ASUS & DFI & MSI owners.

[cornholio2]

HOW'S YOUR MOTHERBOARD?

Things are getting crazy right now and I'm desperate on which mobo to get. "LOVE YOUR OWN" is a motto but we all know that you have bad experiences with your new mobo and wished you should have chosen a different one. Can you please share your wit on these 3 mobos in this crazy world of technology.
I'm planning on MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum(non SLI), ASUS A8n-SLI and DFI Ultra-D. I'm going to use AMD and I'm not into very confusing overclocking. Simple methods of overclocking is better. HOW'S YOUR MOTHERBOARD?........

 

[imported_Kensai]

Nothing wrong with my MSI boards.

 

[MatrixVPR]

All the new nForce boards have had their far share of issues and mine is no exception but my issues were minimal and I am very pleased with my MoBo. If you?re not an over clocker then I would recommend the Asus, if you think you might overclock in the future the DFI is much better overclocker than the Asus. The Asus is a rock at stock speeds. You can tell from my signature that I'm overclocked and I haven't had any issues since I built the board. I had power issues because I had the 20 PIN PSU instead of the standard 24 PIN 2.01. Many people had the same issues and it was fixed with a bios update. I don't think you would have the power issue I had since they probably don't ship the board with those older BIOS. Bottom line is that these boards are bleeding edge technology and sh!t is bound to happen till they can work out the bugs via BIOS updates. I personally think that the DFI is ugly and I?m into my case and all that mod stuff so just personal preference. No mater what board you pick your headed in the right direction with the nForce 4 chipset. Another thing i would like to add is the Asus has been out the longest and I think the likely hood of getting a DOA is slightly less, I'm just speculating though.

 

[cornholio2]

:thumbsup:

COOL! Somebody is pulling me towards ASUS here! Is the number of SATA the only difference between the STANDARD and DELUXE A8N-SLI? I'm planning to get the Standard.

 

[DfiDude]

So many damn problems with asus even at stock speeds...but i heard things are getting better becuz of bios updates. Msi has had problems too (a lot) to tired to list em out. Dfi gets a lot of stuff resolved through bios. You would be better of wit Dfi. Yes it is an oc'ing god but it owns at stock speeds too...If you see benchmarks Dfi comes mostly in first compared to asus and msi and gigabyte. If i were you i would get teh Dfi.

 

[cornholio2]

:shocked:

Yikes! Looks like DFI is knocking on the door. You haven't received your mobo yet, so how can you say that DFI is better than ASUS.
Which company has the longest term of building mobo?

 

[EndGame]

I've got both the Asus A8N-E and the DFI Ultra. The Ultra is fine if you're really into "tweaking" everything. From my expierience with both though, the Asus was a simpler setup and was rock solid from the word go installing and getting XP up and running. The DFI was not bad, just required more in depth setting up.

As far as overclocking, I'm not real big into it, but in my expiereince, they are both great at it. Both these boards benchmarked nearly equal at stock speeds, and at the overclocked settings with Win. 3200+.

If you're really into tweaking settings, the DFI is for you, if you simply want a straightforward solid board with plenty of bells and whistles for the normal user, get the Asus.

 

[cornholio2]

:thumbsup:


At last! Decision making is near, thanks for sharing. From the BIOS set-up of ASUS, you don't have to manually adjust each component to overclock. But there's a portion there wherein you can overclock it by just choosing a level and everything goes with it. Am I right?

 

[ohnnyj]

DFI for tweakers and overclockers.
ASUS for those who do not, but will have a rock solid system at stock speeds.

I have the ASUS and it has been running with no problems since December.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Originally posted by: Kensai
Nothing wrong with my MSI boards.

Yeah, I gotta say the MSi is extremely nice. Best of all worlds.

DFI is only slightly better at overclocking & ASUS isn't anymore stable than the MSI. Since you're here at Anandtech, see what they had to say about these boards:

SLI mobo roundup by Anandtech reviewers.

 

[cornholio2]

:frown:

SLI mobo roundup by Anandtech reviewers.

YUP! I read this review that MSI is second best to DFI. But, do you think MSI is more solid and stable than ASUS without talking the overclocking capabilities.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I got the ASUS in December and its great! I've tried my very best to break or blow this thing up and it just keeps on rockin. And contrary to what many beleive it is a great overclocker

The DFI has more overclocking tweaks, but they seem to have a bit of a quality control problem and have shipped quite a few damaged or DOA boards

If you are into extreme OC and want to run a phase change rig get the DFI because it supports the insane voltages required for this kind of OC, otherwize you can't beat the ASUS

If your sure your not into serious overclocking and don't need tons of HDD's dual GB lan, etc... and want to save some money you can pick up an entry level NF4 board for less than $100 from Chaintech, ECS, Foxconn, ect...

 

[cornholio2]

I won't include DFI to my list anymore since I don't overclock to the edge and the other thing on about DFI is that there's too much tweaking to do and very complicated. Unlike ASUS and MSI, just choose which level of overclocking you want and everything goes with it(in terms of CPU,RAM and VIDEOCARD). Right now, I'm down to ASUS A8N-SLI standard and MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum since they have small price difference.

 

[Metaphis]

Anyone had any experience with the A8N-E (Standard) I haven't seen any review and it by far the cheapest nf4 ultra MB I've seen. Only thing I would miss is the firewire but in fact I never used it with my current board.... As for dual Gigabit I don't see what use I could make of it since its not going to be a gateway. I only have 2 HD so I don't need 8 sata connectos. So really it seems the perfect fit for me. But since I haven't seen any review I was wondering if it was doing good? Any inputs?

 

[DfiDude]

If i were you i would go with the Msi. Asus is good but there are wayyyy to many problems and stuff, but a lot of people had success with it and like it. Msi is good overall board too very stable ive heard and great performance. Go wit the Msi my amigo.

 

[cornholio2]

:frown:

I wonder when they will release the A8N-E Premium.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I have a msi k8n neo4 platinum sitting on my dining room table. This is the 2nd board to go bad in a short time. I originally had it in my system and it was so terribly unstable that I had to rma it. While I was doing that I got a fatal1ty since that is what I really wanted in the first place but it wasn't available when I built my system. Well I got the 2nd neo4 and it lasted a week before it started refusing to boot. Well I replaced it with a dfi lanparty ultra-d that works great without any of the problems of the msi. I've still got to send the neo4 back except this time I'm going to try to get a refund from zzf since that is where I got it from in the first place. My advice to you is to stay far away from msi. If you've got the money get the abit otherwise get the ultra-d.

 

[Sylvanas]

Im very pleased with my DFI, if you want to overclock this is the board!

 

[ohnnyj]

Originally posted by: DfiDude
If i were you i would go with the Msi. Asus is good but there are wayyyy to many problems and stuff, but a lot of people had success with it and like it. Msi is good overall board too very stable ive heard and great performance. Go wit the Msi my amigo.

This is all relative. Many more probably own the ASUS as it was out a good month or two before the others. With SLI being so new and this the only board out at the time many people jumped in. However, again, with SLI being so new many people most likely had inadequate systems to handle it (read: PSU mostly) and so of course there is going to be problems. Now that the other boards are out, people are posting about the problems they are having as well.

 

[ohnnyj]

Originally posted by: Metaphis
Anyone had any experience with the A8N-E (Standard) I haven't seen any review and it by far the cheapest nf4 ultra MB I've seen. Only thing I would miss is the firewire but in fact I never used it with my current board.... As for dual Gigabit I don't see what use I could make of it since its not going to be a gateway. I only have 2 HD so I don't need 8 sata connectos. So really it seems the perfect fit for me. But since I haven't seen any review I was wondering if it was doing good? Any inputs?

Don't have experience w/the board myself but it sounds like a decent budget mobo that would suit you well at stock speeds (ASUS boards are known for their stability). You could always get an add-in card for firewire.

 

[Promethply]

Have been quite content with my ASUS A8N-SLI running the AMD64 stably, whether at stock speed (2200MHz), or overclocked (2585MHz @235FSB) at default voltage, for three months.

 

[housecat]

read this http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=29&threadid=1546911&enterthread=y

if you are planning on ANY overclocking, i'd go with the DFI for that reason alone.. just simpler and easier to deal with.


and do not be scared of the breadth of bios options on the DFI.. thats called being a damn noob.
get your hands dirty man.


that said, if you are sure you are always going to run stock, or within 1.55vcore, then stick with MSI/Asus. Either should do you good.

I'd recommend the Asus though. MSI makes junk boards IMO traditionally. They have a decent one here though for the NF4.

The DFI is IMO the best. But you are going ot have to decide that.

My Asus was a great board.. and being the largest manufacturer by FAR.. you have good support and quality.
DFI took care of my DOA exceptionally.
Fast, paid for return shipping.. just awesome.

Asus and DFI :thumbsup:

all others :thumbsdown:

 

[DfiDude]

Lets just say that if you know how to put parts together and get good stuff for your comp, then you will have a trouble free motherboard

 

[Waylay00]

Not necessarily, as not all probelms are user related.

 

[DfiDude]

Originally posted by: Waylay00
Not necessarily, as not all probelms are user related.

I agree.