AM2 Motherboard Choice

xenithon · Post by **xenithon** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 12:17 pm

Hi all. I have a limited choice of AM2 motherboards here in South Africa, and currently the following options:
- Asus M2N-E
- Asus M2N4-SLi
- Gigabyte GA-M55S-S3
- Gigabyte GA-M55SLI-S4
- Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4

Just wanted to ask for your suggestions and opinions on which would be the one to go for. Won't be overclocking, just need something solid and stable. Also, is there much difference/benefit between the nForce 4 SLi chipset and the nForce 550/570?

Cheers,
X

rei · Post by **rei** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:56 pm

wow, no one's weighed in yet.

they are both the same company now though. whichever one has more responsive technical support to s.a. would be my recommendation.

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 6:20 pm

I've been drooling over Gigabyte's M59S,which has every thing I can imagine. The M 55 S has a lot of that quality though misses some of the spiffy features. I'm no gamer-overclocker and would be thinking X2 3600 Brisbane,Ninja,a fairly frugal setup despite the top end mobo. By the time I am ready to buy something,the M 55 S is more apt to be the winner. None of these suck. I think mostly the M57 is the M55 with SLI

spookmineer · Post by **spookmineer** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 3:28 pm

Why are Asus and Gigabyte so popular? They are great, but there is more to choose from.

I've been looking at MSI K9N Diamond, there is a little bit of difference in heatsinks on the board. The Platinum (nForce 570) looks almost the same as the Gigabyte. Again, one heatsink is missing on the MSI, is this a big deal?

Then again, for the price it shouldn't be a problem, both manufacturers are prices the same. I vaguely recall Gigabyte having stability issues, so I discarded it a while ago. Maybe it's worth looking into again.

xenithon · Post by **xenithon** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 7:10 pm

Good the M57SLI - will install this weekend hopefully

spookmineer - Gigabyte trumps Asus in my books unless you are tooking the top of the range stuff. The lower-to-mid range staff it seems are increasingly being released or developed half-baked. RAM issues, stability etc. Giga are now known for out-of-the-box stability. Also I buy direct from the ditributors locally and can get those two brands, as well as a few others, but not MSI.

spookmineer · Post by **spookmineer** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:05 pm

Thanks for the update. I've had a Gigabyte motherboard before and never had a problem with it.

When I wanted to upgrade, I read a lot of reviews and at the time there seemed to be some issues, so I went with MSI.
Glad they are "back on track", I like the heatsinks on their boards (more robust then MSI's).

ShadowVlican · Post by **ShadowVlican** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:05 pm

maybe you can wait a while:
Anandtech's "AMD 690G: Performance Review"
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... spx?i=2942

seems to have lower power consumption than competing boards based upon nVidia's chipsets.... and we all know lower power consumption leads to easier quiet/silent systems