asus vs gigabite- pls help a novice!

[JAYAUTOPSY]

Hi, looking for some mobo advice if any kind soul has time

building an audio only music pc, want to use a sata 2 drive for apps and an ata drive for backup, at least 2 gigs of ddr2 533 ram, a prescott socket 775 p4 3.0 ghz, an m audio 24/96 soundcard and an LG DVD burner combo. Also i have a dula head matrox pci card or a single head apg matrox graphics card and an axt form case.

Overclocking and gaming are not things that im interested in and im not too bothered about PCI express, ive been looking at the following boards

Asus P5LD2-SE Intel 945P (Socket LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-141-AS)

http://www.asus.com.tw/products4.as...=3&l2=11&l3=185

Gigabyte 8N-SLi nForce4 SLi (Socket LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-045-GI)

http://tw2005.giga-byte.com/MotherB...s_GA-8N-SLI.htm

Gigabyte GA-8I945P-G

http://tw2005.giga-byte.com/MotherB...GA-8I945P-G.htm

The main difference between the motherboards im looking at seems to be one uses the NVIDIA® nForce™ 4 SLI Intel Edition chipset and the others the Intel® 945P Express Chipset.
Cant find much on the net that compares the two in terms of audio just high end graphics and gaming which are not of real concern. Any ideas about which chipset or board is the best or how to find out which is best? LAST MIN RESEARCH LEADS ME TO BELIEVE THE INTEL CHIPSET MAY BE MORE STABLE AND A BETTER CHOICE IF GAMING IS NOT AN ISSUE- any comments? Alternativly do you think there are better boards out there for the money (roughly 80 uk pounds)?
Thanks in advance, im really lost- please help!

 

[Aco]

Go with asus, i have both mobos at home from asus and gigabyte.
Asus is definitly better.
Also consider asus p5wd2 its great board with 955x chipset and just a little more expensive than p5ld2

 

[p05esto]

Yet, I've always been thrilled by Gigabyte boards myself. Dual Bios is slick and their boards always get top marks from reviewers. Their top line boards come with all the features I need like RAID, Firewire etc. I've never had a complaint myself. Nice manuals, all the cables, their web site makes it easy to find drivers and and files from boards even many years old. BIOS updates are timely as well.

I'm not saying ASUS is bad, just that I really like Gigabyte boards personally.

 

[Da_Banig]

I am with Asus, since I never own a Gigabyte board. I have been using Asus all my life and never had a single problem... I own two Asus P5WD2 Premium board which costs bout 200 bucks at newegg.com its i955X chipset. You can get the Original P5WD2 for around 150, good price.

 

[Amd64lad]

go with Asus they are incredible and stay on top of the market by consantly producing top quality boards

 

[Avadann_Kedeth]

Asus, no question here. Gigabyte gives you lots of features for a low price, but you get what you pay for, their stuff breaks easily. Asus gives you solid features and stability for a reasonable price, you pay a little more, but it's cheaper than replacing the thing just after the warranty runs out.

 

[Fox_granit]

Personally I have both a Gigabyte and a Asus. I have had greater trouble installing ASUS, but its more GAMER focused. I've had my Gigabyte board for over 5 years now, and its been through 3 case moves, mutliple upgrades, changes and has never failed. One of the best options with Gigabyte that people forget is the Dual Bios feature. It can come in handy if you have a Static Discharge on the board. Both manufactures are reliable, do a graduated table. On a percentage scale, determine what you want most. If features are the most important put it at 40%, then chipset ok 30%, price 25%, then I dunno reliability 5%. Give each one a score of 1-10 on how good the boards are compared to the given listing: IE Chipset Gigabyte 30%*7=2.3. Add each column up and the one with the biggest score is the board you want. PM me and i'll send you an example excel table. Its easier to look at it to understand what i'm talking about.

 

[INeedCache]

I'll cast my vote for the Gigabyte board. As far as their stuff breaking easily, that's garbage. We've sold many Gigabyte boards over the years and they've never proven to be problematic. I have seen my share of issues with Asus, and frankly, feel their reputation is a bit overblown. One reason Asus boards stay on top is they make a zillion different models, and their are many people that simply buy Asus on their reputation and never try anything else. This forum sounds to me like it's full of them. Same with Corsair memory. It's good memory, but there are many in this forum who think it's the only memory that's any good; that anything else is substandard. Sorry, but that's just not true. I've been in business for over 10 years and I've seen my fair share of stuff come through my shop. I'm not just speaking from the experience of just a few boards here and there. Sorry Asus fanboys, just calling it as I've seen it.

 

[blue68f100]

If you are doing audio only take a look at Intel 945G I've used asus boards for year and never any problems. P4 generally play better with Intel chip sets.

Since I build mainly office computers I use the integrated video all the time.