you want a "RR" of systems. Question is, what type of budget do you have in building it? How will it be used? Gaming? Web surfing? Serving? What other components will you be using? What type memory? What video card? Which hard drives? Some of these components will have a much bigger impact on your system performance. If on a budget, in my opinion, it's not worth spending an extra $50 for a "prettier" motherboard, then getting less memory or a slower video card. Good luck!

wow, thanks for the huge amount of info. Im getting the3 corsair xms 3500 c2 512 ram, ati radeom 9700, and the audigy2 sound card. I want my com puter to be flawless and powerful in all areas. Is this all possible.

basically all in all im looking for a good looking and high performin nforce2 mobo and a great heatsink (with or without fan) for the amd athlin xp 2700+. I have everything else its just these two parts that are bugging me. lol. thanks again

Wow look at the specs seem like budget isn't a problem maybe you can get your system watercooled. If you ever decided to do so I recommend Innovatek System. They come up in google search. If you just want a good fan volcano 7+ from thermaltake is excellent and so is Volcano 9. The good thing about these two CPU coolers is that they use 80mm fans and the airflow at low RPM is amazing. What people is getting confused at is the difference between RPM and airflow. The RPM is virtually useless if the FAN doesn't provide enough airflow to bring out the heat and the Vocalno 7+ and 9 does an excellent job with airflow. My old CPU fan running at 4800+ couldn't achieve the same cooling as the Volcano 9 running at 2500 which is really quiet. For the heatsink I do believe that Volcano 7+ is better than that of Volcano 9. However, both of those fans are some of the best I've seen. Be warn they run like jet engine at max speed but I doublt you'll ever need that speed to get the cooling you want. You can also get a better heatsink from swiftech. They provide some of the best heatsink but are relatively expensive. I can't explain the mobo situation any better than the last post this link will provide basically all the information you'll ever need to compare/contrast the 6 major nforce2 boards. Check out the benchmarks and review and you can decide base on that. http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1759

thanks again. I think ill stick with the asus a7n8x deluxe. Do you know if coolermaster makes good cases. The case i want is coolermaster and wanted to know if they made good cases. The case i want is the coolermaster atc-201b-sx2