Head to Head

**spazman** · 19-11-2003, 10:26 PM

i have an EPoX 8rda3+ excellent board, more spec than you can shake a stick at and it overclocks well.

**joshwa** · 19-11-2003, 10:38 PM

If you're not going to use S-ATA drives, then I'd go for the ASUS:

for this reason alone:

Asus - Gigabit LAN, Passive NB. And all the other sound / noise related features it has - ASUS aim to make your PC quiet, and maybe one day you'll want to make your PC quiet...

**Galant** · 19-11-2003, 10:45 PM

Gigabit LAN?

What's the difference/advantage with Passive NB?

**Galant** · 19-11-2003, 10:58 PM

How about this?

They reckon the DFI LanParty NFII Ultra and the Gigabyte GA-7NNXP are the best of a very close bunch.

The rest?

Abit NF7-S
AOpen AK79D-400Max
Asus A7N8X 2.0 Deluxe
DFI LanParty NFII Ultra
Epox EP-8RDA3+
Gigabyte GA-7NNXP
Leadtek K7NCR18D Pro 2
MSI K7N2 Delta (Updated)
Shuttle Spacewalker AN35N-Ultra
Shuttle Spacewalker XPC-SN45G
Soltek SL75-FRN2 (Updated)

Full article here:
http://www20.tomshardware.com/mother...ra_400-32.html

**petrefax** · 19-11-2003, 11:04 PM

Originally posted by Galant
Gigabit LAN?

What's the difference/advantage with Passive NB?

passive northbridge cooling just means theres a heatsink on your nothbridge chip to cool it, as opposed to a 40mm fan

40mm fans are the work of satan since they usually emit a high pitched whining noise...and if you're really lucky they'll rattle a bit too, and considering their dimiutive size, they add a big addition to the noise emitted from your PC

as you can tell...i'm not a "fan" of 40mm fans (<--see wot i did there

)

**Lexeus** · 19-11-2003, 11:12 PM

I dont know why you all keep saying MSI is a cheap alternative ? are you all looking at the K7N2-L ? The K7N2-ILSR is the decent one and its no budget board .... it was more than the ABit when i bought it (just checked, still more at SCAN), and understandable with a better bundle

**evildoc614** · 19-11-2003, 11:49 PM

Ok you want help decideing? GO WITH THE ABIT! unless you are on a tight budget or over budget then go with the asus whatever deluxe. either one will make you happy. personaly i would go with abit NF7-S rev 2 for alittle more money. you get what you pay for so i say spend a few more bucks and get the good stuff. the fight bettween Abit and ASUS is a personal prefrence thing they are both great boards.

**Galant** · 19-11-2003, 11:55 PM

...

**joshwa** · 20-11-2003, 10:32 AM

to be honest, the motherboards all have the features you want : firewire support, and are all by top manufacturers and all come with warranty, so it's not gonna matter too much which one you get as they're all going to perform about the same level...

especially as you're not too bothered about overclocking, i just say, go for whichever one you want. ABIT / MSI / ASUS - they are all Very good choices, and all in the same league.

ABIT probably has a slight edge in overclocking (going off what people are saying here)
ASUS has the edge in quietness.
MSI - dunno?

so if you're not interested in overclocking, then go for the ASUS - as even though ABIT has the "edge" in overclocking, you'll still be able to overclock with the ASUS if you wanted to at a later date - AND you'd also have a quieter pc - which is very good

ps - you wont need gigabit lan unless you are going to use the pc as a massive file server or something mental like that. heck hardly any of the massive exchange / file servers we have at work have gigabit lan, and even if we did, the building only uses 100mbit lan the majority of the time (and that's if we're lucky)

**Nox** · 20-11-2003, 02:58 PM

what colour are they? i think that is something very important you missed off the spec and you should take into consideration.

Nox

**petrefax** · 20-11-2003, 03:17 PM

Originally posted by Nox
what colour are they? i think that is something very important you missed off the spec and you should take into consideration.

Nox

true enough mate - MSI mobo's are usually a particularly pleasing shade of red PCB

if you couple this with a crucial 9700 and some kingmax RAM you've got a fairly red interior to your rig

*NB - not a lot of use without a side window

**Galant** · 20-11-2003, 06:37 PM

Ya...colour.....don't care really. This being my first build, and not caring about it being too stylish, it could be pea-green with brown bits for all I care.

Owing to the 'words of encouragement' of a friend, "Yeah, can be a bit complex our Aenon, but it's always nice to have the happy feeling that your computer does indeed have good quality components in it. Even though it doesn't actually work!" ... all I really care about is that the darn thing works, without too much hassle, so that I don't have to dissassemble the whole thing, offer cheap parts to you lot, and then bog off to Dell with my tail between my legs!!

I mean, all I want to do is get a decent PC at the cheapest price possible, and whilst I don't mind a little work, I'd rather avoid troubleshooting hell.

**chrisf6969** · 20-11-2003, 07:17 PM

that price should be easy to do. I'm about to built another 3Ghz++ (OC'd) P4 rig with WinXP home ($98) included for about $800

**Galant** · 20-11-2003, 07:21 PM

Care to drop a few details. I'd like to see that. Really.

??

**Galant** · 20-11-2003, 08:56 PM

...

**Galant** · 20-11-2003, 11:09 PM

$19.99 (13 or 14 quid) for Nexcom to test my $114 mobo before they ship it.

Is it worth it?

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