Well after making the mistake of buying the MSI 975x PUE I returned it yesterday and was about to get a DS3 but ended up leaving with an EVGA NF-68A1 instead due to them still being sold out. And what can I say? Holy cow! This board is awesome, I know I have read of some people having trouble with these boards, and I definately don't have the experience that some here have but here is a real short review. First off let me just say that this thing was probably the easiest board to install/setup I have ever used.
So the box is very heavy and once opened you see that you have a serious motherboard and all of the included items are fantastic. Of course you can't go wrong with a lifetime warranty either.
BIOS: While I thought I was going to be confused with the settings, the manual walked me through it and I was able to OC right off to 3.0Ghz with my RAM unlinked. Everything IMO is very well laid out and easy to understand and setup. Setting up the RAID 0 array was the easiest I have ever done PERIOD (Have been using RAID since the K7 days).
Install: I was amazed at how fast windows installed (be sure you have a floppy to load RAID drivers and hit F6). Windows completely installed in 9 minutes, which made me remember back to my first AMD 64 and just how fast I installed windows on it (that was a record for me at 13 minutes until now of course
). Once windows was installed I installed the software minus Ntune as I have heard that its really not the best. Transferring over files and installing programs/games was done in exactly 2 hours. Have I mentioned just how fast this thing is?
Seriously this has been such a positive experience that I am as giddy as a 16 year old with their first car.
Performance: As I said I was able to OC this thing right off the bat at 3.0Ghz and have not had one single error/crash/glitch. Which makes me wonder just how far I can push this E4300. But I am extremely happy at 3.0Ghz, all of my 3dmark scores went up 1500+ points and I have done very little tweaking as I am still learning about what this board can do, so I know there is more performance to wring out of this rig. I am going to make some more runs and post screenshots in the next couple of days so my scores can be verified, but like I said this has been such a positive experience I just felt I had to post this.
Conclusion: Like I said I am definately not a veteran OC'er like most here, in fact I consider myself a n00b. But I have been playing with computers for a long time now. But overall I would give this board 9/10 and the only reason it's not a 10/10 is because of the price. I'm afraid that many will not think to buy the board at $220-250, but it would be a mistake if you can afford it not to get it. The options and abilities of this board are great for either the Veteran/Pro OC'er or the n00bs such as myself. Read the manual and take your time and this board will not let you down. You will be very happy with the quality of the board and it's performance. And I can honestly say that this is one of the best purchases I have ever made for a computer.
So the box is very heavy and once opened you see that you have a serious motherboard and all of the included items are fantastic. Of course you can't go wrong with a lifetime warranty either.
BIOS: While I thought I was going to be confused with the settings, the manual walked me through it and I was able to OC right off to 3.0Ghz with my RAM unlinked. Everything IMO is very well laid out and easy to understand and setup. Setting up the RAID 0 array was the easiest I have ever done PERIOD (Have been using RAID since the K7 days).
Install: I was amazed at how fast windows installed (be sure you have a floppy to load RAID drivers and hit F6). Windows completely installed in 9 minutes, which made me remember back to my first AMD 64 and just how fast I installed windows on it (that was a record for me at 13 minutes until now of course
). Once windows was installed I installed the software minus Ntune as I have heard that its really not the best. Transferring over files and installing programs/games was done in exactly 2 hours. Have I mentioned just how fast this thing is? Seriously this has been such a positive experience that I am as giddy as a 16 year old with their first car.Performance: As I said I was able to OC this thing right off the bat at 3.0Ghz and have not had one single error/crash/glitch. Which makes me wonder just how far I can push this E4300. But I am extremely happy at 3.0Ghz, all of my 3dmark scores went up 1500+ points and I have done very little tweaking as I am still learning about what this board can do, so I know there is more performance to wring out of this rig. I am going to make some more runs and post screenshots in the next couple of days so my scores can be verified, but like I said this has been such a positive experience I just felt I had to post this.
Conclusion: Like I said I am definately not a veteran OC'er like most here, in fact I consider myself a n00b. But I have been playing with computers for a long time now. But overall I would give this board 9/10 and the only reason it's not a 10/10 is because of the price. I'm afraid that many will not think to buy the board at $220-250, but it would be a mistake if you can afford it not to get it. The options and abilities of this board are great for either the Veteran/Pro OC'er or the n00bs such as myself. Read the manual and take your time and this board will not let you down. You will be very happy with the quality of the board and it's performance. And I can honestly say that this is one of the best purchases I have ever made for a computer.
