I successfully built my first PC 1 month ago with an Asus A8N-E. It is much more stable than the 5 year-old pre-built ACER Intel system that my girlfriend is using and when she tried my PC, she discovered the performance difference. I have been asked to build her a PC.
Basically, she wants the same set-up but with a smaller form factor.
Stablity is the key issue since the ACER hangs all the time, even when the PC is idle!! She also finds the startup speed much faster and PC is also much less noisy than hers (which I have to say is REAL loud). The new PC will be used mainly for a) internet browsing with video streaming, b) watching video and listening to audio with a little bit of encoding, c) photo viewing, d) minimal word-processing, pretty much in that order. She would also like a smaller form factor to save space, prefering a less prominent PC case.
So, I figure I can pretty much use the same components but switch to a mATX mobo, and thus smaller case. I can also drop the video card since there will be no gaming on this rig.
I'm also pretty much thinking of going with Nvidia chipsets since I am having good experience with mine.
With all this in mind, I am now thinking of going with one of the following:
1) MSI K8NGM2-NBP (my first choice was the MSI K8NGM2-FID but it seems to have been replaced with this one)
2) Asus A8N-VM CSM or A8N-VM (wondering if the initial problems have been ironed out).
3) AsRock 939NF4G-SATA2 (not alot of comments online, but quite a bit cheaper than the other 2)
Other components:
Asus A8N-E
AMD 64 3200+
Corsair Value Select 512M x 2
WD SATA II 200M
Lite-on 165P6S
CoolerMaster Centurion Micro with 380W PSU
Any other suggestions for motherboard?
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