ASUS M3A78-EM or GigabyteGA-MA78GPM-UD2H MB

[padenom]

Hello to the community. I'm planning on setting up a second machine with a microATX board. Its main function will be downloading/storage and some occasional image/video processing. I'm on a low budget <CAD400 and was looking at a board which can take either the Phenom II 920 or a Phenom II AM3 processor. As the almost no offerings for a mATX AM3 boards, I'm looking at ASUS M3A78-EM and GigabyteGA-MA78GPM-UD2H. I have had experience with ASUS boards and they are usually great. I also hear Gigabyte are good ones too. What is your experience for each of these? Is one of them better than the other?

Planned memory is either 2GB or 4GB Mushkin DDR2 800 (fits in budget easily).

BTW, I'm will only have Debian on this new machine. No Windows whatsoever!

PS: No, I'm not getting a graphics card for this machine.

 

[r_manic]

Hi padenom, welcome!

I think the customer feedback on newegg itself could be a great guide. From what I see, the Asus seems to have problems that you might want to avoid. http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=13-131-324&SortField=3&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&SelectedRating=-1&PurchaseMark=&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&Page=1&Keywords=(keywords)

 

[spanner_razor]

I used asus for several years and often has bios problems but otherwise they worked fine. Gigabyte is my new choice as their dedication to using long lasting components even in their budget boards is admirable.

 

[padenom]

r_manic, thanks for the pointer. The number of comments left by the manufacturer for the user to contact them for help does indicate the problems with the board. Gigabyte has nice features like dual-bios, better caps, etc. However, my only issue is that my friend has not been able to use his 4 RAM sticks on his Gigabyte board even though they are from the approved list. He has RMAed the board, the RAM and even the graphics card.

Is Gigabytes know to have issues with RAM?

 

[r_manic]

Hmmm... what's his board? I've heard no problems about Gigabyte and RAM, but I'm no old hat