Quick question...

[Mrvile]

Since Lian-Li's V1000B is a btx case (with the motherboard mounted upside down), will the XP-120 still fit in it? Thanks.

 

[Mrvile]

I looked up some reviews for this beast, hoping to find some pics of one installed on a motherboard, and came upon this. In the shots he's using an MSI K8N Neo Platinum. I like how MSI K8N boards are set up, with the CPU placed closer to the middle so the heat sink doesn't hang over the sides. With boards like Asus's A8V, the CPU is located more towards the edge so the big heatpipes and whatnot on the XP120 might hang over the edge of the board.

Looks like I'll be getting the K8N Neo2 Plat. I don't know how he was able to get the RAM installed back into the board after installing the heat sink though, looks like a tight squeeze.

 

[akira34]

MSI is ALWAYS a good choice when it comes to a mobo... I have the MSI Neo Platinum mobo and it's been great. When I do my next processor upgrade (probably the end of 05 or early 06) I'll be looking to get another MSI board. I used to swear by giga-byte boards, now I swear at them and stand by MSI...

BTW, I don't know of any other mobo maker out there that has a 3 year warranty on their boards in the same price range as MSI does. That alone makes it worth it... 3 years on the processor and mobo makes for happy upgrades.

 

[Mrvile]

Cool heh. Gigabyte makes good boards but their competitive one right now is like 200+ bucks so.

 

[akira34]

I've used both brands and I can tell you, MSI's support is 10000x better. I was actually able to get a hold of them when setting up my current system and they sent me some extra items to use when setting up the system (SATA drivers since I was installing to the booting SATA RAID). I've kept that spare disk and just use those whenever I setup a system build using that mobo. I've tried giga-byte support before and (as I already noted) they were not even close to as good, or fast, when getting back to me. Granted, I'm not one that asks the easy to answer questions. More like the one that tries all the typical fixes, looks online, tries those, digs some more and then gives them REAL issues.