BIOSTAR TA790GXB vs. ECS A785GM-M

[Coolwhip]

I've been out of the hardware loop for a while and I just want to get some opinions on which MB I should go with out of these 2 before I make a purchase. I am building a computer for my Dad, he really only uses it for web browsing, email, word processing, online videos, etc. So OCing isn't an issue. I will be using an AMD Sempron 140 Sargas 2.7GHz processor. I know not to skimp on the MB and I would rather go with an ASUS or Gigabyte, but I've got to keep the cost down.

My main two issues are of course stability, and upgradeability, right now the onboard video is fine, but once the grandkids are a little older(my nieces and nephews) I will be upgrading the CPU and adding a video card so they can do some gaming. And right now I will be installing XP but intend to upgrade to 64-bit Windows 7 soon.

edit: thats the ta790gxb3, not the am2+ model

 

[BoBBYI986]

Hi there, They are both very similar boards but the ECS seems to stand out a bit more with a few extra features, such as the onboard E-sata controller which is also hot swoppable. I also noticed mosfet voltage regulator heatsinks on the ECS motherboard which is also a good thing. Can't see what phase powers it has but im guessing around 5 phase, doesn't mention anything about lower rds on mosfets. Amd chipset not to bad. onboard raid fake driver based raid, but you can have quite a few raid levels, raid 0, 1 , 10 and even JBOD (just a bunch of discs) the raid is jmicron seperatre from the chipset not intergrated on the southbridge. only real thing you need to find out is if that PCI-Express x16 controller bus frequency is 2.0 (4GB/s) because it doesn't state on the website.