Asus or MSI? I cannot decide

[ejsduthie]

Hi,

I am planning a new system and I’m currently deciding what components I’m going to use. I mainly use my PC for web design and I don’t play games very often at all so I have no need for any crossfire/sli/pic-e 2 etc.

So far I have decided on:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
2x1GB 800MHz (I will be using 32bit Vista)
Graphics will probably be ATi 3850 or around there

I am stuck on my motherboard. I’ve decided on a P35 board as the X38 has no benefit to me and there are no performance differences. I’ve narrowed it down to two boards:

1. MSI P35 Platinum
2. Asus P5KS Deluxe

I don’t need all the extras that come on the deluxe version of the Asus apart from the pure copper heat pipe is nice and I do like possibly to upgrade to DDR3 in the future. I’ve built loads of systems on Asus boards in the past and I know that they are excellent boards.

The MSI board has very good write ups and it has everything I need but I think I would miss not having DDR3 to upgrade to and I have no experience with MSI boards do I have no idea what they are like.

The price is neither here nor there so I think it all comes down to people opinions on either boards or brands so your input would be much appreciated.

Also can anyone suggest what power supply I would need to run my planned setup comfortably

Many thanks

 

[primation]

I personally would go with the ASUS, it's not that there's anything wrong with MSI, but price isn't what you're going for. ASUS is quality and you can't go wrong. as far as graphics I'd go Nvidia 8800 GT, ATI is good, Radeon 9600 Pro was the card to have during DX9 days. I just think the 8800 GT is what most game developers are basing their games off of. AMD and ATI go well together. Intel and Nvidia I think is the way to go at the moment.

J.

 

[primation]

As far as a Power Supply, get a good one 80 plus certification. I personally am using Corsair's based on Seasonic. Antec's are also usually Seasonic based. Enermax is suppose to be good too. 50-$75 bucks is all you have to spend, you don't need a million watts if you're not doing SLI or 4 Harddrive. . Steer clear away from the cheapies $15-$29, they usually always pop and break your stuff.

 

[rolli59]

http://www.buy.com/prod/corsair-vx-550w-atx-power-supply/q/loc/101/205852646.html
That is a good psu at a good price.

 

[Night-Stalker]

I would personally go for Antec Truepower Trio 550W or a Corsair 520w or 550w one. It could support all your parts no problem even if you overclock all your components. But if you aren't planning on overclocking, a 450w from Antec, Coolermaster, or Corsair power supply will be sufficient. Not sure what US prices are right now but in Canada, some 3870s are really low in price and it supports HDMI so if you find a 3870 thats quite a bit cheaper then an 8800 GT, its also a Bang for the Buck. Motherboard I would go with asus since I've been using them for everyone of my computers and have great durability(except my previous one, the mouse/keyboard inputs are malfunctioning sometimes). They are really good quality and they perform extremely well for the price. Last thing, even though you have 32bit OS, buying 4GB of ram wouldn't hurt considering the price, you might only be able to use 3.25 GB but it might be worth it depending on your usage.