Mobo comparison Shuttle AK35GT2 vs. MSI KT3 Ultra2

[MonkeyK]

I like the look of both of these boards. The Shuttle has a lot of recommendations and better on-board sound (CMI 8738 vs. ALC650 on MSI), but the MSI KT3 Ultra2 has USB 2.0. I don't need to overclock.

What do you all think about these boards? Also how does the on-board sound compare to my Turtle Beach Montego? Would either of them blow me away by comparison anyway?

 

[MonkeyK]

I can't believe that noone has an opinion on this... These are both second revision boards, which should beg for comparisons of who corrected issues better. They are also about the same price (Shuttle - 74 + 8 shipping, MSI 85 + 4 shipping at newegg).

 

[glenn1]

What do you all think about these boards? Also how does the on-board sound compare to my Turtle Beach Montego? Would either of them blow me away by comparison anyway?

Sound will probably depend on your speakers more than anything. If you're using a Montenegro now, you probably have low to mid-end speakers and aren't an audio afficianado. I doubt you'd think onboard sound, be it AC97 or 6-channel, to be a vast improvement... i'd say you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference.

As far as which board of these two is better for non-overclocked applications, i'd say they'd be even. I currently own an MSI myself, but i'd say the sixth PCI slot on the Shuttle, and that the Shuttle has an Award BIOS rather than the AMI on the MSI, tilts the balance in favor of the Shuttle board.

Personally, if i was looking into a KT333 to replace my KT266A, i'd probably go with the Soltek SL-75DRV5 "Purple Ray," but that's just my opinion.

 

[woodcomp]

I have the MSI board and like it extremely well. I took my Audigy card out and am using the onboard audio with the only difference I can tell of is the fact that I have allot of my system resources back that the Audigy was using. And yes I use very good Yamaha speakers. I opted for the raid version to have the extra IDE channels. I do not hesitate to recommend the MSI board.

 

[LurkingInNC]

I know nothing about sound, but...

pretty sure I saw one reviewer of kt333 MB's (maybe Toms, maybe AT?) state that they liked ALC650 sound better than CMI8738. Is there really much of a difference?

 

[Scootin159]

Originally posted by: LurkingInNC
I know nothing about sound, but...

pretty sure I saw one reviewer of kt333 MB's (maybe Toms, maybe AT?) state that they liked ALC650 sound better than CMI8738. Is there really much of a difference?

That was anand's review....he used some sound testing machine.

 

[SunnyD]

I will never, ever in my life buy another MSI product again. Their customer service sucks, I got a flakey board that died originally, I RMA'd it, they said it tested just fine and said they were returning it, I ended up with not the original board (serial numbers didn't match up), I sold the board that was returned to me on FS/FT, and the poor guy has had nothing but fits with it (it's probably dead too).

With that aside, I can say that I have 2 AK35GT2's, as well as a Shuttle SV24 barebones, and all are running perfectly out of the box. The audio quality on the GT2's is nice - it's certainly not Audigy quality, but it's not crappy either (more bass, less trebble on it), and it doesn't cause as many problems with resources as the Audigy either. It's fast, stable, and really really nice.

As far as I can tell, the only thing the MSI boards have going for them is that they're RED.

There's my 2 cents.

 

[jaeger66]

The original KT3 Ultra was a great board, the Ultra2 just replaces the 8233A south bridge with the newer 8235. I wouldn't even consider Shuttle.