OT: which mb?

[cakin]

for $59 newegg has what appear to be some decent refurb motherboards, which should I buy:

Gigabyte GA-7VRXP VIA KT333 5P1A3D RAID LAN
(what does the 5P1A3D mean?)

or the

MSI Motherboard for AMD Processors Model KT3 Ultra2(6380E-050)
( I already have spare ethernet cards)

any recommendations?

This will allow me to move 8KHA+'s to my rack.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: cakin
Gigabyte GA-7VRXP VIA KT333 5P1A3D RAID LAN
(what does the 5P1A3D mean?)

I like mine 🙂 I haven't had a lick of trouble with it. I'm not sure what all that stuff stands for.

The KT3 sounds like it is a decent board from what i've read too😀

CkG

Oh crap - I lied😛 I do have issues with the onboard sound(either drivers wouldn't stick- or it is just plain broke) - but i took care of that by putting a real sound card in there.

 

[tbates757]

out of those 2, personally I would go with MSI. never had any problems with them. for that price you could also get a refurbed abit KX7-333 or Asus A7V333

 

[Tetsuo316]

like tbates757 said, they also have the asus a7v333 refurb. asus makes very, very solid boards. if you really have to choose between one of the two you list, i'd recommend the gigabyte model. it performed very well in all the roundups i read. i even think anandtech recommended it.

 

[MoFunk]

I built a system not too long ago around the MSI KT3 and it has been rock solid for 4 months! It is a nice board.

 

[poopaskoopa]

I just bought the Gigabyte board you mentioned. I should have expected, and it was an impulse buy(i.e. didn't read everything), but I was somewhat disappointed when I received the board and nothing else. No driver, no nothing. When newegg sends you the board in a Fedex box, all you'll find in it is the board, the receipt, and some popcorn. It works fine. The layout is simple and labled sufficiently that I didn't need to read a manual(I know, that's a stupid thing to do, but this board replaced the one that was the server in my apt... 😀) to put it together. After having bought this board, my feeling of Socket A boards being all the same is once again reinforced. Sure, there're some extra features here and there, but mainly, I just plug in power switch wires to the board and pray that it works. They all do, and they all achieve 100+ frames per second on Q3 with the right chip and video cards. If I were an avid OC'er, it might make a difference to me, but if you're not, I'd just go with whichever's cheaper.

My guess on 5P1A3D is 5 PCI slots, 1 AGP slot and 3 DIMM slots. That's what you'll find on this board.

 

[Wellcky]

I have the KT3 after my Soyo Dragon went to $h!t. No probs sofar..

 

[GhettoFob]

I have the MSI mobo and it's been rock stable for me. It looks cool too! 🙂