Is this an O.K. board?

[Spongebob]

Re: Is this an O.K. board?

It's just a weaker performer, but feature-wise they aren't much different. The ECS has that AGP slot, but the ABIT has a third PCI-E slot (which is probably more likely to see use). The ABIT also has greater capacity for RAM. I'd go with the ABIT, but you probably wouldn't be unhappy with the ECS, and your wallet wouldn't be as light.

That ECS's big sister board took platnuim in the test you linked me to. You sure the Abit board is a better performer? I don't think I'll ever need more than 2 GB of system Ram on this new board, plus the ECS board can also use DDR2, it'll be upgraded long before 1 GB of system ram is needed by myself. I'm not really sure what I'd use the extra PCI-E slot for just yet, but you might be right about that, although I don't use anything but my AGP ports for video cards in my current systems since most boards already have built in Lan and half-way decent sound. I'm hessatent about what to order but I'm going to do it soon.

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Is this an O.K. board?

Pretty sure I already mentioned how the AGP was a PCI slot in disguise...

The fact that another ECS board is actually good is irrelevant. This one has some serious power comsumption issues because of the PCI slot used as an AGP slot, but it probably won't matter unless you actually try to use the AGP slot. In any case, I just wouldn't get that ECS out of principle. It's the considerably cheaper than all of the other i915 boards on the market, and you get what you pay for. I just can't believe that they can have an AGP slot (well, not quite... you know already) and support for both DDR and DDR2 on the same board and cost so much less than all of the other boards on the same chipset without taking shortcuts in something important.

However, I can't see any major flaws with it for a non-OCed gaming system other than the fact that it's an LGA775 board, which would be the case with every other LGA775 board (let me think of a way to be even more redundant in that sentence...). The one review I read on it, if I remember correctly, didn't have any major problesm except with AGP express port. It did perform worse, but I don't think it was so much worse that it matters...

[Spongebob]

Re: Is this an O.K. board?

Pretty sure I already mentioned how the AGP was a PCI slot in disguise...

The fact that another ECS board is actually good is irrelevant. This one has some serious power comsumption issues because of the PCI slot used as an AGP slot, but it probably won't matter unless you actually try to use the AGP slot. In any case, I just wouldn't get that ECS out of principle. It's the considerably cheaper than all of the other i915 boards on the market, and you get what you pay for. I just can't believe that they can have an AGP slot (well, not quite... you know already) and support for both DDR and DDR2 on the same board and cost so much less than all of the other boards on the same chipset without taking shortcuts in something important.

However, I can't see any major flaws with it for a non-OCed gaming system other than the fact that it's an LGA775 board, which would be the case with every other LGA775 board (let me think of a way to be even more redundant in that sentence...). The one review I read on it, if I remember correctly, didn't have any major problesm except with AGP express port. It did perform worse, but I don't think it was so much worse that it matters...

I probably would never use that AGP slot unless I someday sell the system and need to ditch an old AGP graphics card (likely to happen). I don't think I'll be ordering the board for another week or two so I'm still going to shop around. I know LGA 775 isn't the greatest but I have a CPU that needs a board so I am definitly in the market for an LGA 775 motherboard and I don't want to spend a bundle becuase I'll be building another system this Spring and I'll probably go AMD and dump bigger $$$ into it since I've managed to sell both my P4 2.4GHz systems and need upgrades, but this one comes first.
Do you really think boards with both DDR and DDR2 memory slots might be short changed? There seems to be a heeping pile of them available but if a board with just 1 type has advantages I'd consider it.

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Is this an O.K. board?

I just have trouble believing that they can sell it cheaper then every other board on the same chipset and still be able to include support for both. Usually, this indicates shortcuts being taken somewhere in the board production, IMO.

But I guess you can always return it to Newegg if you aren't happy with it.