New system advice please x

[Clunk]

I had one crap board because it was the very first batch of them, I bought it on release which is pron to issues.

This second board has been perfect, there is nothing wrong with it. I am currently at 3.641ghz and it is fine, I am only held back by my cooling. The sound card that comes with it, imo is better than on board sound, the RAM slots are solid, there is no sticky stuff on it, it does not buzz whistle or burp, I have had to press the clear cmos button once (that time I set RAM volts too low) I have never had a bsod. You are right the heat pipes are poor but then again so are pretty much all mobos.

It is solid and better than this ds4 I have.

Your first "crap board", had some of the same problems as the 3 of mine did, so its not a good sign of quality control.

I hope yours carries on working well. I personally wouldn't touch another one, mainly because of the ram killing issue, its just too inconvenient and expensive.

[scoucer]

Stick with the p5b deluxe. Its a good choice and not to dear too.

[Blitzen]

It won't hurt but it will almost certainly crackle

The AW9D-Max has a 7.1 card with it........sort of onboard i spose and the sound is crystal

I toyed for at least 2 weeks on whether to get the ASUS PB5 deluxe or the AW9D-MAX Wifi.
In the end, the Abit board just seemed to be a far better choice.

(the wifi is a struggle to set up though).

Everything else is pefect and its not fussy about RAM or PSUs.

Basically i googled both boards and looked to see which one came up with the most complaints and good reviews. The Abit got least complaints and all good reviews.