asus a7n8x deluxe rev. 2 or gigabyte 7n400 Pro/Pro2?

[epz]

Both have comparable features and rave reviews. About the same price tag.

Any words of wisdom?

As for the gigabyte, Pro or Pro2? There seems to be some conraversy on this in the forums.

Any help with making an educated choice will be very much appreciated

[Telexen]

http://www6.tomshardware.com/motherb...721/index.html

That doesn't have the 7n400, it has the 7NNXP (which is a LOT more money) but they're the same board with just a few less features (dual power, no 10/100 onboard network [but it still comes with gigabit network])

The A7N8X Deluxe has a following though.

[Jeordiewhite]

Make sure you get some compatible memory for the asus a7n8x deluxe.
I had to get kingston hyper pc3200 2x512mb sticks in order for it to run properly and now it's running great.

[epz]

Thanks a lot guys. I did look at Tom's reveiws. He places Gigabyte a notch higher the the Asus. However, he does it based on the features the board offers. This is all cool but this says nothing about potential problems you may run into. So I guess I'm not as much after the features per se (both boards will satisfy my needs, as they probably will for 99% of other people), but after the features working the way they are supposed to.

Gigabyte just made a redesign of 7n400 Pro, making it Pro2. This does not look like just a revision, more like a thorough redesign, which looks suspicious given the relatively tender age of the original board. They also (allegedly) had (or still have) a problem with their RAID controller. There might be a fix with a newer BIOS but I am not sure.

I have not spent enough time yet to research potential problems of the Asus board. Hence the original post.

I think anyone who built a few systems is familiar with this phenomenon: you can spend a month with a particular motherboard that seems to have all the features you need, banging your head against the wall and driving you local electronics store crazy replacing them, and then you give up, get another brand (a little better or a little worse) plug your stuff in, and it JUST WORKS. And then you don't know if you are happy that your saga is over or mad that you spent so many sleepless nights mucking with the other one.

So this the kind of input I'm looking for.... pain and anguish stories, or blissful success stories, or anything in between.

Thanks once again for your replies.

[Shawn711]

I have the A7N8X Deluxe rev. 1.06 which had a few small bugs when I got it (random restarting, ATI Radeon issues, etc.) but all was fixed with up to date drivers and bios.........I haven't had any experience with the rev. 2.xx of it yet, but am going to build a system soon with it, as my version has worked very well and I would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting a good quality board packed with features. I would definitely recommend, as Jeordie pointed out, making sure you buy compatible ram, as this board is noted for being fussy on which ram you use in it. Asus has a listing of modules they have tested for compatability on their product website for this board. Hope my input was helpful.

Forgot to mention, I am using 512 MB of Kingston Valueram PC3200 underclocked to match my XP 2200+ with no problems.

Shawn

[epz]

Thanks Shawn,
You wouldn't happen to have a link to the Asus memory compatibiliy chart? I looked at their website and it does not seem to be in an intuitive place .... I looked at the nVidia charts though and was actually surprised that they didn't list brands like Corsair or Mushkin for the nForce2 chipset... Are you referring to the same chart or does Asus have their own?

Thanks for the reply.

[Shawn711]

Here is the link to the page with the memory chartA7N8X Deluxe product specification page with memory compatability chart

Shawn