QuietOC wrote:
You might want to look at what components each board uses. Gigabyte tends to use junky components.
Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at. What components are good, and which ones are junky? How do I tell which kinds of components a certain mobo uses (short of buying one and personally inspecting it)? Do you generally rely on reviews to help you determine if a board uses quality components, or some other, more reliable method?
(I vaguely remember, on another thread, you mentioning that the Tforce boards have good capacitors on them, but I could be wrong.)
QuietOC wrote:
Their past boards are known for having poor quality--lots of RMAs. I am not saying that board is that way, but it is likely to be that way.
Now that you mention it, I recall having a Gigabyte board with some weird grounding problem. Couldn't figure it out for the life of me!
QuietOC wrote:
Biostars in general have been well made for their price. The Tforce line in particular. My experience is that they are better than boards from ASUS.
At least judging by price, the Tforce series seems to be their higher-end line.
I read too many random posts all over the net, and have all this "knowledge"... it all jumbles together, and I can't remember verifiable fact from conjecture and speculation. Like with Asus, I could have swore I read a post (not on SPCR) from someone claiming to have worked for them. He said that the "Premium" line of boards are the ones they build with nothing but the best components. I think next in line was the "Deluxe" and at the bottom was the "X" line, which was effectively the el-cheapo stuff.
I probably shouldn't even post
that because it's based on foggy memory of a non-verified post! Now someone else will be just as confused as me!

QuietOC wrote:
And remember more features = more power used.
Yup... since thinking about this, I think I'm actually going to try and leave the server as-is, and actually downgrade my power rig (way overkill for my needs). So the Biostar it is! I've got a Kill-A-Watt on the way, and am on a new mission to reduce my overall power usage in my house.
Thanks for all the help and feedback guys!
Matt