What's a good AM2 motherboard these days?

[MDesigner]

ASUS quality is down.. WAYY down. I think their last great motherboard was the A2N32-SLI Deluxe. My cousin bought an M2N-SLI (I forget if it's Deluxe or not) and it sucks. ASUS put *ALL* the USB headers on the same hub, so once he plugs in his Creative Live External 24-bit audio, and plugs in another device, the audio starts wigging out. I opened the machine and tried to plug the front USB into every possible USB header on the motherboard.. it was all the same damn hub in the device manager, yet there was one hub that said "10 ports available" that apparently is completely unused. Nice one.

So I'm wondering what a good brand is these days for socket AM2? I'm looking for solid quality.. and good support as well. Any recommendations? Because I'm getting the feeling ASUS isn't it.

 

[chucky2]

I've been really happy with how the reviews and consumer opinion on the Gigabyte boards are going...I bought their full ATX 690G board (3 of them actually) based on the amount of features and quality of components.

Only quibble I have with them is putting the TI (not VIA, which is significant IMHO ((6/20 edit)) in that TI > VIA) firewire chip and the 10/100/1000 Realtek chip on the PCI bus, instead of the PCIe bus.

I'm wondering though if that's because they included a PCIe x4 slot on the board along with the three other PCIe x1 slots and the single PCIe x16 slot, and ran out of PCIe lanes the chipset would support. If that's the case, I'd rather them had dropped a PCIe x1 slot or two and put those two chips on the PCIe bus.

Other than that, it's a great board so far.

Chuck

 

[MDesigner]

Noted. Thanks.

What happened to Soltek? I had one board from them a while ago, it was SOLID.

Any other recommendations for good motherboard manufacturers?

 

[chucky2]

No idea what happened to Soltek...as far as I know their still around, but I really haven't looked for news on them either way.

Chuck

 

[Heidfirst]

think that they have gone - the http://www.soltek.com.tw/ site appears to be gone & the soltek.de site (European hq ) is advertising Computex 2005 ....

 

[NXIL]

I have been very happy with my Tyan (sckt 939) motherboard. (I notice the "Tyan = no support" sig above....I haven't needed support, so I can't comment....)

Here are two "server class" Tyan AM2 boards:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...1062%2CN82E16813151063

AM2 boards with good customer ratings at Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...5&bop=And&Order=RATING

This Gigabyte boards looks good:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128034

MSI:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813130057

MSI, solid reviews:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813130065

Biostar: have had good luck with them:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813138074

Another:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813138077

So, would recommend Tyan (most expensive), Gigabyte, MSI, Biostar, in that order; they are all good.

Asus AM2 boards: quality issues, because the socket 775 boards for Conroe are selling better, therefore they get more resources?

HTH,

NXIL

PS: Soltek: never had US distributor, sold a lot through Newegg, but, I think they left US market....but, Google search doesn't turn up much about it....

 

[chucky2]

Oh, I'll be the first to say that my Tyan boards were stable, and that's saying a lot because Tyan made VIA's MVP3 handle whatever I could throw at it, at that really is saying a lot.

However...

...after buying a $150 motherboard (back in like 1999 or whatever, that was a good chunk to spend on a regular desktop board), you except good support, especially when we're talking a rep like Tyan is supposed to have.

The support I got on the few issues I did report on those boards was pretty much nonexistant. Telling me the board and/or chipset was FUBAR and they couldn't do anything for me would have been better than they handled it.

So, that's why I keep Tyan = No Support in my sig.

They did so much to help me out, now I'm doing the same...seems very fair to me.

Chuck

 

[montypythizzle]

I have the Gigabyte M61P-S3 as posted in NXIL's post, and it is a pretty good overclocker.
OCd my 3600 Brisbane to 2.7 with no extra volts, 800mhz with no extra volts is pretty good.

 

[yehuda]

I've been really happy with how the reviews and consumer opinion on the Gigabyte boards are going...I bought their full ATX 690G board (3 of them actually) based on the amount of features and quality of components.

So, chucky2, how's the onboard audio so far? Does it feel anywhere close to the advertised 106dB SNR?

Only quibble I have with them is putting the TI firewire chip and the 10/100/1000 Realtek chip on the PCI bus, instead of the PCIe bus.

All onboard firewire is PCI these days. It's the PCI LAN that really sucks. I hope you won't find it too limiting once you start populating the PCI expansion slots but that really depends on your usage pattern.

I'm wondering though if that's because they included a PCIe x4 slot on the board along with the three other PCIe x1 slots and the single PCIe x16 slot, and ran out of PCIe lanes the chipset would support

Yes, I'm afraid that's what happened. 690G is a 24-lane chipset. Four lanes are reserved for NB<->SB interconnect and the the the rest are available for expansion. Once you set up a x16, x4 CrossFire configuration you've basically eaten up all the lanes the chipset has to offer. I believe the x1 slots are automatically disabled when a x4 card is installed in the x4 slot, though the manual doesn't mention it.

Do you happen to have some unbuffered ECC DDR2 memory nearby? I would like to know if the board accepts it. In theory, all AM2 boards should accept unbuffered ECC memory, because it's supported by the CPU integrated memory controller, but Gigabyte wouldn't confirm anything to me. After you install the memory, I believe you can check with MemTest86+ to see whether or not the board is actually operating in ECC mode.

 

[yehuda]

Oh, and most importantly, does the northbridge heatsink feel comfortably warm to the touch?

 

[Marinski]

Like NXIL said. Gigabyte, Biostar, and MSI are the best for AM2. I have a Biostar board and its nice.