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Please Recommend a Micro ATX mobo

G

galbicake

Senior member
Thinking about a Socket 939.

Which brand boards should I get and which ones should I stay away from?

I am looking at newegg. If anyone can recommend a better deal, I am all ears (and eyes)...

Thanks!
 
If you want to overclock with your matx rig,

get a DFI RS482.

If you just want something stable and functional with decent onboard features get

Asus A8N-VM CSM or MSI K8NG2M FID, the 6150 chipset boards.

 
I just built my wife an matx rig with the Biostar Tforce 6100 939 and I love it so far. It has the best O/C options I've seen on an matx board, I easily o/c'd an X2 3800+ to 2.55ghz, hard to beat for $69

The cons,
No firewire, only 2 sata, only 10/100 onboard nic (I used a wireless card so this didn't matter to me)
 
Ditto on the Biostar Tforce 6100 939 I have had one running rock solid for nearly 6 months with my X2 3800 ...good value.
 
MSI K8NGM2-FID
See this thread. Lots of features.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=29&threadid=1803985&enterthread=y

The Biostar M9 is very popular but MSI has better feature set. A hair better chipset and firewire and DVI (instead of D-sub for M9). The MSI also has SB heatsink from factory but Biostar does not. The MSI on-board audio is 8-channel while Biostar is 6. I think the M9 offer better OC in bios though. Both are known to be stable.

Also, I would avoid ATI RS480/482 chipset. Not good rept in USB performance.
 
Found this deal

Please give me your thoughts on this.

To give the bigger picture, I just bought a Ultra Microfly case. Goal is to make a HTPC. Only other part I have is the PSU a two sticks of 256mb DDR.

 
Originally posted by: galbicake
Found this deal

Please give me your thoughts on this.

To give the bigger picture, I just bought a Ultra Microfly case. Goal is to make a HTPC. Only other part I have is the PSU a two sticks of 256mb DDR.
Click to expand...

Wow! Thats a very hot deal
 
That's hot deal. If you get the rebate 🙂
TD does have bad rept for rebate not coming. Read at fatwallet.com.
Watch out and know your risk if you wanna try the deal.
 
Originally posted by: galbicake
Found this deal
Click to expand...

The Biostar Geforce6100-M9 is a pretty basic board with probably really basic overclocking. That "deal" is risky because it's a $110 Tiger Direct rebate.

For your HTPC do you already have a PCI-E video card? If not, do you need TV out? Keep those in mind before buying a board.

To chime in, I also have a Biostar Tforce6100-939. It is running in my gaming rig with an Opteron 144 at 2.7GHz. Other socket 939 overclocking options are the EPoX Geforce6100 chipset board, the previously mentioned DFI board, the Biostar Geforce6100-M9 board and a Jetway board with the ATI IGP chipset. I consider "overclocking options" to be HTT adjustments and vcore, and likely to hit or exceed 250MHz HTT. Some of these have been known to hit or exceed 300MHz HTT.

Of course the OP may not even want or need to overclock.
 
I am not experienced enough to OC.

I am thinking about jumping in on a PCI-E card. Geforce 7900 for $120 AR. Actually, I may put that card into my PC rig and move my Radeon x800 to this HTPC.

Kind of struggling between having this set up as something beyond a HTPC. If I stay with HTPC, I may not even need a separate video card...

Thoughts?

 
As an HTPC if you get a board with a video output that your TV accepts, then you don't need a separate video card unless you want to use one of those features that GPU makers claim will benefit video playback. Nvidia has "PureVideo" and ATI has "Avivo." Of course you can do some post processing using FFDSHOW.
 
Not sure if you got that deal yet - expires today it says. I bought that combo for my 4 year old HTPC as an upgrade and love it. I even overclocked the A64-3200 to 2500 (250 X 10) and it works great. I bought an MSI 7300GS Nvidia for TV out. However I soon upgraded my TV to a plasma with VGA & DMI ports and really in the end did not need the 7300GS since the onboard video was fine. Sound is OK too - just use latest driver. You need an addon card for SPDIF out I have the card and it works fine. Excellent buy - first time for me with a Biostar and man this board is stable (even better than all these so call cream of the crop Asus boards I have)
 
Originally posted by: galbicake
I am not experienced enough to OC.

I am thinking about jumping in on a PCI-E card. Geforce 7900 for $120 AR. Actually, I may put that card into my PC rig and move my Radeon x800 to this HTPC.

Kind of struggling between having this set up as something beyond a HTPC. If I stay with HTPC, I may not even need a separate video card...

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

galbicake,
what did you finally do? I'm thinking of building my wife a new pc and going with a microATX board.

anyone else, how is the ASUS M2NPV-VM?
 
I purchased the mobo discussed on this thread. However, I have been having problems with the boot. It needs the XP CD to boot the OS properly. I am seeking some guidance in the mobo forums.

I haven't had a chance to work on it in a while but the mobo seems okay.
 
Temp is not an issue, it runs fine (30c's?). I have a pretty good after market 939 HSF on it. I have this placed into an Ultra Microfly Case. Space is pretty tight. The one thing is that they made the case easy to access parts around the mobo & even slide out the mobo. The reason why I got this case was that it was on sale and that it fits a normal PSU into it.

I have an RMAed Antec 350W PSU in it. My concern is more on the PSU. This should not tax the PSU that much. I did put my old Radeon X800 in it as well. But the PSU doesn't blow air out that hard. It is evident if I place my hand over the fan and it just feels like hot air is rising out of it rather than blowing out. I think that is the reason why it died on me the first time, the capacitors melted out ooze.

The one thing I have noticed is that it is not read all of the RAM I stuck in there. I have 2 sticks of 256mb Kingstons and 1 stick of 512mb Ultra. The system is only reading 512 out of the possible 1gb. I think this is more attributed to my ignorance when it comes to setting up RAM and dual channels...(help?)

Like I said before, I haven't really worked on it in a while and set it up properly but here is my experience so far.
 
Another thing about the temp.

The microfly case is set up pretty good in terms of air flow. It has a 120mm fan in the back and it has I think a 80mm fan in the front. Those things suck it out very well. People have said the Ultra Microfly case is a replica of another popular micro atx case, I can't recall which one though.

These are definately not Shuttles though. The case is pretty big compared to some of the Shuttle cases out there. I think it is about 1/3 bigger than one of the Shuttle models out there.

 
Aspire/Apevia X-Qpack is nearly the same chassis, a bit shorter and available in more and brighter colors. Also, Chenming model 118 (will be 119-AL-something).
 
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