Stay away from the nForce4 chipset until nVidia addresses the issues with the PCIe controller. I have heard of people installing X2's on nForce3 chipsets with BIOS updates. This may vary between manufacturers. There are also plenty of NF3 boards with AGP slots for you card. Via, however, is an entirely different can of worms as far as the PCI bus is concerned. I would defiently choose the Toledo or Italy cores over the Manchester.

Not much experience with Smithfields. Some people seem to have issues with Hyperthreading and DAW's.

Thanks for the reply.

I think I will go with the x2 3800(Manchester) since it uses less power, can be overclocked better and is cheaper. Well, this is what I read from tom's hardware anyways.

Now, from what I read on the asus website, I should be ok with using the A8V.

Total price for chip and mb: $560 Canadian. Damn, now is that cheap or what? 8-)

After some more research, it looks like only nforce boards support the 3800. If the A8V supports an x2 4800, should't it also run a 3800? Anyone know 100% whether or not the A8V will run the 3800?

Hello,

AMD X2 go with ASUS A8V Deluxe (BIOS 14).

Intel Pentium D go with ASUS ASUS P5LD2 Deluxe.

My best,

Guy Cefalu
Sonica Audio Labs

Gigatron wrote: After some more research, it looks like only nforce boards support the 3800. If the A8V supports an x2 4800, should't it also run a 3800? Anyone know 100% whether or not the A8V will run the 3800?

Yeah 3800 is just a newer designation, they probably haven't bothered to update yet. Previously 4200 was the bottom end of the line.

Not that the Manchesters have a stripped L2 cache compared to the Toledos, which can actually be somewhat important in a DAW.

If you do go with VIA, whatever you do just let Windows install the PCI and IDE drivers and stay away from Via drivers.