My preferred brand for s754, AM2+, AM3 is Gigabyte. ctrl+F1 in BIOS activates advanced settings I need and I don't need more. Main downside is old boards don't report voltage in BIOS, sometimes use plastic backplate (needs replacement) and try to backup BIOS to hard drive without permission. Gigabyte is my most common board brand. They are common and a spare board can often be bought. I used to have Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 and Gigabyte GA-K8NS which I sold to reduce the number of boards.

That latch on AGP slot works well, much better what later Gigabyte boards have which can break off. I use a small screw driver to push the pin in from top while pulling the card out.

If you want to run Windows 7 then 3GB RAM at DDR333 is probably better than 2GB at DDR400.

The best CPU is mobile Turion, it has SSE3, 1MB L2 cache and they run fine at 2.2Ghz. They may need a special cooler or a 0.5mm shim. They run very cool. With a tower cooler attached to the bracket, they can probably be passively cooled as long as there some airflow in the case.

AlexZ wrote on 2026-06-25, 18:39:

My preferred brand for s754, AM2+, AM3 is Gigabyte. ctrl+F1 in BIOS activates advanced settings I need and I don't need more. Ma […]
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My preferred brand for s754, AM2+, AM3 is Gigabyte. ctrl+F1 in BIOS activates advanced settings I need and I don't need more. Main downside is old boards don't report voltage in BIOS, sometimes use plastic backplate (needs replacement) and try to backup BIOS to hard drive without permission. Gigabyte is my most common board brand. They are common and a spare board can often be bought. I used to have Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 and Gigabyte GA-K8NS which I sold to reduce the number of boards.

That latch on AGP slot works well, much better what later Gigabyte boards have which can break off. I use a small screw driver to push the pin in from top while pulling the card out.

If you want to run Windows 7 then 3GB RAM at DDR333 is probably better than 2GB at DDR400.

The best CPU is mobile Turion, it has SSE3, 1MB L2 cache and they run fine at 2.2Ghz. They may need a special cooler or a 0.5mm shim. They run very cool. With a tower cooler attached to the bracket, they can probably be passively cooled as long as there some airflow in the case.

Yeah, I heard about the mobile socket 754, I heard the compatibility is hit or miss on desktops, that's why I avoided it. Plus, I already have the athlon 64 cooler+heatsync.
Definitely an alternative to the venice athlon 64.

I did plan to do 3gb (I got 1gb stick ddr400 so far for testing) but with the 333mhz cap since that is the likely. Pretty much lines up with what I heard elsewhere 😉 if you know what I mean...

I do wonder though if it would be more appropriate to end discussion here as it is no longer about the FIC board, at least until someone actually needs to bring up something for this thread. I am not against its continuation, but I don't know how it aligns with this sites rules. If needed, a new topic thread could be started? I don't know honestly. I should probably stop checking this page out of habit. It has gone away from looking for constructive feedback and into impulsive responding... 🤣

I am not going to worry about the small things, though there seems to be a consensus on the trouble of the backplate being plastic and not metal, at least between you and one other person in this thread. But I ought not worry about it since I practically am incapable of replacing it (I as in me specifically, at least with my current knowledge base). I don't intend to leave it running 24/7 and when I have it settled and set up, I don't plan on removing and readding/changing components a lot to where there is a lot of physical wear, so I suppose just thermal and electric wear naturally? I mean, if it is that simple I wouldn't object so much, but I hate doing something only to make things worse, ya know?

After I switch to an ssd via sata ssd to ide interface, hopefully the gigabyte bios backup, if not avoidable, doesn't have real performance impact or fill the drive at a non trivial rate.
This gigabyte board may not be as rare as the FIC board, but my real requirement wasn't rarity, but rather being a launch athlon 64 capable board from 2003, and it is. I was trying to keep things even cheaper initially. I still have a super cheap 2004 FIC K8M-800M shipping as a backup even though it wont be launch year I should be able to transfer most hardware to it under a potential catastrophic failure of the gigabyte board.

If I say any more I'll probably just keep repeating myself, so I ought to shut up at this point.

I think in life it is valuable to worry less right? No good to increase artificial stress over trivial things, eh?

We should all agree to end this topic for now perhaps? Just an idea. Of course I will keep all the advice in mind.

AlexZ wrote on 2026-06-25, 18:39:

My preferred brand for s754, AM2+, AM3 is Gigabyte. ctrl+F1 in BIOS activates advanced settings I need and I don't need more. Main downside is old boards don't report voltage in BIOS, sometimes use plastic backplate (needs replacement) and try to backup BIOS to hard drive without permission. Gigabyte is my most common board brand. They are common and a spare board can often be bought. I used to have Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 and Gigabyte GA-K8NS which I sold to reduce the number of boards.

When I was trying to turn the Creative Titanium HD into a ‘sound card’ rather than an ‘effects processor’, I needed a motherboard with a PСI-e 1x slot positioned at the edge. It’s a bit of a faff to be crawling under the desk with an oscilloscope.
So I bought a Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF.
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/gigabyte-ga-k8n51gmf
I couldn’t for the life of me understand why this particular motherboard had a massive spike at 32 kHz in the spectrum.
A Gigabyte engineer, whilst designing (to save money) an ACPI controller using discrete transistors, really messed things up (He really just stuffed in a second set of transistors that didn't do anything.). The memory voltage was fluctuating by +/-0.1V at precisely that frequency.

That’s when I lost faith in humanity))))
Given that Asus isn’t capable of doing anything at all apart from marketing… I’ll stick with Gigabyte, but I’m no longer a fan.

P.S. As TiHD doesn’t have drivers for Windows XP, I installed Windows 7 on the Turion.
They perform frankly poorly.
Even a later version of Windows XP with antivirus software is practically unusable on a single core; Windows 7 (due to the large number of parallel processes) is simply unusable.

Matt The Cat wrote on 2026-06-25, 20:14:

I still have a super cheap 2004 FIC K8M-800M

Before dismissing it as a ‘cheap piece of non_pie’, you should give it a go.
Ordinary motherboards have one brilliant feature – they often just work without any problems.

shevalier wrote on 2026-06-26, 15:33:

That’s when I lost faith in humanity))))

Gigabyte Am3 platform

PS. I still maintain the position that Asus doesn't know how to do anything other than show off.

I don't have any of those. I have

Gigabyte GA-K8NE (s754) 2.0
Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 (AM2+) 2.0 - I added VRM heatsink from other board, using steel backplate
Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 (AM3) 2.1
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 (AM3+) 4.0

Normally one should avoid Gigabyte DS3 and buy at least UD3 (mid range). UD5 are the best but rare.

shevalier wrote on 2026-06-27, 11:40:

shevalier wrote on 2026-06-26, 15:33:

That’s when I lost faith in humanity))))

Gigabyte Am3 platform

PS. I still maintain the position that Asus doesn't know how to do anything other than show off.

Tbf ram power supply isn't exactly the most important thing to design.
The voltage dropped a notch, but the demand remained, well, its ram. It gets faster, and bigger, but it is still basically the same as 40 years ago

AlexZ wrote on 2026-06-27, 14:01:

Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 (AM3+) 4.0

A very successful revision – you’re in luck.
Because in the third revision, there aren’t 8 power phases, but only 4.
However, twice as many components have been soldered on to make it look as though there are 8 phases.

So.... got it all set up... the gigabyte board, it did post, but I didn't leave it long to test cause a couple capacitors imediately exploded out the top and a few bulged.
Marking that as a return. I don't own soldering equipment so the cost to do this would likely exceed the worth.

And the FIC K8M-800M didn't have exploding capacitors, but it did fail to post. Nothing was done wrong by me.

So, if someone has a known good 2003 socket 754 board that uses ddr1 and of course supports the athlon 64 that they would like to sell (without bad capacitors of course). Please reach out to me because I am seriously interested.

Matt The Cat wrote on 2026-07-04, 05:02:

So, if someone has a known good 2003

According to Google AI, the highest legal age of majority is 21. In most countries, it is 18.
This motherboards has been able to buy alcohol for a long time now. 😀
Any recommendations will be subject to survivorship bias.
Since the memory controller is located in the processor, the difference from the chipset is 2-5%.
Therefore, any working motherboard for socket 754 is good.

shevalier wrote on 2026-07-04, 08:42:

According to Google AI, the highest legal age of majority is 21. In most countries, it is 18. This motherboards has been able t […]
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Matt The Cat wrote on 2026-07-04, 05:02:

So, if someone has a known good 2003

According to Google AI, the highest legal age of majority is 21. In most countries, it is 18.
This motherboards has been able to buy alcohol for a long time now. 😀
Any recommendations will be subject to survivorship bias.
Since the memory controller is located in the processor, the difference from the chipset is 2-5%.
Therefore, any working motherboard for socket 754 is good.

Yeah, I am gonna try an MSI one. But I am honestly ready for more failure at this point.

It was just bad luck. I had like 2 Socket A motherboards with bulging capacitors, one of them Epox 8RDA3+ and despite this flaw managed to sell them for a good price. They were of course tested just before being sent as testing 1-2 years before doesn't count anymore. They were stable despite bad caps, which is great for recapping as at least you would know the motherboard isn't damaged in another way.

I sold them only because I decided to get rid of Socket A in favor of s754.

AlexZ wrote on 2026-07-04, 19:19:

It was just bad luck. I had like 2 Socket A motherboards with bulging capacitors, one of them Epox 8RDA3+ and despite this flaw managed to sell them for a good price. They were of course tested just before being sent as testing 1-2 years before doesn't count anymore. They were stable despite bad caps, which is great for recapping as at least you would know the motherboard isn't damaged in another way.

I sold them only because I decided to get rid of Socket A in favor of s754.

Yes, it was strange though cause the gigabyte board was not even bulging or leaking prior to powering it, and it did post even with the popped capacitors. Definitely not wanting to push that farther. And in my situation I really cant afford to not return it.

@Matt The Cat
You may try to find a motherboard with AM2(+) socket based on NForce3 250 chipset which will support much more powerful but really cheap CPU, cheap DDR2 (up to 128bit access) and also be featured AGP slot and Win98-XP-7 drivers.
Something like that: AM2 DDR2 NForce3 mainboards
or other ones based on different chipset AM2 Motherboards with AGP Slots
AM2 DDR2 VIA mainboards

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-k8t-neo

This build ended up being what I went with

MSI MS-6702 v1.0
ATI Radeon HD 4650 AGP
Startech SATA to IDE with 80PIN cable and 250GB samsung ssd
2 Sticks of PC3200 DDR1 Kingston K 1GB each
2 intake case fans and one exhaust.
Windows 7 x64 pro

I originally went with the full three gigabytes, but that had random instability with freezing and BSODs, it was a Geil stick. I don't know if I would need to get another kingston module or if the system really just wasn't stable with 3 sticks/3GB RAM.

No capacity bulging or leaking, I ran a few benchmarks and stress tests. Mainly with OCCT. I didn't want to go to hard stressing the GPU so I used Unigine Heaven to push it just a little more. All temperatures stayed stable, and I monitored voltage during testing and real gameplay.
Thing is, I used memtest86+ a full pass even with the three sticks and it reported no errors.
But it isn't having the crashing with the 2 sticks so not sure

It handles Skyrim fairly smooth if I lower a few settings, but still good graphics settings. Plus a couple other older unreal engine 3 and 4 games fairly smooth.
It can't run newer unreal engine 4 games since it doesn't have directx 11. It also runs modern unity games, but only those built as 32 bit and I found it is cause the x64 unity games require CMPXCHG16B. I also tested a couple of other games in different engines, the ones I expected to run did run well but were not as performance intensive in 3D demand.
The latest Mypal x64 runs well. Supermium x64 wouldn't launch if I recall correctly, and supermium x86 ran but is weird about loading and crashing (I have seen this on other systems so I am fairly certain it is just not that stable).

Anyway, I have successfully pushed the oldest x64 consumer system to its limit. September or thereabout 2003 motherboard and CPU. If I could use the full 3GB that would be nice, but I need to be sure the ram is all good and not going to have strange incompatibility.

Matt The Cat wrote on 2026-07-14, 13:51:

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-k8t-neo […]
Show full quote

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-k8t-neo

This build ended up being what I went with

MSI MS-6702 v1.0
ATI Radeon HD 4650 AGP
Startech SATA to IDE with 80PIN cable and 250GB samsung ssd
2 Sticks of PC3200 DDR1 Kingston K 1GB each
2 intake case fans and one exhaust.
Windows 7 x64 pro

I originally went with the full three gigabytes, but that had random instability with freezing and BSODs, it was a Geil stick. I don't know if I would need to get another kingston module or if the system really just wasn't stable with 3 sticks/3GB RAM.

No capacity bulging or leaking, I ran a few benchmarks and stress tests. Mainly with OCCT. I didn't want to go to hard stressing the GPU so I used Unigine Heaven to push it just a little more. All temperatures stayed stable, and I monitored voltage during testing and real gameplay.
Thing is, I used memtest86+ a full pass even with the three sticks and it reported no errors.
But it isn't having the crashing with the 2 sticks so not sure

It handles Skyrim fairly smooth if I lower a few settings, but still good graphics settings. Plus a couple other older unreal engine 3 and 4 games fairly smooth.
It can't run newer unreal engine 4 games since it doesn't have directx 11. It also runs modern unity games, but only those built as 32 bit and I found it is cause the x64 unity games require CMPXCHG16B. I also tested a couple of other games in different engines, the ones I expected to run did run well but were not as performance intensive in 3D demand.
The latest Mypal x64 runs well. Supermium x64 wouldn't launch if I recall correctly, and supermium x86 ran but is weird about loading and crashing (I have seen this on other systems so I am fairly certain it is just not that stable).

Anyway, I have successfully pushed the oldest x64 consumer system to its limit. September or thereabout 2003 motherboard and CPU. If I could use the full 3GB that would be nice, but I need to be sure the ram is all good and not going to have strange incompatibility.

The VIA K8T800 chipset is picky about how DDR memory slots are populated.
Populating all 3 DIMM slots with double-sided DDR400 modules will often force the motherboard to downclock the memory stability to DDR333 or DDR266, or cause the system to refuse to boot.
Stick to 2 matching sticks of high-quality DDR400 RAM for the best stability.

SATA is finicky, AGP not recommended for windows 98 and trash factory capacitors.

You should probably use Windows 7 x32 pro for lower memory consumption. With 64 bit, you need more memory.

3GB at DDR400 requires registered ECC sticks, at DDR333 it should work with unbuffered.

3GB at DDR400 with plain unbuffered sticks reboots on my Gigabyte GA-K8NE (regardless of voltage/timings) and 3GB at DDR400 with unbuffered ECC fails memtest86 after a couple of minutes (regardless of voltage/timings). This motherboard just applies whatever you configure, it doesn't play smart like Asus which downclocks memory automatically.

For stability test you need to use memtest86, SuperPi 32M, OCCT, Prime95 and ideally also 3d mark in a loop. It could take up to a week to test everything for many hours.

64bit support on these early single cores isn't something beneficial from user's perspective. It was only useful from developer's perspective for compiling future 64bit software.

zapbuzz wrote on 2026-07-14, 14:28:

The VIA K8T800 chipset is picky about how DDR memory slots are populated. Populating all 3 DIMM slots with double-sided DDR400 m […]
Show full quote

Matt The Cat wrote on 2026-07-14, 13:51:

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-k8t-neo […]
Show full quote

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-k8t-neo

This build ended up being what I went with

MSI MS-6702 v1.0
ATI Radeon HD 4650 AGP
Startech SATA to IDE with 80PIN cable and 250GB samsung ssd
2 Sticks of PC3200 DDR1 Kingston K 1GB each
2 intake case fans and one exhaust.
Windows 7 x64 pro

I originally went with the full three gigabytes, but that had random instability with freezing and BSODs, it was a Geil stick. I don't know if I would need to get another kingston module or if the system really just wasn't stable with 3 sticks/3GB RAM.

No capacity bulging or leaking, I ran a few benchmarks and stress tests. Mainly with OCCT. I didn't want to go to hard stressing the GPU so I used Unigine Heaven to push it just a little more. All temperatures stayed stable, and I monitored voltage during testing and real gameplay.
Thing is, I used memtest86+ a full pass even with the three sticks and it reported no errors.
But it isn't having the crashing with the 2 sticks so not sure

It handles Skyrim fairly smooth if I lower a few settings, but still good graphics settings. Plus a couple other older unreal engine 3 and 4 games fairly smooth.
It can't run newer unreal engine 4 games since it doesn't have directx 11. It also runs modern unity games, but only those built as 32 bit and I found it is cause the x64 unity games require CMPXCHG16B. I also tested a couple of other games in different engines, the ones I expected to run did run well but were not as performance intensive in 3D demand.
The latest Mypal x64 runs well. Supermium x64 wouldn't launch if I recall correctly, and supermium x86 ran but is weird about loading and crashing (I have seen this on other systems so I am fairly certain it is just not that stable).

Anyway, I have successfully pushed the oldest x64 consumer system to its limit. September or thereabout 2003 motherboard and CPU. If I could use the full 3GB that would be nice, but I need to be sure the ram is all good and not going to have strange incompatibility.

The VIA K8T800 chipset is picky about how DDR memory slots are populated.
Populating all 3 DIMM slots with double-sided DDR400 modules will often force the motherboard to downclock the memory stability to DDR333 or DDR266, or cause the system to refuse to boot.
Stick to 2 matching sticks of high-quality DDR400 RAM for the best stability.

SATA is finicky, AGP not recommended for windows 98 and trash factory capacitors.

It still clocked the ram at 400mhz with three sticks. The system booted fine, but had weird and random system freezes and blue screens in windows 7. Like it didn't always happen, but I obviously didn't want to deal with the interruptions from it happening randomly in the middle of something.

Right now it is running great, and hasn't had any thermal or voltage issues even with the stress testing and high demand games, and the capacitors visually look great. And it isn't running windows 98, it is running windows 7 x64. The sata controller isn't in use, only the IDE controller cause I am using the Startech sata to IDE with the SSD. The SSD health is still at 98 percent.
Don't worry.

AlexZ wrote on 2026-07-14, 15:04:

You should probably use Windows 7 x32 pro for lower memory consumption. With 64 bit, you need more memory. […]
Show full quote

You should probably use Windows 7 x32 pro for lower memory consumption. With 64 bit, you need more memory.

3GB at DDR400 requires registered ECC sticks, at DDR333 it should work with unbuffered.

3GB at DDR400 with plain unbuffered sticks reboots on my Gigabyte GA-K8NE (regardless of voltage/timings) and 3GB at DDR400 with unbuffered ECC fails memtest86 after a couple of minutes (regardless of voltage/timings). This motherboard just applies whatever you configure, it doesn't play smart like Asus which downclocks memory automatically.

For stability test you need to use memtest86, SuperPi 32M, OCCT, Prime95 and ideally also 3d mark in a loop. It could take up to a week to test everything for many hours.

64bit support on these early single cores isn't something beneficial from user's perspective. It was only useful from developer's perspective for compiling future 64bit software.

Well I don't know what you mean by required. It functioned with regular unbuffered 3GB DDR400, reported full 400mhz, no errors found in memtest86+ full pass. I am using the final 2006 BIOS if that makes a difference. If it weren't for the random system crashing and memory access exceptions during windows when it had 3 sticks instead of 2, I would have kept the three because nothing was apparently wrong.

I can't afford 3dmark, they charge over 20 dollars. Yes I used OCCT also as I mentioned, but their free tier only allows up to 1 hour. I ran through their tests before and after removing the one ram stick, and I saw a difference there of 1 CPU error vs no cpu error, and I ran it on the extreme variable setting for the full hour. I thought about doing Prime95 and Furmark, but at what point am I going from stressing to see if the computer can hold up reasonably for gaming, to actively killing it...
Caps still look great, voltage and temperature still hold stable.
I have a couple 64 bit only games I am playing on it so I can't switch over, and it runs fine.

Like I am not having a bad experience with it at all beside the crashing it had with three sticks. And now it is running still great with two! Why complain?

Matt The Cat wrote on 2026-07-14, 13:51:

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-k8t-neo

This build ended up being what I went with
ATI Radeon HD 4650 AGP

Congratulations.
It's a normal board; all VIA K8T800 non-pro boards are practically identical.

Just the idea of ​​installing a Radeon HD series graphics card with an AGP interface isn't very good.
Everyone thinks that buying the most powerful graphics card is the ideal solution.
There will be serious compatibility issues with older games.
Such cards are only useful for benchmarking.
I would recommend considering the Radeon X8xx series.

PS 3Dmark old versions are now free.

Matt The Cat wrote on 2026-07-14, 18:44:

Well I don't know what you mean by required. It functioned with regular unbuffered 3GB DDR400, reported full 400mhz, no errors found in memtest86+ full pass.

Required means required for a stable system which you clearly didn't have. Memtest86 doesn't guarantee system stability.

That is not a big problem if just 32bit software is used as then data (integers, memory pointers) is 32bit so takes less memory and Windows 7 with 2GB RAM may be functional, although not great for games.

In 64bit mode, I would definitely use 3GB RAM. The best bet is buying 3x registered ECC DDR 333 and run it at 400 (should work at 3 3 3 8 ). Server RAM is often very cheap as people fear it and nobody buys retro servers. If the price is about 5€ per stick then it's worth it. Registered RAM is in general better if many memory sticks are used, like 3 with s754 or 4 with s939.