Asus or MSI Geforce 6150 Based Motherboard?

All about them.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
RobDMB
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2005 5:27 pm

Asus or MSI Geforce 6150 Based Motherboard?

Post by RobDMB » Thu Jul 13, 2006 9:28 am

I'm building a new S939 based system and am looking for opinions on which Geforce 6150 based matx motherboard is better between the msi and asus models. Any opinions are appreciated. -Rob

autoboy
Posts: 1008
Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 8:10 pm
Location: San Jose, California

Post by autoboy » Thu Jul 13, 2006 9:32 am

I have both. The Asus is unstable and has problems with the usb ports. The MSI has been great. There are several threads here about them already so search around.

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Post by andyb » Thu Jul 13, 2006 10:07 am

I have used a few Gigabyte motherboards, link below.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Mot ... K8N51GMF-9

From what I understand there is hardly any point in buying a 6150 mobo, as they are barely any faster than the 6100's, what is far more important is the better south bridge.

If you need any more graphics performance than the 6100 gives you, you may as well buy a greaphics card to add in. Also if you add a graphics card later this board will support the on-board video AND the add-in card at the same time.

The mobo linked above is MUCH cheaper than the 6150 mobo's and has the better SB chip, it doesnt have the TV or DVI output, but it is available at £35+VAT in the UK.

I have built 3 PC's with these boards, and a simple file server with another next week.


Andy

stromgald
Posts: 887
Joined: Wed Jun 09, 2004 12:45 pm
Location: California, US

Post by stromgald » Thu Jul 13, 2006 10:20 am

I've used ASUS (ATX) and MSI (mATX) motherboards and to me ASUS seems to be of better quality. My ASUS motherboard has had very few problems in setting up and has worked fine. My MSI board on the other hand has faulty temperature sensors (reading 5-15C higher than it should) and many more crashes. This is most likely due the lack of cooling on the chipset. Both boards I have came with the southbridge (i think; or whichever one controls the HDD) bare. The MSI board kept crashing and I've had to stick a Zalman northbridge heatsink on it to minimize the crashing, but it still sometimes crashes 30min-1hr into games (whether with on-board video or the graphics card, so I don't think thats the cause).

From my experiences ASUS has better build quality and stability. MSI is a large, reputable company so I wouldn't say their stuff is bad, their stuff is just 'ok' to me. Whereas ASUS usually goes above and beyond with stability and quality. You might also want to consider ASRock mATX boards.

RobDMB
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2005 5:27 pm

Post by RobDMB » Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:22 am

Quick question. Which integrated boards are better. The ones based on the Nvidia Geforce 6150 chipsets or ones based on ATI's integrated solution?

anaqer
Posts: 44
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2005 11:31 pm

Post by anaqer » Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:22 am

andyb wrote:I have used a few Gigabyte motherboards, link below.
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Mot ... K8N51GMF-9
Forget it, that thing eats PSUs for breakfast. Killed a Chieftec DT-350 under a month and won't even POST with a nice 300W, 24pin HP unit - I only ever got it working with a shitty Codegen (and even that won't restart properly from windows).

yeha
Posts: 292
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 7:54 pm

Post by yeha » Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:24 am

having just bought and installed a jetway 754gt3-ptd, i can say that i'm extremely impressed.

tv-out, dvi-out, 430 southbridge, excellent voltage controls (can undervolt semprons that don't support it, i.e. multipliers of <= 8), excellent bios in general.. i really have nothing bad to say about it. oh, and it's one of the cheapest 6100 boards you can buy. there's a socket-939 variant (939gt3-ptd) also at newegg.

speedfan unfortunately couldn't control the fans for me. i ended up unplugging them and ducting to the 120mm-fanned psu. total system power draw was 90 watts, it's coping very well.

the am2 version (m2gt3-ptd) is available from atacom. the manual shows extensive fan speed controls for the am2 one, though i've not tested them myself.

i'm confused by how little i've seen about these jetway boards, they're quite amazing for the price. jetway is a large manufacturer, apparently producing anything labeled 'evga'.

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Post by andyb » Thu Jul 13, 2006 12:00 pm

anaqer, its very interesting what you say about that Gigabyte motherboard, how many have you tried.??? If you have only tried 1 motherboard, put that down to bad luck rather than a bad model of motherboard. If you have tried several with several different PSU's then I would agree with you.

As it is, I have just built ANOTHER one (5 so far + another one next week if I dont get time to build it tomorrow), its sat right next to me, I am just installing XP SP2, its in an Antec SLK1650 with Antec 350W PSU, and its all OK so far.

I have never used a chieftec PSU in my life, I dont touch anything made by HP, Comcrap, or Hell, so I dont know about that PSU, I have used dozens (literally) of Codegen PSU's and they tend to be OK-Good.

Yeha, I am glad that you like your Jetway mobo, I hope their reliability rate has drastically improved, they last I heard of them was a system builder that I used to know, who had a 20% faliure rate within 12 months :(


Andy

pipperoni
Posts: 218
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2004 9:10 pm
Location: Toronto
Contact:

Post by pipperoni » Thu Jul 13, 2006 12:43 pm

The MSI board seems to be the best 6150 board out there. This thread at anand has a really good discussion/analysis of the MSI board and a comparison to the other big 6150 boards. There used to be a 6150 shootout thread but that seems to have disappeared.

Anand Forum MSI board discussion

The super interesting board to me though is the Albatron 6150 mini-ITX board. If you only need one or two PCI boards, this looks like a very interesting beast.

Albatron KI51PV-754

This board is only just appearing now and has a huge premium over normal mATX boards (~$250 for the Albatron board)

Ant6n
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat Jun 10, 2006 9:48 pm

Post by Ant6n » Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:18 pm

RobDMB wrote:Quick question. Which integrated boards are better. The ones based on the Nvidia Geforce 6150 chipsets or ones based on ATI's integrated solution?
i once found some review that said that the nvidia is a little faster; but i wanted tv-out on mobo; and only the 6150 and xpress200 (not the 6100) some to have those, but the xpress200 boards are cheaper. Also i couldnt find a 6150 with 754 anyway

winguy
Posts: 447
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:31 am

Post by winguy » Fri Jul 14, 2006 3:51 am

Wow, the Jetway M2GT3-PTD / 939GT3-PTD / 754GT3-PTD has a pretty impressive bios. Bios fan control for all 3 headers (down to 60% it seems).

yeha, what're the options for CPU Vcore under Power User Overclock Settings? And does it have any offset when using Cool n Quiet?

Also, what's the Realtek 8-channel audio codec on the 939GT3-PTD / 754GT3-PTD ? The M2GT3-PTD uses Realtek ALC655 .

mb2
Posts: 606
Joined: Sun Jun 06, 2004 2:42 pm
Location: UK

Post by mb2 » Fri Jul 14, 2006 9:13 am

as far as i remember, the xpress 200 and 6100/6150 are fairly similar in performance, one being better at some things, and vv. i think the 61X0 seemed a bit better overall, but its not massive. the 6150 has better features althou its not a huge difference in performance, some 6150 implimentations are slower than other 6100s someone told me...
does anyone know about the albatron that was coming ages ago.. s754 (and 939) w/ 6150.. they were even doing a mini-ITX which had the same features...
[edit: i see someone else has mentioned it.. is it available anywhere? ..ouch, $250, i thought it would be reasonable being standard NF and 754]

all manufacturers have good and bad boards.. (yes, some more than others, but still u should consider by board not by just brand..)

i must say get a new (ie spec) and known-reliable PSU.. as i had issues with a couple of PSUs, but i couldn't be sure enough to tie it down to the PSU or the board.

what are u looking for in the board specifically.. DVI, TV out, stability, cost, OC options, fan speed control, GigE?

MikeM
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jun 05, 2006 5:10 am

Post by MikeM » Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:16 am

I have the MSI 6150 FID board and it's been rock solid. It's also capable of bit-perfect SPDIF output to a receiver/pre-pro. This is a big deal if you're into DTS CD's as you normally have to spend quite a bit extra to get a sound card or USB device to do bit-perfect. The normal sound cards like Creative Labs and Auzentech can't do bit-perfect.

Modmaven
Posts: 19
Joined: Tue May 09, 2006 6:39 am
Contact:

Post by Modmaven » Tue Jul 18, 2006 11:22 am

I have the ASUS A8N-VM CSM in my Aspire X-Qpack, and havent had any problems with it. The integrated DVI is nice, eventhough I dont use it. Keep in mind that the TV out is on the motherboard, but there is a separate little tv out "dongle" that you have to purchase to get it going. I dont even use the onboard VGA, as I have a 7600GT.

Stacey Melissa
Posts: 45
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2006 10:42 am
Location: Wichita, Kansas, USA

Post by Stacey Melissa » Tue Jul 18, 2006 1:28 pm

I wouldn't pick an IGP chipset based on graphics speed. None of them are good for playing much of any games. Just pick one to get the features you're looking for. For me, that was DVI, SPDIF, and four SATA ports, so the MSI K8NGM2-FID was what I got. It's been running quite solid for me for several months, as has another system I built with the same board, and yet another with MSI's 6100/410 s754 board. I also built a system around the Biostar Tforce939 (6100/410) board last year, and it was a bit of a pain to get going, but after that, it's been solid as well.

As far as quietness is concerned, the MSI boards were pretty decent, as they have a CPU fan header that can be adjusted by the BIOS, based on a user-definable temp threshold.

mb2
Posts: 606
Joined: Sun Jun 06, 2004 2:42 pm
Location: UK

Post by mb2 » Tue Jul 18, 2006 3:17 pm

well.. that depends what u want from ur games.. fun or eyecandy..
i can play every single game that i've thrown at it. BF2, Q4, D3, ettc, with frame rates that are very playable (no lag, quick response, etc).
yes the resolution is low, but its still better than your TV, and yes the other settings are low, but games look better than on a PS2.

to get something noticeably better i'd have to spend £100 or so.. twice the price of the mobo. infact, about the price of my mobo + CPU. not to mention the extra noise and heat i'd be adding.
and mines not even the 6150, nor am i on 939, nor do i have particularly fast ram (about 220mhz max).. all of which would help (a bit).

anaqer
Posts: 44
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2005 11:31 pm

Post by anaqer » Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:28 am

andyb wrote:anaqer, its very interesting what you say about that Gigabyte motherboard, how many have you tried.???
Two, both produced the same results. I wanted to link the newegg customer reviews section where I read a good handful of similar reports, but apparently they no longer even carry the board. Bummer.

Nexworks
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Jun 17, 2006 7:42 pm

Post by Nexworks » Wed Jul 19, 2006 6:30 pm

Im using an Asus 6150 board and have had not a single glitch, error, crash, or sign of unstability. Every port and feature work like a charm.

HammerSandwich
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1288
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 3:21 pm
Location: 15143, USA
Contact:

Post by HammerSandwich » Thu Jul 20, 2006 7:43 pm

I built a system with the Asus A8N-VM CSM and liked the board. There were a few minor glitches, but that build occurred in December when the board was very new. There may be better boards, but I'd be surprised if the Asus caused trouble.

Post Reply