ASUS M3A Socket AM2+ / AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD

[yetanothersteve]

Anyone have any experience with this mobo?
I am thinking of getting it for a Athlon X2 now, and then using it for a Phenom when the prices come down.

This 770 based board is about $91 at Clubit and Newegg, while the 790X and 790FX boards are running $160 and higher.

Even though I am cheap, can anyone think of a compelling reason to go with a 790 based board instead?

[oblivious_maximus]

can anyone think of a compelling reason to go with a 790 based board instead?The main difference as it stands today, afaik, is crossfire support and 2 more SATA ports on the southbridge. Oh and support for a couple more USB ports too.

[yetanothersteve]

I did build my new budget system but went with the Biostar TA770 A2+ that also has the AMD 770 chipset and that supports a phenom.

I had read a fair number of mixed reviews of the Asus M3A and decided to save a few dollars and go with the Biostar instead. There is also a MSI (K9A2) in the sub $100 range with the 790X chipset that looked tempting.

Except for sometimes having to reboot to have the video card (Evga 8600GT) detected properly, it is very stable. I am single booting Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy. SATA HDD, USB and onboard sound all working properly. I do not have any firewire or eSATA devices.


Intermittent video card initialization issue. (http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7697)

[oblivious_maximus]

As it happens I've just built a new system with an M3A myself. No Phenom for me just yet though. Debian testing installed without issue using a 2.6.22 kernel, and I've since briefly used a 2.6.23 and am now using a 2.6.24 kernel, both also had no problems.

In Kmix and alsamixer, for some reason the master volume control is missing, it's adjusted with the PCM control instead and the Front control seems to adjust the PCM levels. This is the only problem I've had I'm sure has something to with the board. I'm using the AC97 setting in the BIOS and haven't tried using the HD audio option.

Windows can't use the AHCI mode of the SATA controller at all, and my SATA dvdrw drive doesn't work in windows even with the SATA controller in IDE mode. AHCI works great in Linux (as does the dvdrw).

I also bought an 8600gt, only an Asus with passive cooling. I really wish I had not read threads full of ATI driver complaints and just bought an ATI card though. The 8600gt works for the most part but 2 things just make me hate it - it doesn't respect the TVOverScan xorg option, or the similar nvidia-settings option, and DPMS functionality seems pretty broken. My monitor won't stay in standby with this card, it goes off and comes back on, then goes off again before turning back on, and so on. I can't wait to get rid of it.

Quite happy with the M3A though.

[yetanothersteve]

Bought another 4GB of RAM. Could not resist at the price of $92.99 with a $20 mail in rebate.

Now have
A-DATA 8GB(4x2GB) DDR2 800

The A-Data was an unknown to me before I bought the first 2 sticks. But it seems well made and everything is running at the rated speed and passed all tests in Memtest86+.

Now I do not have an excuse for testing enterprise (read: memory hog) software in virtual machines where I have 2 different VMs assigned 2GB of RAM each.

[oblivious_maximus]

I bought A-DATA dimms too(!), they seemed a good deal. I'm sticking with 4 gigs for now, but you're right it is very tempting with the stuff so cheap. I can wait for the other 4 gigs until I get what I'm disappointed with about the new rig remedied. I'd be happy with my 4400+ if the temperature sensor wasn't defective, and I completely regret letting NVIDIA's mostly-functional-but-screw-any-complaints-anyone-anywhere-might-have driver convince me to not buy an ATI card.