Gigabyte or MSI?

[Srotten]

Looking for opinions of people with experience with either company's boards (MSI or Gigabyte) for the P45 Chipset. I want to OC a Q9450 to 3GHz. Any memory suggestions are welcome as well.

 

[Sylvanas]

Gary Key (AT writer, has access to alot of boards) mentioned in a thread a week or two ago that he like the MSI Neo3 FR in terms of P45 boards. I have had only good experiences with MSI boards and will be buying them in the future. I do not have much experience with Giga boards but many users on this forum do so no doubt they will chime in with their 2c.

 

[Joeydubbs]

Any red flags with this p43 board? Some low budget equipment can be horrible...MSI budget board are reliable?

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
Gary Key (AT writer, has access to alot of boards) mentioned in a thread a week or two ago that he like the MSI Neo3 FR in terms of P45 boards. I have had only good experiences with MSI boards and will be buying them in the future. I do not have much experience with Giga boards but many users on this forum do so no doubt they will chime in with their 2c.

 

[starfireone]

Gigabyte boards are extremly reliable. I have been using them for years and have been very happy with their performance as well as their good driver support. I have always found there support for drivers on there website to be up to date. Especially there constant BIOS updates for the newest technology and CPU support. I continue to buy Gigbyte boards for my customer builds.

 

[Gary Key]

MSI is fine at the low end with the Neo Series if high overclocks are not a priority, the P43 is a P45 basically, only noticeable difference is OC being limited to around 400~415FSB. Gigabyte is also very good on the low end as is Biostar. The new mid-range ASUS P45 boards are much better than the P35 series they had, they have caught up if not passed Gigabyte now in that $125~$150 range, as has Biostar. I would buy based on the features you need, even ASRock is doing well with the new chipsets now.