ADVICE! HELP! $450 WHAT TO GET?!

[wtcnbrwndo4u]

Originally Posted by Quakindude

I'd go with the ASRock board over that Asus one. I've never even heard of VIA's Delta-Chrome video before. Between the two, the ASRock board is the one I'd pick.

That is true, the nVidia chipset is probably much better. But ASRock = Asus's budget company. Same dealio.

[Dr. V]

yea i was wondering because of that if the quality loss would bt much of an issue. "budget"...in any case that seems to be the clear choice.

[Capper]

People get an image of a company in their mind, and then never change it.....companies like ECS, Foxconn, and other will always battle that image of being a serious budget solution.
People also look at budget memory and think its crap, the truth of the matter is that most budget memory works just fine, and when using a divider, it really makes no difference

[Dr. V]

Originally Posted by Capper

People get an image of a company in their mind, and then never change it.....companies like ECS, Foxconn, and other will always battle that image of being a serious budget solution.
People also look at budget memory and think its crap, the truth of the matter is that most budget memory works just fine, and when using a divider, it really makes no difference

this is definitely true - which is why boards like gigabyte and MSI dont get enough credit although both companies have extremely reputable products.

[Tyreal]

I agree. MSI is a great company but I know alot of people that, when they hear "MSI" they think of a big company that makes crap or budget boards. I have an MSI K8N Neo4/SLI and I absolutely love it. The board is rock solid and is an awesome overclocker.

[Capper]

I'm middle of the road on MSI. I think their boards are very nice, but the support is poor. I've used, and very much liked some of their s939 boards, only to see them disappear of their support page 4 months after release, meaning no BIOS updates or anything.

[Quakindude]

I've been the victim of both a bad MSI board and a bad Asus board. To be quite frank with you, neither company ponied up the tech support or the customer support that you would think they would have based on their market share in the Non-Intel made motherboard arena.

That being said, I still have an Asus s754 mobo that works fine, and a MSI s939, currently running my AMD rig, that works great. The MSI board had longer than expected support and is currently running a X2 4800+ CPU which required a Bios update prior to using.

The only reason I went with eVGA's 680i board is because I was sick and tired of Asus's lack of customer support. I had an issue with a 590 SLI board I had bought, and the 680i's were due out any day, and Asus told me they had strictly limited support for the 590 SLI chipset. I was like WTF? I just paid $249 for a mobo that you guys are now supporting on a limited scale and the 680i's aren't even out yet? Fine, I'll return the POS. The rep on the phone with me told me that would probably be best!

eVGA, while fairly new to the mobo scene, is doing a great job of customer support and keeps the information flowing to their customers. And they are considered a "budget" mobo maker. So I have no problems going with a "budget" manufacturer, especially when they have outstanding customer support and a great warranty.

[One4yu2c]

I'm a big MSI fan as of the last couple of years - they're just churning out some damn good motherboards. I did kill one in the past accidentally gouging the motherboard when removing the backplate, but the online easy RMA process had a replacement in my hands in a couple of weeks.

[Dr. V]

Originally Posted by Quakindude

I've been the victim of both a bad MSI board and a bad Asus board. To be quite frank with you, neither company ponied up the tech support or the customer support that you would think they would have based on their market share in the Non-Intel made motherboard arena.

That being said, I still have an Asus s754 mobo that works fine, and a MSI s939, currently running my AMD rig, that works great. The MSI board had longer than expected support and is currently running a X2 4800+ CPU which required a Bios update prior to using.

The only reason I went with eVGA's 680i board is because I was sick and tired of Asus's lack of customer support. I had an issue with a 590 SLI board I had bought, and the 680i's were due out any day, and Asus told me they had strictly limited support for the 590 SLI chipset. I was like WTF? I just paid $249 for a mobo that you guys are now supporting on a limited scale and the 680i's aren't even out yet? Fine, I'll return the POS. The rep on the phone with me told me that would probably be best!

eVGA, while fairly new to the mobo scene, is doing a great job of customer support and keeps the information flowing to their customers. And they are considered a "budget" mobo maker. So I have no problems going with a "budget" manufacturer, especially when they have outstanding customer support and a great warranty.

know where ur coming from and agree.

[Quakindude]

Originally Posted by One4yu2c

I'm a big MSI fan as of the last couple of years - they're just churning out some damn good motherboards. I did kill one in the past accidentally gouging the motherboard when removing the backplate, but the online easy RMA process had a replacement in my hands in a couple of weeks.

My AMD rig has a MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum edition mobo. The first one I got just stopped working about 4 months after I built it. MSI was, at first, reluctant to replace it. I had to jump through a lot of hoops before I finally got to a rep that understood I knew what I was talking about. Then, it was a matter of about 10 business days till I got my new one. They wouldn't cross-ship, even if I bought one out-right from them and then they give me a credit once they received my bad mobo. This second board has been running non-stop for the last couple of years with no problems at all. It's been a great over-clocker, the upgrade path has been excellent since it's a s939 and the only reason it will eventually get replaced is 1. If it dies or 2. It gets to the point on not meeting our needs.

I have an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe that you couldn't pry from my hands with dynamite and a spatula. I will be building a networking/server box out of it here soon, once my wallet recovers from this last round of builds/upgrades.

Why am I saying all of this in this thread? It isn't to de-rail the O-P's topic, but to reinforce that the consumer should be well informed and knowledgeable about the products vs. the performance they expect when they spend their hard earned money. Just because the product may be reviewed as a budget option doesn't mean you get less performance for your dollars.

In this light, I hope that we here at HL can give the consumer the most knowledge for their purchasing decisions.