Gigabyte GA-G31MF-S2 - motherboard - micro ATX - iG31

Advantages: Stability and price
Disadvantages: Possibly limited PCI slot and memory DIMM's

...this with some memory I have kicking around it obviously didn't work. Upon browsing for this issue, I see others have tried it and even MSI has verified you cant run DDR2 and DDR consecutively on this board. This would be a hindrance if we were talking about a full ATX board, however one active DIMM isn't really a big issue. In fact, the flexibility between DDR and DDR2 memory is quite welcoming. MOTHERBOARD/GENERAL Rear I/O panel: 1 x Serial port, 1 x PS/2 Keyboard and 1 x PS/2 Mouse, 1 x Audio (3 in 1), 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x RJ45 LAN jack, 1 x VGA As well as flexibility with the memory and cpu the motherboard also offers two onboard USB blocks, which will support a further four USB ports, on the front panel for example. Quite nice, as some other micro ATX boards I have seen only offer one block, which can be a problem if you have more... Read review

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Advantages: Dual bios and great stability
Disadvantages: Unnanounced conflicts and required settings

...or advertised by the manufacturer. --------------------------------- Technical Data; Form Factor- 31.1cm x 25.3cm ATX size form factor,4 layers PCB. CPU- AMD Athlon/Duron (K7)Socket A Processor 128 L1 and 256/64K L2 cache on die.Supports 500MHz - 1.2GHz+ and faster. Chipset- VIA KT266 Chipset,consisting of; VT8366 Memory/AGP/PCI Controller(PAC). VT8233 Intergrated Peripheral Controller(PSIPC). Clock Generator- W255/W312/SOP48. 105/110/115/133 MHz system bus speeds. Supports 100-179MHz. 200/266 MHz FSB and DDR bus speeds (PCI 33MHz). Memory- 3x184 pin DDR sockets. Support DDR DRAM PC200/266. Supports up to 3 GB DDR. Supports only 2.5V DDR DIMM. I/O Control- IT8705. Slots- 1 AGP Pro slot supports 4xmode and AGP 2.0 compliant. 5 PCI slot supports 33MHz and PCI 2.2... Read review

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Advantages: Supports all Athlon MP processors, CPU plug and play,
Disadvantages: Not many overclock options, tempremantal onboard raid, registered memory recommended

...purchase of new Power supply, Might mean purchase of new registered memory/ram, 3/ Upgrade to Athlon MP Pros: My current video card will work fine (AGP) My current memory might work, Cost is less than Athlon 64 or Opteron Cons: Might mean purchase of new power supply, Might mean purchase of registered memory/ram After weighing up the pros and cons, i decided to go for an Athlon MP based computer. Keeping my eye out on ebay, and looking up all the available motherboard options, i decided to see if i could get a Gigabyte GA-7DPXDW+. The reason i chose this board above the others is: Staggered 64bit PCI slots, Onboard IDE RAID Controller, Onboard Sound, Onboard Network Card, Standard ATX12v Power supply connection. The board i purchased (from ebay) came with 1gigabyte of registered memory, and 2x Athlon MP 2600+ Barton... Read review

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