comparing motherboards, adivce?
 

Ok, i need a new mainboard, but I've been a little out of the loop lately, and just kinda wondered what people were thinking. Right now I'm looking at the following 2 boards:

-Abit AT7-MAX2
-Gigabyte GA-7VAXP

Does anyone have any experience with these boards, or have heard good/bad things about them? The new Abit looks pretty crazy, but fairly cool. Looking for overclockability, general stability, and upgradability (probably the last board I'll buy for some time for my main desktop). Anyways, thanks for the info.

Do you need the board RIGHT NOW or can you wait a month or two?

IF you CANT wait, I guess I would go with the Gigabyte.

IF you CAN wait, get the Epox nForce2 MB. That thing has got to kick some serious a$$.

That's just my 2 cents.

:)

yeah, i can wait a little bit. i figured with all the gadgets, the abit would be the way to go, but i have heard good things from my dad about giga byte. funny thing tho, i really don't need any gadgets... except maybe the firewire would be nice, but i'm going to be upgrading my live platinum to an audigy 2 anyway, so that's not even an issue. i just want the control, plenty of ram, and the extra ide slots (i use an expansion card right now). if i can control the processor, i'm happy tho. i've got other upgrades on my list anyway, so the mb can wait a bit :).

btw, thanks for the heads-up :)

Dont get me wrong, the last 3 MB I have owned and OC with have been Abits. Also against most popular beleifs, they are excellent boards; not the best overclockers, but pretty high up on the list. Another thing is that of the last 5 Abit MB that I have owned (2 died not of their own fault :) ) all of them have run beautifully and have not seen any "dieing" capacitors on any of them. I could have just been lucky but most likely not :)

I just keep hearing great things about the Epox boards and having an Epox coupled with an nForce2 chipset.........how could you go wrong?? :)

hrm... yeah, all valid points :). my dad has used a lot of abits, with success all around (although only oc'd a couple of the old slot tbirds, which were modded with the voltage switches and schtuff).

didn't know much about the nforce chipset, so did just a little research before posting this... it sounds failry cool, although for the most part, has a lot of things i don't need... like the dolby digital audio (use my creative platinums for that), no need for the integrated video (which was stated that it is available without -- and GASP, i'm an ATI user). the dual nics are impressive, however i'd like to see a gigabit nic on a mainboard for a desktop. that would be very nice indeed. although there always are the concerns of a new chipset... but with their previous experience that shouldn't be a problem.

i'll wait a bit, see what pops up in the next month or two, before i decide to delve in. then again, should i just wait, keep my biostar and upgrade to a hammer when that time arrives later this year?? :):):) i need a unix desktop anyway, my current system would do well for that.... ;P

guess it all depends on price

You usually can't go wrong with Abit or Asus.

I just got an Albatron board for my P4 1.6A and have been pretty happy with it. Albatron was formed by a bunch of guys who left Gigabyte, and so far, it looks like they kept the same good quality.


I'd say look around, find a list of boards that suit your needs & wants, then use google and search for reviews, AND read all the different forums to get real world opinions of people who are running them.