MSI K8T NEO vs. MSI K8N NEO

[mistam]

Hi all,

I'm just about to purchase a new AMD motherboard for my shiny new Athlon 64 3200.

I've been reading alot on the various Socket 754 motherboards over the past couple of weeks, and have narrowed it down two boards (3 if you read on)..

MSI K8T NEO (VIA)
MSI K8N NEO (nForce3)

I'm wondering - what is the major difference between these two boards.. what do the diffeent chipsets bring to the table? The nForce board is about AUD$30 more expensive, so what, if anything, makes it better than the K8T? (BTW, I currently have an MSI VIA-based motherboard and haven't had any trouble with is over the past couple of years).

Also, I did strongly consider, and still am, an Asus K8V SE Deluxe, but at the last minute read quite a few posts (alot in this very forum http://forums.anandtech.com/me...key=y&keyword1=k8v and some elsewhere) of people having quite a bit of trouble with the Asus. I realise we usually hear only about the bad... but I'm wondering if an Asus would be better than both those MSI boards? I'm not a huge overclocker, might want to dabble a little, I just want the best performance out of the box I can get.

Thoughts on both subject appreciated peeps. Thanks!

P.S. In case it helps, I use my PC 40% DAW (digital audio workstation), 40% gaming machine and the rest for general crap.

 

[daveoliver]

I'm sure I've recently read that the K8T had some issues, but that the K8N with the nForce3 is fine. Will try and find where it was and post the url(s).

EDIT:
Got it:
http://forums.firingsquad.com/...e&message.id=12895

See Trogdor's (Jarred Walton @ Anandtech) comments.

However, over here http://www.spodesabode.com/content/article/a64roundup they prefer the K8T unless you're an overclocker.

Anyway, I'm probably getting the K8N with the Nvidia chipset as I'll be using one of the Nvidia graphics cards (which perform slightly better with this chipset than the Via one).