Thoughts on the MSI K7N420 Pro...

[MHeller311]

Considering buying this board used for around $80... Any stability issues i should know about? This is for a budget box for a friend who wants onboard vid/aud/lan. He won't be doing much gaming, mostly music recording (he's spending the bulk of the money on Digidesign hardware).

I've looked at all my similar cost alternatives and it's essentially come down to this board or the Asus A7N266-VM (which is the 220D chipset w/ 3pci slots, vs the MSI which is 420D w/ 5 pci slots). Once again, gaming is not a real issue. Also, ECS motherboards are out of the question, I know I can get 7 of them for the price of any other motherboard, but I've tried one for audio recording and it was terrible, even with a highend audio card installed, popping noises all over.

I'd just as soon get the Asus board, but he'd really like the additional PCI slots... doesn't necessarily need them (yet) but would like the option to be there. So once again, any issues or strong recommendations against the MSI board?

Or if you know of a motherboard (NON-ecs) that can take DDR and an athlon xp, has onboard audio, maybe lan, and onboard video, or is cheap enough that I can through in an agp vid card for a total price of $80, please let me know. Thanks.

[gurutoo]

Go with the Asus A7N-266 VM.

[^YiAnNi^]

ive actually asked about the A7N-266 VM in another thread and it seems to be a good cheap board with respectable onboard graphics and sound! its around $60 US here in australia so i think thats what ill be getting! the downside is that it doesnt support the dual channel DDR configuration but i dont know if you would use it even if you had it? im happy with one stick of 256Mb ddr to go with the asus board! if you want the option of dual channel ddr then i would say go with the MSI board! if you want a cheap solution with 1 stick of ram then go with the ASUS! i also think the MSI has 5.1 where as and the asus use's a realtek chip for sound?

correct me if im wrong!