Any reason i SHOULDN'T get a MSI 845PE Max2(MS-6704)-FIR Tomorrow?

[Tran]

Ok here's the thing.. i live in iceland... only p4 abit motherboard we have here is IT7MAX2 and it's horribly overpriced, no epox, etc, etc motherboards here, it's gigabyte or MSI really..

so is there anything wrong with that motherboard? nice oc options i hope? and most important of all.. is it stable?

 

[Mark099]

MSI does a good job with most of their boards.

 

[BaldHeadedDork]

Hey Tran-Welcome to the boards!

I just read a review of the MSI 845PE board at Anandtech, I recommend you check it out before buying. (But they did say that, because of limited memory timing options in the BIOS it wasn't a good overclocker compared to Asus, Abit and some others.)

The Gigabytye PE board had problems, too. It was a better overclocker but could not run two sticks of memory at 333.

The stability of the MSI board should be pretty good. The PE is a revision/evolution of the well sorted 845E chipset, and any E/PE board should be as stable at higher FSB speeds as anything on the market.

But reliability can be another matter, and here MSI has a middling reputation. Based on the number of RMA posts because of a defective or dying board I see here and at other forums, I'd put MSI in the second category of Intel boards. With one notable exception (the Asus P4T RDRAM board) it is very, very rare to see someone complaining about an Asus, Abit or Gigabyte board dying. MSI seems to have more problems. They're in the same general group as Epox and Albarton. They're not the Yugo of motherboards (that dishonor belongs to Soyo) but their quality does seem to be a step below the top group.

Good luck and enjoy your new mojo!


BHD

 

[gouda96]

MSI 845PE BOARD

I am sorry to say, but i have heard nothing but bad reviews of this board. The overclocking is suppose to be the worst of all 845pe boards. If you read the reviews, you will see all the critics would agree that the 2 best intel ddr boards right now are the ASUS P4PE, and the ABIT MAX2 V2.0(similar to the first, but with 845pe)... check those 2 out. They are by far and away better.

 

[ShadowCat66]

My buddy had that MSI board,He ended up selling it to me for my kids.He couldnt overclock the board with out having trouble.I dont remember the exact errors he was getting(too many to list or remember)He tried running XP Pro and 98SE on it,both were very stable at default settings or a mild.....very mild overclock,but as soon as he tried to change anything,memory for example to aggressive settings it wouldnt boot,or had win errors.He spent a week on the board calling MSI and others with no luck.If overclocking is important to you,I would advise to stay away from it.As a side note,he did try 3 brands of memory,cosair xms,crucial,kingmax.He was using a P4 2.8,Gainward TI 4600(at default settings he hit 14K plus)Maxtor HD,Audigy SC,Maxtor ATA 133 Adaptor card.I hope this is usefull in your quest for a board.MSI told him to try using Fuzzy logic,he did and it was the ONLY way to overclock the board,but with his 2.8,he never made it to 3.0.Which was the mild overclock I referred to.I dont plan on overclocking my kids machine so I took it off his hands,I plan on using a P4 2.26.I will post my results when I get the rest of my parts.Sorry for the long post.

Good luck

 

[failsaf3]

I have an MSI board and can overclock no problem with my particular board- but not sure about the PE. The only complaint I have is the memory timing as BHD refers to above- other than that its a solid stable board. I like mine and have not had any problems- however I need better memory timing so I'll be replacing it soon.

 

[asw7576]

Any reason i SHOULDN'T get a MSI 845PE Max2(MS-6704)?

Because ASUS P4PE is here.