ideas for amd boards with solid capacitors?

[midnight growler]

Well I'm in the planning stages for a new system and I've decided to go with a Phenom II quad core cpu. However I'm still undecided on choosing AM2+ or AM3. With prices of cpus and memory of the two options being pretty close, its coming down to the motherboard choices to make the decision.

I could use help on deciding the chipset though. I'm probably going to get an ati 4870 for the vid card. I'm not going to need crossfire or RAID. I'm also not interested in overclocking the cpu or memory.

So basically I'm looking for a basic but reliable Phenom II board, with the one catch being solid capacitors. As I understand it, solid aluminum caps resist heat far better and longer than do liquid electrolyte caps. And as I plan for this build to last me for a few years, this durability seems to be a very important feature for me.

So what are your opinions? I'd like recommendations on both AM2+ and AM3 boards to see where I'd be at price-difference wise.

 

[Sylvanas]

'Solid caps' is primarily a marketing tactic so don't get too caught up with it. What is your budget? Depending on budget you will be looking at the 790X/FX chipsets. For high end AM3 the talk of the town is the MSI GD70 while the midrange has a few more options, Giga's 790x and 790GX board well established boards/Bios/support here is with MSI,DFI, Asus, Foxconn, Biostar- YMMV though and you can't go wrong with either.

AM2+ there is a wide selection, I recently got down to overclocking P2 955 on my DFI 790FXb- M2RSH board and it very pleasing board- DFI have been renowed for their overclocking centric boards in the past. The other option is perhaps the Foxconn board which can be had with a $85 rebate at Newegg but you are still paying $209 up front- the Asus board is overpriced and not worth considering. For a smaller budget the 790GX boards are the way to go, and all the common offenders are present here again.

 

[midnight growler]

Interesting about the solid caps. I've been searching all over the place for an in-depth look at them, but to no avail.

It'll be awhile before I've saved up enough money to finally pull the trigger and start buying. When that happens, I'll probably just go for the 790 board with the best combo deal.

Thanks for your help

 

[Rifter]

Solid caps are worth it if you want to keepo the mobo for 5+ years. Otherwise it doesnt really matter but since almost all of the good mobo's have solid caps anyways its really a moot point. I have seen many bad non-solid caps over the years and have yet to see a solid cap blow, however since solid caps have only been popular for the last few years time will tell.

 

[Operandi]

The primary difference between solid and electrolytic capacitors is building solid caps is more expensive so there isn't really a market for low quality/cheap solid caps so if your board has solid caps that pretty much ='s high quality right there.

Having said that however high quality electrolytic caps (Rubycon, Panasonic) have specs that equal or exceed solid caps and will last for a very long time assuming you don't kill them with heat.