I'm a bit biased on this one since i got a GA-K8NF-9 motherboard. This board is very good in terms of performance, price, stability but it's not a top overclocker's board. For the HeatSink placement, there is no known issue, any PCI-EXPRESS GPU will fit on the board since the HeatSink is a "low profile". By the way, the new GA-K8NF-9 don't have an active cooling on the Chipset, only an heatsink (like mine).
The only problems I had with this board were related to the nVidia nForce4 chipset drivers. Mainly the Ethernet Adapter drivers.
Why did I bought the GA-K8NF-9?
- Lowest priced S939 nForce4 mobo around at the time.
- Reviews were good for that board (nothing bad about it).
- FireWire on-board (some low-cost nForce4 don't have firewire and I needed that).
These were the 3 main reason I got it. From what I have read about the MSI it don't have integrated FireWire port. For the rest both boards should satisfy you.
NOTE : I must admit that I had a very pleasant experience with the GigaByte Tech. Support. I flashed my board with a BETA BIOS (F3k) that prevent any further BIOS flash! Oups!
The Mobo is still working fine, but I have to RMA it to get it flashed to the latest offcial BIOS, the F5 which supports Athlon X2.
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GA-K8NF-9 / <b><font color=green>Athlon 64 3200+</font color=green> @ 3800+</b>
Infineon DDR400 (CL2.5) 2x512Megs
<font color=green>GeForce 6600GT 128Megs</font color=green>
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