mATX Roundup

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chucky2

Lifer
Dec 9, 1999
10,016
36
86
I ran Vista Public Beta 2 on the machine in my sig (K6-3+ OC'd to 600, 512MB CAS2 PC100, 80GB 7200rpm 8MB cache SATA hard drive, Radeon 9500)....it ran, not fast, but it ran.

I could see a modern machine with 512MB RAM running Vista...I'm sure there'd be little pauses, but definitely more than good enough for grandma writing an e-mail, looking at the webshots pictures of the vacation on the web, etc.

Chuck
 

imported_yes

Member
Jan 30, 2007
30
0
0
Gary, I guess it is kind of late in the day to ask for inclusion, but I was wondering if these boards, GA-965GM-DS2 and ASUS M2A-VM, are in your lineup for the review?
 

imported_yes

Member
Jan 30, 2007
30
0
0
My request is for a feasibility analysis of making an HTPC using the mATX MB and an approximate cost analysis for doing the same. I don't want spend a fortune creating an HTPC (anyway post April - AMD & Intel price cuts).
 

Gary Key

Senior member
Sep 23, 2005
866
0
0
Originally posted by: yes
Gary, I guess it is kind of late in the day to ask for inclusion, but I was wondering if these boards, GA-965GM-DS2 and ASUS M2A-VM, are in your lineup for the review?

The DS2 arrived today. I have the Asus board but had some troubles with it, trying to get a new board here by Friday. If I get all testing completed by Monday, article should be up by next Friday (figure this one will take about four days to put together). I will update as I go along. SUSE 10.2 has been interesting on the 690G board.
 

Steeeeve

Member
May 1, 2006
88
0
0
I'm wondering about the Abit AN-M2 that replaces the NF-M2...was this already discussed?

I can't keep it straight and Abit isn't calling back which makes me believe the F-I90HD is having my issues then one first suspected.
 

Gary Key

Senior member
Sep 23, 2005
866
0
0
Originally posted by: Steeeeve
I'm wondering about the Abit AN-M2 that replaces the NF-M2...was this already discussed?

I can't keep it straight and Abit isn't calling back which makes me believe the F-I90HD is having my issues then one first suspected.


Abit is not calling back because everyone was in Cebit. The AN-M2 is coming in mid to late April at best.
 

najames

Senior member
Oct 11, 2004
393
0
0
"SUSE 10.2 has been interesting on the 690G board."

As Homer Simpson would say, uhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Ok Gary, now you have me really curious, especially if you are not a hardcore Linux guy. I am REALLY looking forward to the review.

However, I have a nice new Microfly mAXT case, new DVD burner installed, new 320GB drive, new internal card reader, and new 4GB Super Talent DDR2 667 memtested at work, been waiting over a month for a board and CPU, don't know how much longer I can wait. I need to start reconfiguring my fleet of PCs while my wife is on vacation and this box needs to be completed first. Your review is the Key!!!
 

Steeeeve

Member
May 1, 2006
88
0
0
Originally posted by: Gary Key
Originally posted by: Steeeeve
I'm wondering about the Abit AN-M2 that replaces the NF-M2...was this already discussed?

I can't keep it straight and Abit isn't calling back which makes me believe the F-I90HD is having my issues then one first suspected.


Abit is not calling back because everyone was in Cebit. The AN-M2 is coming in mid to late April at best.

haha, they were calling me left and right during Cebit but decided to end the calls. I got a call today though so I am happy A conference call tomorrow with abit as well.
 

Steeeeve

Member
May 1, 2006
88
0
0
by the way www.sffstore.com will have the F-I90HD motherboard available for pre-order starting tomorrow at 3:30pm EST Only 100 so order fast.

I only say this because it is a crazy popular right now
 

adnoto

Member
Mar 23, 2007
39
0
0
Abit is not calling back because everyone was in Cebit. The AN-M2 is coming in mid to late April at best.


Long time lurker here. Great site and forum.

So I take it you will not be getting an AN-M2 or AN-M2HD anytime soon then? To review I mean? Crappit - I am really interested in those boards. I hate the waiting Will still be looking forward to reading what you have to say on the boards you do have.
 

Uppsala9496

Diamond Member
Nov 2, 2001
5,272
19
81
I couldn't wait any longer for the review and jumped on the Asus M2A-VM since I was looking for a stable board with integrated video (to keep the cost down).
I did get my X2 4200+ overclocked from 2.2 to 2.38. Not much considering my A 64 2800+ went from 1.8 to 2.498, but I'll take it. All I did was up the CPU frequency from 200 to 217.

All in all, the M2A-VM has been very stable. I'd like to see what your review says about it.
 

Gary Key

Senior member
Sep 23, 2005
866
0
0
Originally posted by: Steeeeve
pre-sale starts soon...I got the price down to 107.95 for the abit board

Lets hope Gary finds it to be as good of a board as everyone is saying it is.

http://www.sffclub.com/store/index.php?...zenid=655211657f24ef6dbc99acf8f1918036

Wonder if he could give us a sneak peak at what he preliminary findings are

Tell you the truth, I really do not like the board, the color is not my favorite shade of red and the manual was about three pages too short. Along with these show stopping issues is the fact that abit did not include case stickers that would improve performance by 15%, the board fully supports Core 2 Duo processors without an issue, and the fins on the Northbridge and Southbridge were not alike. Let's not even get into the box artwork or the type of plastic utilized for the SATA cables. :laugh: Actually, the performance is better than expected and unless I run into some of the mentioned USB issues then this board gets a :thumbsup: at this time.
 

adnoto

Member
Mar 23, 2007
39
0
0
Originally posted by: Gary Key

Tell you the truth, I really do not like the board...

Re: the Fatality board... I know you were joking but I don't particularly like it either. Only 1 PCI won't work for me and from what I have absorbed, from what little info is out there, my instincts are telling me the Nvidia chipset will be at least slightly better... but then my instincts have been wrong before. I will definitely wait until things shake out before making a final decision though.

Part of my problem is I am planning on building two new rigs, the first of which will be an AMD X2 (asap) and the second a C2D later in the year so I am not even really in the market for an mATX C2D board right now. Truth be told, although I will still look into them, I probably won't ever be in the market for one because by Q3 I will be looking to build a monster. So, for now, I am really hoping the AN-M2's are worthwhile. If they get positive reviews and Steve can procure a few AN-M2's or AN-M2HD's in the next few weeks (if they are actually released) I will be buying. Does anyone have the faintest clue what they might sell for initially? The AN-M2's that is?

.
 

Steeeeve

Member
May 1, 2006
88
0
0
lol, I'm never doing a pre-order after this one I worked my butt off to get a great price for folks that said they wanted the board but it turns out many didn't really want it. Now I gotta take a loss ugh...in fact, I might just not carry motherboards as the risk is too high.

As for this board...the 2 pcie 1x slots aren't a bad thing. The way it is laid out gives you the option to use a pci or pcie 1x which is good for those switching to sound cards that use 1x. Before it was just a wasted slot and those who want to keep a board for awhile are going to be kicking themselves when they don't have that 1x available.
 

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
22,377
2
81
Originally posted by: Steeeeve
lol, I'm never doing a pre-order after this one I worked my butt off to get a great price for folks that said they wanted the board but it turns out many didn't really want it.

Translation: People didn't think the words "no refunds" on your pre-order page didn't apply to them.
 

Steeeeve

Member
May 1, 2006
88
0
0
yeah I dunno. I sold a good number so far but not enough for the amount of time to get the price so low. I kinda doubt newegg will sell it as low as I am...but who knows.

As for refunds..I'd like to offer refunds but no one will honor them for this board. I can't give it back to my distributor and say "hey no one wanted this"..they'd tell me too bad and keep it. Oh well
 

BlingBlingArsch

Golden Member
May 10, 2005
1,249
0
0
steve, were ppl sending boards back to u because they (the boards) would die suddenly or due to other problems? i guess that some of the problems ppl are reporting here and there may be not surprising for the first batch of a new board with couple of new features but u already sold a number so let us know if u noticed a higher than usual death rate or anything.
greetz
 

bigpow

Platinum Member
Dec 10, 2000
2,372
2
81
Gary,

Perfect timing (at least for me)
I've been looking for a good mATX s939 to replace my MSI Neo4 SLI.
Going to move everything (X2 3800+, DDR500, 7800GT) along with new mATX mobo into a slimmer media case, seal it and put it in the living room for good.

Although majority of mATX shoppers would probably be interested on 6100/6150 etc all-in-one solutions, I'd really like to see some normal chipset (ie NF4) mATX mobo. This makes more sense for people like me who already have parts or those who don't plan to use the on-board GPU.

IMHO on-board GPU is useless, due to lack of DVI out and most importantly, lack of juice to decode HD contents without throttling CPU to 90% all the time.
On-board GPU is Okay for office machines, tho

 

najames

Senior member
Oct 11, 2004
393
0
0
I like the little Abit board a lot, it is nice to see the work they have accomplished when other mATX boards have led people believe that most mATX can't be tweaked at all. The killer for me on the little Abit board is the one single PCI slot. If the board came with firewire I might be able to live with it, but for the home theater a/v work I want it for it simply doesn't work. None of my hardware uses HDMI either, Pioneer 53" HD RPTV has VGA and component, the little 27" LCD in the bedroom adds DVI.

I have a PCI tuner card (actually 2) for capturing video until I find a better alternative. I need firewire for some personal use and am still hoping for a connection into a STB for video capture instead of through S-Video. I'd also need a PCI slot for firewire, like I do with my Asus A8N-E board. Yes, Newegg has x1 firewire cards, but they cost almost 10 times as much as a PCI card. The cheap PCI card includes a header for front ports, none of the x1 cards have headers. I have yet to use a x1 or x4 slot.

I do think that overclockers are trying to push it farther than Abit ever intended. If one person can get it to 300 bus speeds then someone else has to get it to 310, an endless cycle until something finally breaks, then it is considered junk, and they move on to the next victim. If you could bump the bus 25Mhz on a Pentium 200MMX socket7 it was hot stuff at a 12% gain, look at expectations now. FWIW, I still have the working Pentium 200MMX CPU sitting here in case ya need one!!!
 

Steeeeve

Member
May 1, 2006
88
0
0
This board didn't really have an abnormal amount of deaths for a 1st batch but they were highly publized since this board was supposed to be the 2nd coming for the mATX C2D world. The expectations were 400FSB solid atleast plus great HDMI support. What happened was a few boards died, HDMI problems, 370FSB but only with a modded bios, and high amounts of people posted this. Many consumers seem to be waiting for the chips to fall where they may and this caused a decrease from 100 to 25 buyers of this board on my website...literally overnight.

This board was supposed to be everything and it turned out to just be a good board. Perhaps with lower expectations we coulda seen a lot more of these sell. Oh well

To be honest, I'm a little disappointed with abit. Clearly they talked up a mobo that would do what we want but the failed...lets hope they notice this and do a few fixes.

For now I'd still say this is the best mATX board out there but as normal, we are disappointed that it didn't make up enough ground on the ATX folks.
 

Heidfirst

Platinum Member
May 18, 2005
2,015
0
0
Originally posted by: SteeeeveTo be honest, I'm a little disappointed with abit. Clearly they talked up a mobo that would do what we want but the failed...lets hope they notice this and do a few fixes.

If it turns out to be chipset limitations then of course there will be nothing that they can do.
& did they really talk it up that much or did others read into it things that were never said ...?
 

Steeeeve

Member
May 1, 2006
88
0
0
hehe, they talked it up to me at the very least But you are right...it probably was talked up more than it should have been...the Fata1ty thing got to people.

The thing is, it is a great board! But since it doesn't do 400 FSB it wasn't everything and thus a let down. I think Gary will show that this is probably the best C2D board out there.
 
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