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From: Paul on 6 Jul 2008 03:34
Tony wrote:
> The wife's pc croaked.. so I get to give mine to her and build myself
> a new one.
>
> Picked out the cpu
> AMD Phenom 9850 BLACK EDITION 2.5GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core
> Processor Model HD985ZXAGHBOX - Retail
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103249
>
>
> Got two mobos on my short list to pair with the above cpu
>
> ASUS M3N78 PRO AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8300 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard -
> Retail
> Support AMD Phenom 9850 & Future 140W TDP Processors
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131320
>
>
> ASUS M3A78 Pro AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131325
>
> Right now I'm leaning towards the M3N78 mainly because of the onboard
> firewire.. Anything I'm not seeing that makes that a bad choice?
>
> I don't plan on using the onboard vid.,
>
>
> Both boards state:
> "DDR2 1066
> *Due to AMD CPU limitation, DDR2 1066 is supported by AM2+ CPU for one
> DIMM per channel only. "
>
> I would be fine with two sticks of 2gig ddr2 1066, right? wither board
> would accept this correct?
>
> It's doubtful one would see any real-world-app major performance
> changes between the 800 and 1066 sticks... would that be a true
> statement?
>
>
> Thanks for advice/suggestions !
>
> Tony!
>

The two boards you mention, are on the "140W list". That would be
my primary concern. The M3N78 Pro has a grand total of two reviews
that I can find, so it has just arrived. The M3A78 Pro has
zero customer reviews (checked both Newegg and vip.asus.com
forums).

The M3N78 Pro has a FW322 for Firewire, which I thought was by Agere
(maybe LSI bought Agere or something).

Each board has its irritations. The M3A78 Pro has an ATI Southbridge,
which can mean some surprises when installing disks. The M3N78 Pro chose
not to put the VGA connector in the I/O area, instead putting it on a
PCI slot cover, on the end of a ribbon cable. That could affect video
quality at higher resolutions. The M3N78 Pro is also missing a PS/2
mouse connector, while the M3A78 Pro has one (a consideration for
KVM owners/users).

To help make your choice, I would download the PDF manual. There, you
can see what the BIOS is like, and what they recommend for memory
setup. Now that the Asus web site uses Akamai for the actual downloaded
files, there is no longer a wait. My link runs at full rate during the
actual download. One of the manuals took about 30 seconds (my service
cap isn't that high).

Paul
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