For a Conroe E6300 processor without OC. (I was thinking about getting an asrock mobo but decided not to for some reasons) Which is better: Asus P5L-VM 1394 GIGABYTE GA-945G-S3 The gigabyte one is a bit more expensive too. thanks
Well, their two different sized motherboards. The Asus uses a micro ATX formfactor (mATX) and the Gigabyte is a regular ATX formfactor, which tend to be more expensive. The Gigabyte board would give you more in terms of future expansion, but if you're trying to build a fairly small system, the Asus would be a little better. I haven't seen reviews of either, but both are reputable companies. I've worked with motherboards from both companies and they've never given me trouble. If future expansion isn't a real concern, just get the Asus.
There is a good chance I'll make a future upgrade, but I don't think I'll have an "expansion". Do expansion limitations mean I can't have more then 2 PCI cards, or 4 Harddrives etc. (which I doubt I will need) or is there anything else?
The hard drive limitations can be worked around with an expansion card...although for most people, they probably won't have that many (most people, not the storage freaks). The expansion slots would be more of a challenge, since right now, a lot of non-graphics expansions still use PCI slots. Secondly, if you happen to incorporate a video card using a dual-slot design that many high-end video cards use, you'll loose a PCI slot with the Asus board. You wouldn't run into that with the Gigabyte board.
ah, ok, I won't need any of those. I'm currently planning on having one HDD, nothing on PCI and using the internal graphics card (probably will upgrade that in the future, but definitely not to 2 cards..) I'll go with the ASUS one, thanks
