ASUS M3A78-EM AM2+/AM2 780G Micro ATX Motherboard $51.99 w/ Coupon Code & Free Shipping at Newegg

this is perfect, I've been looking for an AM2 board for my spare X2 4200+ cpu lying around, now I can buy this and don't have to add my additional videocard or SPDIF soundcard to get a decent HTPC. I just hope HDMI audio works out of the box...

Logician1313 said: ComeOnNow said: Saw this earlier. Good board and excellent price. The only problem I have is that this doesnt support AM3.

I agree, I am buying my AM3 Gigabyte board hopefully today =), but this would be great for cheap XP build.

is there a reason why you would restrict it to xp? I do agree that am3 is your best bet just in terms of price of ddr3 memory vs ddr2

785G chipset board for $12 more: (don't think it has HDMI, though)

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=MB-A785GE&c=CJ&pid=7bac4d9e73aa...

Logician1313 said: ComeOnNow said: Saw this earlier. Good board and excellent price. The only problem I have is that this doesnt support AM3.

I agree, I am buying my AM3 Gigabyte board hopefully today =), but this would be great for cheap XP build.

But it does support AM3.. Just installed this board yesterday with an AM3 cpu (*) and works fine. Check the Asus support site for the right bios flash for you... Click n go to "cpu support list" tab

Athlon IIX2 215(ADX215OCK22GQ),2.7GHz,512KB,rev.C2,65W,SocketAM3
Athlon IIX2 235e(AD235EHDK23GQ),2.7GHz,1MB,rev.C2,45W,SocketAM3
Athlon IIX2 240(ADX240OCK23GQ),2.8GHz,1MB,rev.C2,65W,SocketAM3
Athlon IIX2 240e(AD240EHDK23GQ),2.8GHz,1MB,rev.C2,45W,SocketAM3
Athlon IIX2 245(ADX245OCK23GQ),2.9GHz,1MB,rev.C2,65W,SocketAM3
Athlon IIX2 250(ADX250OCK23GQ),3.0GHz,1MB,rev.C2,65W,SocketAM3
Athlon IIX3 400e(AD400EHDK32GI),2.2GHz,512KB,rev.C2,45W,SocketAM3
Athlon IIX3 405e(AD405EHDK32GI),2.3GHz,512KB,rev.C2,45W,SocketAM3
Athlon IIX3 425( ADX425WFK32GI),2.7GHz,512KB,rev.C2,95W,SocketAM3
Athlon IIX3 435( ADX435WFK32GI),2.9GHz,512KB,rev.C2,95W,SocketAM3
Athlon IIX4 600e(AD600EHDK42GI),2.2GHz,512KB,rev.C2,45W,SocketAM3
* Athlon IIX4 605e(AD605EHDK42GI),2.3GHz,512KB,rev.C2,45W,SocketAM3
Athlon IIX4 620(ADX620WFK42GI),2.6GHz,512KB,rev.C3,95W,SocketAM3
Athlon IIX4 630(ADX630WFK42GI),2.8GHz,512KB,rev.C3,95W,SocketAM3
Phenom IIX2 545 (HDX545WFK2DGI),3.0GHz,80W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Dual-Core
Phenom IIX2 545( HDX545WFK2DGM),3.0GHz,512KB,rev.C3,80W,SocketAM3
Phenom IIX2 550 (HDZ550WFK2DGI),3.1GHz,80W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Dual-Core
Phenom IIX2 550( HDX550WFK2DGM),3.1GHz,512KB,rev.C3,80W,SocketAM3
Phenom IIX3 700e (HD700EOCK3DGI),2.4GHz,65W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Triple-Core
Phenom IIX3 705e (HD705EOCK3DGI),2.5GHz,65W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Triple-Core
Phenom IIX3 710 (HDX710WFK3DGI),2.6GHz,95W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Triple-Core
Phenom IIX3 720 (HDX720WFK3DGI),2.8GHz,95W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Triple-Core
Phenom IIX3 720 (HDZ720WFK3DGI),2.8GHz,95W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Triple-Core
Phenom IIX3 740 (HDZ740WFK3DGI),3.0GHz,95W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Triple-Core
Phenom IIX4 805 (HDX805WFK4FGI),2.5GHz,95W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 810 (HDX810WFK4FGI),2.6GHz,95W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 820 (HDX820WFK4FGI),2.8GHz,95W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 900e (HD900EOCK4DGI),2.4GHz,65W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 905e (HD905EOCK4DGI),2.5GHz,65W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 910 (HDX910WFK4DGI),2.6GHz,95W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 925 (HDX925WFK4DGI),2.8GHz,95W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 925 (HDX925WFK4DGM),2.8GHz,95W,rev.C3,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 945 (HDX945FBK4DGI),3.0GHz,125W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 945 (HDX945WFK4DGI),3.0GHz,2048KB,95W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 945 (HDX945WFK4DGM),3.0GHz,2048KB,95W,rev.C3,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 955 (HDX955FBK4DGI),3.2GHz,125W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 955 (HDX955FBK4DGM),3.2GHz,125W,rev.C3,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 955 (HDZ955FBK4DGI),3.2GHz,125W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 965 (HDZ965FBK4DGI),3.4GHz,140W,rev.C2,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Phenom IIX4 965 (HDZ965FBK4DGM),3.4GHz,125W,rev.C3,SocketAM3,Quad-Core
Sempron 140,SDX140HBK13GQ,2.7GHz,1024K,rev.C2,45W,SocketAM3

Logician1313 said: ComeOnNow said: Saw this earlier. Good board and excellent price. The only problem I have is that this doesnt support AM3.

I agree, I am buying my AM3 Gigabyte board hopefully today =), but this would be great for cheap XP build.

I am buying this combo for my another HTPC build.

Sweet deal, its a whole lot of motherboard for the money and HDMI and E-Sata to boot. The high number of negative reviews have me on the fence. Then again if you do the math you get a total of 185 reviews Average or worse and 718 Good or Excellent. Decisions decisions. Thought i had my mind made up on an Intel board, but this price is too good to pass up.

Review Summary (903 Reviews):
547 Reviews Excellent

171 Reviews Good

64 Reviews Average

37 Reviews Poor

84 Reviews Very Poor

got this mobo from last year's BF sale @ $65. just wanted something cheap for a low-end HTPC. it does work, and it is solid, but it also leaves a lot to be desired. bios isn't very good for a couple of reasons. first, if you swap hard drives a lot, it's a pain in the ass because every time you add or subtract a hard drive you have to go into the bios and reset the hard drive boot order. even if the drive you changed wasn't the boot drive. i don't know what the deal is but i run into this a lot. also, it doesn't set the memory timings correctly for either set of DDR2 i tried, it defaults to 200mhz for some reason. you will have to manually correct that to 400 (DDR2-800) or 566 (DDR2-1066) AND set the SPD timings yourself. also overclocking potential is limited as the vcore can only be adjusted to +150mv max. the onboard GPU will play Quake 3 but that's about it. it should play DXVA encoded HD movies but i can't say for sure, i wasn't aware of MPC-HC before i stuck a separate video card in there. anyway with all of the good choices for $20-30 more i would just spend the extra. many of the newer boards have the potential to unlock extra cores too with the Phenom X2, X3.

i ended up upgrading my CPU, RAM and GPU throughout the year and the motherboard is the one thing i'm not happy with. but i tinker a lot.

still if every dollar counts then for $52 it's hard to beat.

if anyone does decide to jump on this and you also need a CPU and RAM, i have a Athlon X2 4850e (2.5ghz, 45W) and 2 x 1GB DDR2-800 for sale, the ones i was previously using with this board.

nickliu79 said: ASUS is a much better brand than BIOStar and typically more expensive.

IStillPickUpPennies said: 785G chipset board for $12 more: (don't think it has HDMI, though)

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=MB-A785GE&c=CJ&pid=7bac4d9e73aa...

I agree with your latter statement but not necessarily your first. If they work, ASUS motherboards do tend to be good at overclocking, but if you read enough ASUS motherboard reviews on Newegg.com, you'll see about as many people reporting problems with their ASUS boards as with any comparable brands such as MSI, Gigabyte or Biostar.

brotherhpj said: This deal is still on...just wondering what CPU is the best bang for the buck. PMed the FW'er that said he had a used one for sale but
have heard nothing. If your listening give me a holler!

athlon ii x4 for sure.

can be oc'd well, and woops dual core's ass by a long shot.

i can encode x264 video in real time. games play smooth too

IStillPickUpPennies said: 785G chipset board for $12 more: (don't think it has HDMI, though)

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=MB-A785GE&c=CJ&pid=7bac4d9e73aa...

Does this MB allow Sempron to Athlon dual core? I though it needs 785G chipset in order to do this.

I put one of these in a computer I built for a friend a few months ago. It comes with an awesome number of features for so cheap. The onboard video is surprisingly good. She hasn't had any problems at all and hasn't needed to upgrade to a real video card yet since the most graphics intensive game she plays is Everquest 2 which runs flawlessly.

If I could just find some cheap DDR2 ram I'd buy another and upgrade my own secondary pc.

I think this deal is expired but it's only $49.99 at zipzoomfly

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10008823&prodlist=celebros

I've had nothing but aggravation with my M3A78-EM. Couldn't get the sound to work at all, but the board was rock solid otherwise. Eventually rma'd the board and it was repaired (not replaced) and now the sound works. But now the board locks up at random, using the same cpu, heatsink, ram, everything as I was using before. Sometimes Prime95 will run for days, other times it will crash/reboot in a few hours. Probably I'll need to rma it again or junk it and get a board that can handle 1080 high def, see my next comment.

Also note that I couldn't play 1080 HD with the onboard graphic controller, it's too slow. I added a nvidia 9600 board for HD playback.

ptpt said: brotherhpj said: This deal is still on...just wondering what CPU is the best bang for the buck. PMed the FW'er that said he had a used one for sale but
have heard nothing. If your listening give me a holler!

Using it here with a X2 4850e. Works excellent, yet power usage is way less than previous Athlon. Unlike many mobos it also properly "goes to sleep" which reduced my power bill even further. A terrific combo IMHO.

Thanks ptpt @ $56 the X2 4850e seems like a great price. Yes it looks like the Newegg deal is kaput but the ZZF is on. ZZF lets you make your own combos with
free shipping. Any coupon codes you'd like to share on this deal for ZZF!