Legit Reviews

Hi guys out there, I am new here and have read some posting and did not find what I was looking for so here it is. My current system is running an 2.00 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 (3000+), K8NF6G-VSTA, 1gig RAM, and 940.19 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity.

I am looking to try and get a system with AMD processor, up to 4gig RAM, have 1 ide, 1 fdd, 4+ SATA on board with different drive NON-RAID [6 or 8 would be better ], at least 1xPCI1, 2xPCIe16, or more and 2xPCI slots.
optional ATI Video on board. I do edit video, play strategy games [C&C Decade Pack ], and Live TV recording.

ASUS or GIGABYTE preferable but I do use MSI boards .

I am looking at the GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H. It has all of the things I am looking for.

Just an updated note: I would like to be able to install and run Linux on this system. I have DVD of Ubuntu, OpenSuse v10.3, Fedora [waiting for v9.0 in 24 days], and Knopix. I want to test and run a Intranet at home. I do have a few older PC that I am trying to fix and install either RedHat/Fedora or OpenSuse on.

theres no way your gonna get 8 onboard sata ports, your gonna need an ad on card. as for the non raid thing a board that has raid doesnt have to use it. why amd?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 813130123R
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 813130119R
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 813131175R

martini161 wrote:why amd?

Excellent question. Intel has a more than comfortable performance lead right now and for the foreseeable future.

Well for One: I have always have better results with AMD products and I like the ATI Video cards . I do have an 2xSATA on board in this motherboard and 1xPCI-1 2xSATA controller that does support RAID and NON raid. I just wanted A motherboard that supported 4XSATA and the I could add others with the PCI-1 slots . At the time I purchased this board there was one the vender had the supported 4 but I did not have the money then. But I do need at least 4USB v2.0 ports I have them used on this PC.

This is what the Sheriff recommends in AMD+ATI boards -> All under $100 for the best bang for your dollar.


BIOSTAR A690G M2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 690G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813138107

ECS A740GM-M AM2+/AM2 AMD 740G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
* 6 SATA and 4Gb DDR2 800
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813135076

Now let's get serious ->

* 4 SATA and 32Gb DDR2 800 FSB 2600MHz Hyper Transport
ECS A770M-A AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813135069

GIGABYTE GA-MA74GM-S2H AM2+/AM2 AMD 740G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
* 6 SATA and 8GB DDR2 800
* Reviewed here at this site LR http://legitreviews.com/article/676/1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128328

ECS A780GM-A AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
* 5 SATA and 32Gb DDR2 1066/800 EXCELLENT !
* 2600MHz Hyper Transport
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813135075

Regretfully the MSI K9N Neo-F V.3 ATX AMD Motherboard has the heat sink in the way of adding another SATA board.
I really like this board MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital ATX AMD Motherboard and am leaning towards it.
The ASUS M2A-MVP ATX AMD Motherboard is a nice board but only if it also had onboard video minus the one pci-e 16 slot like the MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital.
The BIOSTAR A690G M2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 690G Micro ATX is a nice board but I think the MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital beats it with the extras.
I like the solid state capasiters on this board ECS A740GM-M.
The ECS A770M-A ATX has solid stat, and even the E-SATA port is nice and up to 32gig. The heat sink next to the pci-1 looks like it can't hold my pci-1 SATA cards . but most techs seem to not like this board because of reliability .
The GIGABYTE GA-MA74GM-S2H is nice but I don;t like the placement of the CD-IN connector.
This one ECS A780GM-A looks nice But what about ASUS people?

The MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital ATX that you are leaning towards has the older chipset series. It's still in the 600 level. The other boards I spoke up about are in the 700 series. Likewise the onboard graphics of the ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 is half baked on that MB. The 780G is the very first FULL BLOWN graphics integrated on a MB. So, why go backwards in technology?

Plus that board has a slower HyperTransport and is limited to only X1 and X2 processors. The ECS boards with the 780G chipset can run X1, X2, X3 (tri-core B3 level when they are ready) and X4 (quads B3 level).

As for ASUS, they are not my preferred option to run with. Their 780G MB with graphics is this,
ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131273

It will be very hard to find a MB that meets every one of your needs. Getting a board to do even 90% sometimes is a chore.

You can start looking at the above $100 limit, but those boards get pricey for the little extra they offer.

There are really six AMD+ATI Series 700 chipset with full integrated graphics offered on the Egg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... e=AMD+780G

Thanks for the like to the AMD+ATI Series 700 chipset motherboards . I updated my first posting.
I now am liking after reading customers reviews about some having trouble loading Linux on some and am wondering about other suggestions for boards that can run Fedora, OpenSuse and more.