Calling all system builders

I'm looking at getting a new PC soon, and being on a tight budget, i'm looking at going down the AMD path once again. I'm currently tossing up between the Asus M2N4 SLI and the Asus M2N-E SLI. The only real difference i can see between the two is colour and Audio Chipset. Does anyone have any experience with either board, good or bad?

Cheers Fellas.

Wait till June 23rd if ya can, Intel price cuts again. ps. Intel > AMD.

thanks for the heads up obes

ive built a few Asus M2N-E SLI systems, no dramas;

all went together very well and go good

okay, good to hear. Do they seem lacking in any area or are they pretty well fully featured?

didnt do no overclocking, just wanted a decent quality amd sli board and i like asus

sound is good (form what ive heard, i didnt do much testing of it)

i guess if you want teh duper features, go the deluxe M2N, but most of that stuff my peeps would never use



last edited by Spook at 12:41:42 29/May/07

sweet, thats pretty much my thoughts on the matter too

cheers for confirming my suspicions spook.

I believe the m2n4 has no firewire, in case you care

M2N-E
M2N4-SLI

if the only thing you see different is the colour you better get glasses.

last edited by whoop at 19:32:46 29/May/07

last edited by whoop at 19:32:54 29/May/07

lol, amd

if ur on a budget get a budget intel system. e4300 or something and a p5nesli

last edited by Slappercx at 19:53:17 29/May/07

last edited by Slappercx at 19:53:27 29/May/07

Another vote for Intel. They currently blow AMD out of the water in terms of price and performance.

(This is coming from an AMD fan of many, many years)

If you were on a budget why the hell would you be getting an SLI capable system...

If you were on a budget why the hell would you be getting an SLI capable system...

coz its really only a minor expense now, and it gives you a fair bit of flexability down the track?

set up initial system now, spend a bit extra on the mobo, when upgrading time comes in 6months, two new video cards and you're still in teh game

It's not really going to save you much if anything. It really only equates to a pretty small performance increase for the average person. The main perfomance gains you are going to see are with extra filtering in graphics processing - AA and AS. It also will give a decent boost if you are running a massive res on a bigass monitor. However for just regular old gaming on a typical sized monitor the cost will outweigh the performance gain imo.

Just for interests sake the boards you have listed only support 8x SLI, so it splits the PCIE bus in half for each slot. The more expensive boards will do x16 each slot. So using the M2N4 board in SLI you are going to see even less gains.

I went by the same idea when I had my A8N-SLI mainboard (it too only had 8x SLI support) with a 6600GT. When the time came to upgrade a 7 series card was going to rape the poo out of 2 x 6600GT's so I sold it and put the money towards a much faster solution - a 7900GT.

Also bear in mind you are going to need more power for an SLI setup, phatter PSU is gonna be more $$ as well.


Really I would only recommend SLI if you have money to burn and are going to spend big and get 2 of the best cards you can buy.


Also you'd be crazy to buy AMD over Intel right now. Grab a 6320 or 6420 on a P5B mainboard with 2 gig of 667 RAM. That is still on the cheaper end but will provide you with a very decent system.

yer, i looked at building intel systems (never have before, but everyone tells me they are cheaper and faster) and i was disappointed to see, that they are still not cheaper

ended up going
amd 64 am2 chips on asus m2n mobos
with appropriate ram and psus

was a lot cheaper than new intel gear. . . ..

yeah, sorry, not looking for an SLI machine, just wanted a Nvidia-based full sized Asus motherboard with full features. Just so happens that these boards are SLI capable.

Just going to be running a single dirty old 256mb 6600GT.

Reason for choosing AMD? Well, i'm on a budget y'see. Is an E4300 faster than an X2 4800+?

Well if you are on THAT much of a budget... for a gaming rig I couldn't recommend anything. It'd just suck balls too much with anything remotely recent.

If its for a workstation Nvidia based is definately not what you want.

last edited by rubba-chikin at 22:01:47 30/May/07

The thing is, the e4300's will clock to 3ghz (1.8 stock) on stock hsf with ease.

The current price difference between going intel vs. amd is like $200 for the mid-range current gen. If you cant spare 200bux you probably shouldnt upgrade yet :P

as i have to support any pc i build, im not interested in overclocking