Built two new systems over the weekend...
One has the Epox 9NDA3+ power pack motherboard, the other is the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum Edition mainboard.
Epox: FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
Opened the box, and everything was boxed neatly. Excellent documentation. Overall a good product layout. However the motherboard is a basic brown... and nothing really to look at. However there is a fan on the north bridge cooler. That is ALWAYS a plus.
Motherboard layout seems to be pretty basic, and fairly well laid out.
BIOS:
BIOS was pretty basic, with good functionality. Overclocking features where all present and accounted for.
PERFORMANCE:
Overall performance was quite good using a 3200+ AMD Athlon64 Venice. Reached 2.53GHz with littl problem.
MSI: FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
WOW! Where do I start. Everything from the box, to the included manuals... Just screamed quality. The motherboard is a flat black (as are all the Platinum models from MSI). Included were round ATA cables, and floppy cables (in red), as well as a full set of add-ons for the mainboard.
Motherboard layout is a bit odd. The ZIF 939 socket is located between the memory, and the AGP slot... The power connections are too close to the Floppy, and IDE connections... It makes it a bit difficult to plug everything in.
BIOS:
Good overall functionality... and at first glance it looks like all of the usual overclocking features are right there. However they are not. To get all of the features you have to go into the "core cell" are of the BIOS, and press the following keys:
<Shift>+<F2> then <Alt>+<F3>
This will show several hidden options.
PERFORMANCE:
Overall performance was excellent. It out performed the Epox motherboard by about 2-5% across every benchmark that I ran. As well as gave me the ability to overclock the exact same 3200+ Venice to a staggering 2.83GHz!!!!! @ 1.7v
After I got used to the overall motherboard design... it seems to work quite well.
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Overall I found both motherboards to be quite good... However I have to give it to Epox. The motherboard cost HALF that of the MSI... and the performance was nearly identical. If you dont have a window in your case... or you just dont give a crap what your motherboard looks like ... The Epox is an excellent choice.
However if you are feeling the need for speed... and you like a pretty motherboard... I would have to suggest the MSI. It is faster, cleaner, and overall the performace king of this duo.
Hope this is a bit of help to anyone looking for a motherboard that supports AGP... and has plenty of performance options.
~
Two new systems 
