Which one? GIGABYTE 965P-DS3 -or- MSI P6N 650i

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hyt3k9

hyt3k9

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I am planning on selling my AM2 system soon, and wanted to know which of these motherboards are the best?

Gigabyte 965P-DS3
-OR-
MSI P6N-SLI 650i

I won't be using either one of these boards in my main rig, one of the above will replace my AM2 board in my backup machine, that I am going to do some folding with. I heard a lot of folks making a big fuss over the Gigabyte, but I wanted to know other's feelings on the MSI

I will be running the board with the following combo:

<One of the motherboards listed above>
C2D E6300
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
7900GTX

Any information on this would be helpful. Other board in this price range would also be considered. I am not planning on making a purchase until the end of the month, possibly middle of May.

TIA ;)
 
I will personally never buy another MSI product. I had a horrible experience with their RMA process on a socket A board that I bought. They ended up sending me three seperate boards and all three had problems of some sort. I eventually just took a loss and bought a good ASUS socket A board.

As far as what board to buy...I personally have the DS3 and have been very happy with it. Easiest overclock I've ever done, and it is also very stable. I was a long time AMD user, but switched over once the Core 2 Duo's came out. I also use this machine to fold and it works great for that. It is my top producer by far.

I just personally think it is best to stick with an Intel chipset for an Intel chip...if you want maximum stability. I did have some very minor stability issues, but that turned out that I needed to raise the timings of my RAM, and that solved it. I just can't say enough good things about the DS3 to be honest. I realize that probably someone has gotten a bad DS3, but that hasn't been my experience at all.

The only board that I would get over the DS3 would be an Intel BadAxe2. If I had it to do over again, I probably would've bought the BadAxe2, but they weren't out in Oct. 2006 when I bought this machine. My next board will either be a Gigabyte or an Intel. I had always looked at Gigabyte as a cheap brand, but the DS3 completely changed my mind.

I do all kinds of things with my computer...I run multiple virtual machines at any one time, I fold 24/7 with the SMP client and I do the basic stuff like Word Processing and web browsing and e-mail. I don't know if I've ever seen this machine slow down at all.

I've only seen one blue screen the whole time I've had this machine, and that was related to a bad Virtual machine install. I re-installed the virtual machine and the problems went away.

Gigabyte also seems to be pretty good about bios updates and stuff like that as well. Their site isn't slow as shit like the one for ASUS and others. At least it's not slow for my on my 3mb DSL connection.
 
There is a lot of good information in your post ^^
I also looked at the Bad Axe 2, but it isn't in this price range I am looking for.
This machine's primary role is going to be folding. I started folding yesterday with a weakling rig, and quickly realized that I want more performance.

How does this RAM look for the Gigabyte board?
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820231098
(Out of stock now, but not buying till end of month anyways)

EDIT: While the 2GB kit and 7900GTX may be overkill for folding.. I also will use this machine from time to time as a backup rig.. and LAN box
 
I'm sure you know, DS3 has a huge following and is known as a high and stable overclocker. I'd personally go for the DS3 if you don't need SLI or whatever else the 650i has over P965 chipset
 
Yeah, no need for SLI on this rig. I also just ran across this thread on the MSI 650i, and it shows the RAM I picked as possibly having compatibility issues..

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1164174

Looks like I will snag the Gigabyte board if someone else doesn't mention another board I should consider. ;)
 
hyt3k9 said:
There is a lot of good information in your post ^^
I also looked at the Bad Axe 2, but it isn't in this price range I am looking for.
This machine's primary role is going to be folding. I started folding yesterday with a weakling rig, and quickly realized that I want more performance.

How does this RAM look for the Gigabyte board?
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820231098
(Out of stock now, but not buying till end of month anyways)

EDIT: While the 2GB kit and 7900GTX may be overkill for folding.. I also will use this machine from time to time as a backup rig.. and LAN box
Click to expand...

I have the exact same G.Skill ram on a DS3, and it has been rock solid.
The DS3 rig posted the very first time I fired it up with the G.Skill.
I dual boot XP and Vista and I have yet to see a blue screen oc'ed from 2.1Ghz to 2.8GHz.
 
ive tested both boards and found the MSI to be more stable... yes MSI have done some shit boards and so have gigabyte aswell.. but this ones a good one IMO... not 1 blue screen or crash since ive built it.
 
nightwalker said:
ive tested both boards and found the MSI to be more stable... yes MSI have done some shit boards and so have gigabyte aswell.. but this ones a good one IMO... not 1 blue screen or crash since ive built it.
Click to expand...

My experience has been the opposite. I lost money on MSI once, and it won't happen again. There are too many manufacturers to choose from to end up losing money to one. I own my own computer business and only use three brands of boards...

Intel
ASUS
Gigabyte

My overall favorite is Intel, even though they can be a bit more expensive. They are just rock solid stable.
 
I'm running the MSI p6n Platinum version of that board with that G.Skill ram. It booted with both 2 and 4gb. I've pulled 2gb since I went back to XP, but it's been solid at stock. Finally got my zalman today, so I'll start my OC tonight.
 
hyt3k9 said:
I am planning on selling my AM2 system soon, and wanted to know which of these motherboards are the best?

Gigabyte 965P-DS3
-OR-
MSI P6N-SLI 650i

I won't be using either one of these boards in my main rig, one of the above will replace my AM2 board in my backup machine, that I am going to do some folding with. I heard a lot of folks making a big fuss over the Gigabyte, but I wanted to know other's feelings on the MSI

I will be running the board with the following combo:

<One of the motherboards listed above>
C2D E6300
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
7900GTX

Any information on this would be helpful. Other board in this price range would also be considered. I am not planning on making a purchase until the end of the month, possibly middle of May.

TIA ;)
Click to expand...
I have three Gigabyte 965P-DS3 boards and I'm going to order another in a couple of weeks. I've been buying mine from Directron. I pay $10 to have it tested before shipping and everyone of them has worked out of the box.
 
I am building a new system for linux/window dual boot. I asked the same question on Ubuntu forum, but my main point is linux compatibility. DS3 is a very solid board (I like the all solid capacitors), but the ICH8 chipset does not support IDE. Gigabyte has to add another IDE controller called JMicron in order to support IDE devices. Unfortunately, Ubuntu does not support JMicron very well right now. There are still some problems with installing and booting Ubuntu because of the JMicron. On the other hand, MSI P6N SLI seems to work with Ubuntu perfectly.

I ordered the DS3 at first because of its all solid capacitor design (which is not a huge deal in my opinion, but gives you a peace of mind), very good reviews and the intel CPU/intel chipset match, but found out the linux issue, then I returned it and ordered the MSI. I am still waiting for the MSI to come.

To me, OC ability is not everything. I may do a little OC, but stability and compatibility is what truely matter to me. The Ubuntu compatibility is really a deal breaker for DS3. I am a little surprised that intel's mainstream chipset does not support IDE, considering there are still many users owning IDE harddrives and CD-ROMs.
 
Just for your information, the newer revisions of the DS3 have been reported to be bad overclockers. I'd actually recommend maybe a DFI 965-S board. I'm planning on jumping onto that motherboard today if I don't find anything bad about it =). Seems stable and looks nice, plus DFI's got a decent customer service department (or so I've heard).
 
I have had about 6 different models of MSI boards, and 4 different models of Gigabyte.

In my experience, they are about the same in terms of price, reliability, and stability. Your mileage may vary, which is the case with just about everything.

I just did a build with the EXACT specs you have listed, except with a 7900GS. Went with the i650 because I wanted SLI capability, and I'm partial to nforce chipsets. Can't knock the DS3 thought, from everything I've read, so....

.... flip a coin. ;)
 
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