Asus M4A88T-M vs MSI 880GM-E41

[Akuze]

Hi, so Im looking at buying an AMD Athlon II x2 250 with one of these motherboard:

Asus M4A88T-M

MSI 880GM-E41

Which one do you suggest and would be a better choice? Ill be doing everything on the PC and please feel free to leave this thread if your thinking of telling me how great your system is with i7 980x and a mobo for £399. Great, well done, thanks.

Thanks for the replys.

 

[Indy-Go]

neither - but GIGABYTE GA-MA74GM-S2 AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 740G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard FTW. Just because i'm a Gigabyte fan.

 

[denkile]

I have shopped AM3 MBs for several years and recently found
MSI-880GMA-E55.....I really like the BIOS compared to Gigabyte.
I am using XP so I prefer a floppy drive for F6 SATA-AHCI setup.

Issues to consider:
_OB video
_form factor_ATX or mATX
_floppy drive OB
_SATA III, USB 3.0

Shop Newegg and use the power search to see what is available.
Sort by best rateing, price, etc.
Checkout Mfgr product listing link: Bios, manual, FAQ....

Regards, den

 

[1965ohio]

I'm running the M4A88T-M/USB3, and I would suggest it over the M4A88T-M because it has USB3. But if you don't see any need for that in the near future, then the M4A88T-M will save you a little bit. In the US they are usually the same price, so most people pick the USB3 one.

Personally I usually choose Asus over MSI in my AMD builds... and sometimes Gigabyte depending on the price at the time. Most of my Intel builds I usually skimp and get ASRock because the CPU costs too much in the beginning like you mentioned in your original post.

I have been using this M4A88T-M/USB3 for 6 months with the x4 965 BE overclocked to 3.8GHz. I installed Kingston DDR3-1333 2GBx4 (8GB) and I think this system is proven workhorse. I run Windows 7 Ultimate x64 and this system has been rock solid. Never crashed. Never gave any hardware problems. And it all runs very cool. I give the M4A88T-M 2 thumbs up.

BTW, Asus boards offer a neat little tool called "Express Gate"... after you get your Windows installed, use the driver CD and install the Express Gate system. The next time your turn on your PC, you can surf the net or use your favorite messenger without even booting into Windows. I have used it a few times for a quick email check before I leave my home without the need of fully booting into Windows.

 

[powerpie5000]

neither - but GIGABYTE GA-MA74GM-S2 AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 740G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard FTW. Just because i'm a Gigabyte fan.

Don't bother getting a Gigabyte Micro-ATX board if you're going to be using a long graphics card. I was thinking about getting the Gigabyte GA-880GMA-UD2H but my Radeon 6870 will block 3 of the 5 SATA ports (an obvious major design flaw that could have been avoided). Apart from that the Gigabyte board seems quite decent (although lacking mosfet cooling like most micro ATX boards).... My other choice is the Asus M4A88TD-M EVO/USB.