Originally posted by: paulsiu
Someone commented that the board is microatx and therefore not suitable for OC and Gigabit Lan. I have to disagree. Generally, SFF and MicroAtx users can be just as hardcore as the full-size users. They want the maximum performance that full-size users want, but they just want it in a smaller package.
Ironically, I think Athlon 64 microatx board are behind the curve of the Intel cpu boards. There are Intel boards with Gigabit Lan and OC features in Microatx format.
As for differences between this and the Foxconn MicroAtx. The Foxconn has one additional PCI-e slot in place of MSI's PCI slot. The MSI has built in SPDIF and has onboard graphics where Foxconn requires a video card. Not sure if Nforce4 is faster than ATI Express chipset. I think both are pretty close in performance.
i actually have both these boards right now, and am switching to the nvidia since i have a 6600gt (figured i might as well bought the board used for $50 at the fs/ft forum).
the foxconn (i have the firewire version) does not have as good audio outputs, and has no onboard video and has 2 less dimm slots (you cant use 4 dimm slots with ddr400 anyway so this isnt too bad).
but the foxconn is a bit faster, and has bus speed tweaks. you can go up to 250bus.
msi also has better support and documentation.
foxconn has no voltage tweaks and oddly is LOCKED at 2.5 v currently for ram. as much ddr400 ram runs at 2.6 volts this somewhat sucks. you need really good ram to o/c or you have to kick down th e multiplier. there is no cpu voltage tweak either, but i am going to solve that problem by getting a 3000 + venice when it comes out which can do 2600-2700 at default from what i've seen.
foxconn also supports ncq which can help if you have appropriate drive and has 0+1 raid , ati only has 0 or 1. ati has also really slow usb 2.0 support (not really an issue for me) and worse ATA read speeds.