ECS G31T-M(1.0) G31 mATX Motherboard

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eWiz.com MSI LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard $134 Discuss (0)

eWiz.com MSI LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard $134 Discuss (0)

Newegg ECS BLACK SERIES ATX AMD Motherboard $70 Discuss (1)

ZipZoomFly ASUS M3A78-EM AMD 780G SLI Micro ATX Mobo $67 Discuss (1)

1. Buy ECS motherboard

2. Spend over an hour of your time finding out that it doesn't work.

3. Spend another hour of your time preparing it for an exchange.

4. Wait one week for a replacement.

5. Repeat step 2.

So, can you suggest which one I should buy

depending on your needs, the EVGA 112-CK-NF70-TR Intel mATX Motherboard $40 seems to be in the same ballpark pricewise. I have had 4 ECS mobos during the AMD XP days and only one had a problem (mouse port died). I have had 3 EVGA mobos, none gave me any problems. Two MSI mobos, one had to be rma'd. 3 asus mobos, no problem on them. 3 gigabyte, no problem with them. ymmv

i personally like my mb's in the order asus, gigabyte, msi, ecs, asrock. in term of failures they are all about the same. ecs is okay brand however they do fail a little faster in comparison

ECS definitely gets a bad rap, but having read through newegg's reviews I wonder how deserved a lot of it is. As the cheapest boards I think they're bought by a lot of people who really don't know what they're doing and also cut corners on other things. Forty dollar board, twenty dollar power supply, twenty-five dollar memory, etc. It's a chain of questionable components that's bound to create errors.

Of course I'm just making this up. I've never built a system with an ECS board (MSI, ASUS, and Gigabyte so far). I'm sure I'll get to it someday--Fry's gives them away with their combos and I'll probably get one to play with in the near future.

Tried ECS twice... All three (both plus a replacement) had issues, ultimately cost me time and money, and ended up with nothing.

Used Asus and Gigabyte for quite a few builds, never a problem.

So far I've also had luck with Biostar, Foxconn, and Zotac as well. You get what you pay for. Cheap motherboards are a severe risk to your mental heath.

Gigabyte is my mobo of choice.

#2 For the G31 chipset family - I recommend the GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L. It's around $60 shipped ( newegg or Amazon) Pretty nice board and you won't have much trouble like #1 mentioned.
My experience with ECS: it need a lot of time to set it up. But once it works, it can last a while. But you need to tweak it and make it work 1st.

MSI motherboards are not overclockable in general. So stay away if you plan to overclock the cpu. ECS motherboard have very poor written bios and that is why it is so cheap.

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