which of these motherboards

[sstovall3]

i have narrowed my motherboard selections to:
ASUS A8N-SLI PREMIUM and the MSI K8N NEO4 PLATINUM/SLI.
any experiences that would be helpful with my final selection would
be appreciated.

tia

 

[Ruel Smith]

i have narrowed my motherboard selections to:
ASUS A8N-SLI PREMIUM and the MSI K8N NEO4 PLATINUM/SLI.
any experiences that would be helpful with my final selection would
be appreciated.

I have experience with both Asus and MSI motherboards. They're both great.
Asus is top dog in quality, but MSI boards are usually more feature-laden
for the money, with that particular board having onboard Creative
Soundblaster Live! 24bit 7.1 channel sound. Though not as good as a separate
card, it's certainly a plus compared to Realtek and CMedia offerings you
usually get.

One thing to consider is that MSI's current SLI boards have a problem with
the new 7800 series nVidia graphics cards because they are longer than the
previous models. Apparently, there are some capacitors in the way of using
the new cards. This could be a decision maker/breaker for you.

 

[sstovall3]

Thanks Ruel, I am taking your advice and building my own, you also
said just come here and ask, so I will be in here asking dumb
questions for the next few weeks. I did not miss the onboard
soundblaster for the MSI, I intend using an external extigy which I
have connected to my notebook. I missed the bit about the length of
the 7800's but I am going with a single 6800 ultra on this one for the
first year. As soon as I can settle on memory I will post a list of
components I have decided on to see if I have made any potentially
fatal errors
Thanks...SS

 

[Ruel Smith]

Thanks Ruel, I am taking your advice and building my own, you also
said just come here and ask, so I will be in here asking dumb
questions for the next few weeks. I did not miss the onboard
soundblaster for the MSI, I intend using an external extigy which I
have connected to my notebook. I missed the bit about the length of
the 7800's but I am going with a single 6800 ultra on this one for the
first year. As soon as I can settle on memory I will post a list of
components I have decided on to see if I have made any potentially
fatal errors

But keep in mind, you might want a newer graphics card for it in the future,
and the MSI board could be a limitation. Just because you're going to use a
certain setup now doesn't mean that won't change down the line.

 

[sstovall3]

Thanks Ruel, I failed to mention in the previous post that I am going
with the ASUS.

 

[Russell S]

If you've decided on the Asus A8N-SLI Premium, make sure that you use memory
officially determined by Asus to work with this MOBO...a LOT of folks with
this board have POST/stability issues using memory configurations not tested
by Asus. Go to the Asus web site and go to their forum for this board to
read more. Good luck in your system build!

 

[sstovall3]

Thanks Russell, I ran my mobo thru the matrix at crucial and corsair
and looked at some of the memory they said would work with my mobo. I
will go to the Asus site and cross check before making a purchase, I
will be back here with my final choices asking for advice again anyway