Motherboard Questions and Doubts

Post by **Edi** » 2006-09-07 04:04am

I know a fair bit about hardware myself, but that knowledge pales in comparison to what some people here know, so I figured I'd ask their opinion on something. I've been taking a pretty thorough look at the specs of several motherboards for my new system, and I've started to have some doubts about the Abit AB9 Pro (which I've ordered). It's not a bad board per se, but I compared it to the Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi edition and now I'm not sure which one I should get.

I'm generally not interested in overclocking or especially playing around with the component voltages because I have no idea what I'd be doing. So that's not much of a consideration. If I ever did decide to OC, it'd be modest tinkering with the FSB and multipliers preferably so that the voltages and whatnot could remain default.

What concerns me more is the AB9's lack of a second PCIe X16 slot and it has one more basic PCI slot as well, as well as somewhat better placement of the FDD and IDE buses (if not for my case, the IDE bus would be in a much worse place on the AB9). Then there's the fact that the AB9 Pro has the SATA connections from three different manufacturers, which immediately raises the prospect of driver hell, plus the IDE bus is from one of the secondary manufacturers. The Asus board has only two, and 6 of the 7 internal SATA connections are the default ones as well as the IDE. The sound systems are different on them (Asus uses Soundmax while the Abit one is Realtek 7.1 HD Audio) but I have no clue which one is better.

Then there's the nice thing about the Asus board that it has the option of having WLAN from the get-go if I ever want to switch to that. Right now I need 10 meters of cable just to connect the computer to the cable modem, which has another four meter cable between it and the actual wall socket (goes around my hectare-sized living room to the opposite corner). Not a big thing as such, but I could probably convince my parents to give their WLAN capable cable modem to me and take my cable connections only version, since their distance from case to wall socket is about 1 meter.

One more things is that the GPU I'm getting (7900GT) is also from Asus, so with all the optimization stuff that the Asus board has for the graphics card side, it would probably work very well because they're made by the same company.

So, tell me what you think. The Asus board costs €45 more, but I decided that that is no consideration if the board has better expandability in addition to the wireless and all the other options it has. This system is supposed to last several years with essentially no changes too. I'd really appreciate your input.

Edi

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-09-07 06:49am

It sounds like you've already made up your mind. The AB9's lay is horrible. PATA, Floppy and power connections are in the way of your PCI cards, in addition to the lack of slots. And I don't get why they have a 4-pin ATX and a 4-pin molex connection on the board instead of the 8-pin plug. Given the choice between the Abit and the Asus, I'd go with the Asus.

Now, I've not been happy with my Asus experience recently. My own computer's Asus motherboard is flakely, and loves to conk out when I'm loading a BF2 level or playing Oblivion (and I've tested the RAM, HD and GPUs by themselves, and they're fine). And I had an Asus board show up DOA at work. One thing I'd consider for your system is an Intel board, with a PATA card if you need it. We use Intel (and Tyan, but that's overkill for you) boards for every important machine at work, and they're stable as hell right out of the box. You're not going to get a max-uber-OC out of them, but you're going for that.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-09-07 09:35am

I'd go for Arrow, except for the Asus stability. My ASUS setup and every other Asus setup I've seen has been rock solid unless something is done badly.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-09-07 12:04pm

Ace Pace wrote:I'd go for Arrow, except for the Asus stability. My ASUS setup and every other Asus setup I've seen has been rock solid unless something is done badly.

A year ago, I would have said the exact same thing. Its the luck of the draw, but it still pisses me off and makes me want to look at other vendors.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-09-07 12:08pm

Arrow wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:I'd go for Arrow, except for the Asus stability. My ASUS setup and every other Asus setup I've seen has been rock solid unless something is done badly.
A year ago, I would have said the exact same thing. Its the luck of the draw, but it still pisses me off and makes me want to look at other vendors.

I've noticed the passives being stabler, aslong as they're in a well ventilated case, otherwise they fail alot more.

Of course, active cooling ASUS boards have other issues...

*glares at dead chipset fan*

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2006-09-07 01:04pm

It's not like they are the only ones. Admitedly, this is a little out of date, but both ABIT NF7-based systems (the generaly recommended best gamer socket A motherboards) that I put together had to have their fans replaced in a couple of months (they did not die outright but had balance problems causing excessive whining - enough to make the computer I was using, and still am, unusable to me). Whats most frustrating is that the replacement passive heatsink costs like 2$ IIRC (or some similar laughable price), and works for 2.5 years (2 on the other computer) now without issues.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2006-09-07 01:54pm

Asus had a run of bad cooling fans for a while...to the point that we ordered a tray of their fans, and actually got a different model in, apparently an updated one that they had replaced the bad version with. Shortly thereafter, new boards from them started using the new-type fans. Of course passive always > active for chipset cooling...that's what copper sinks and heat-pipes are for.

Speaking from my own perspective, Abit, ECS, FIC, and all their ilk can go deepthroat an RPG-7. Asus boards give me the least trouble, period. Them and Intel. Although the Intel D965LT has the IDE connector in a heinously stupid place, displaced by some dumbass capacitor.

Post by **Edi** » 2006-09-07 03:22pm

I wound up buying the Asus board in the end. The AB9 had a few too many strikes against it, so the extra €45 wasn't too bad. Still posting from the old junkpile, as it took me all fucking evening to get everything installed into the P180B case. What with the number of hard drives I have (two PATA carryovers from the old machine) and the power cabling on my PSU wasn't quite optimal for my mix of stuff. Need to buy some extension cables for the 8-pin power thing so it won't brush so close to the CPU and graph card.

At least the cooling features of the case should work as advertised because I managed to fit everything so that all the fans can work right. Will install OS and everything else tomorrow. Right now 4400 is on the TV and after that it's time for bed.

Edi