BIOSTAR TPower I45 LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Safe BIOS (I can't think of the particular name they give it right now) works nicely if your system has a hard time figuring out your setup or if you screw up settings, so don't worry about making smoke come out of your system. BIOS update even works from Windows 7 64bit interface (unlike ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi). Great board layout (IF you have a large box like my Gigabyte 3D Mercury - water cooled tower).

Cons: For some reason, I get one point lower on Windows Experience rating for the SATA RAID array (1+0) that I have set up (from 6.2 to 6.1 with four 1TB WD Blacks), but no noticeable throughput issues. As a matter of fact, despite the lower number (compared to ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi), it seems to run faster, so I am thinking one of these is giving me a funny rating number. Not so sure I trust those ratings so much anyway. Wish I would have done a full test of each board using real benchmarking software before the ASUS died on me (after two years of use).

Other Thoughts: So far, so good! If this board lasts, I am much happier with it, and I am sure a lot of the performance increase is due to the upgrade from P35 to P45 chipsets. If you are sticking with your 775 processor, this MB is a great choice!

Pros: Great layout! Easy Bios. Nice SATA Setup.

Cons: Audio would have been better if over by USB Connectors but not enough to dock it. Also doesn't support Pentium D dual cores so be careful if trying to upgrade old stuff. neither of these is enough to dock a point though. This board is kicking.

Other Thoughts: C2D 3.06 Wolfdale
4 G 2.2 v Patriot RAM
XFX 1 Gig 4850 Vid
Windows 7 Ultimate 64

Pros: Wide variety of configuration options and hardware support. Best board ever. Has a PATA connector and 6 SATA. eSATA, gigabit eth, 10channel audio. Supports Duo\Quad\Extreme --I bought Duo to start and can upgrade at my convenience. Supports wide range of RAM, up to DDR2 1200. I installed 1066 at first, again, cheaply upgradable when I'm ready. No wasted onboard video yet supports PCI, PCIex1, PCIex16. Easily overclockable, nice BIOS with good health monitors. This board is everything I wanted and I've been VERY pleased.

Cons: None at all in my experience.

Other Thoughts: Board is pretty well arranged. I had to put a giant Arctic Cooler 7 sink\fan on my processor and it fit in nicely.

This really has been ideal. Everything I want and nothing that I don't.

Pros: Overclocks almost without effort! my q6700 with a freezer 7 pro went from 2.66ghz stock to 3.2ghz with no voltage increase! also the features and auto OC feature is greater for newbies but still has many options for the experienced user. Also great northbridge fan and many cables included all are very useful

Cons: the first one i had would never boot, would just turn on and off. But thanks to newegg and their EXCELLENT customer service and rma policies i got another and works like a dream!

Other Thoughts: although a little expensive this mobo comes with countless features and goodies. you get what you pay for

Pros: It really is a good board. It was very easy to set up and use.
I originally set it up with 1 4850 graphics card.

Cons: I am reading in the Manual that it really won't do PCI x 16 2.0 for both cards at the same time. You have to go in and manually set up jumpers and it dumbs the cards down to PCI x 8 for both slots. It does run PCI x 16 for 1 one card only. The other card won't even work while the Master is set up for PCI x 16.

Other Thoughts: Other then not being able to run both of my graphics cards at x16 then it is a brilliant board.

Pros: This was my first ever build. My original system included a GIGABYTE EP45C-UD3R.

My GIGABYTE board was sketchy. It would work for 1 - 18 hours, and then would shut down. After that it wouldn't turn back on till the next day. Sounds like a temp/voltage problem, but it wasn't. After days of frustrating debug I narrowed the problem down to the mobo. I returned the GIGABYTE to get this BIOSTAR. A tiny bit more expensive, but the board just worked!

There are several nice features (power/reset switch on mobo, cpu temp display on mobo), but I didn't have to deal with them at all. I don't plan to over clock, and I'm not terribly concerned about the features in the BIOS (which seemed plentiful and easy to use). The documentation and SW drivers were also put together well.

The biggest pro is that the board seems rock solid!
The board also has a couple of ESATA which I expect to heavily use in the future.

Cons: - The SATA cables are side facing. I read other reviews that mentioned this, and didn't think much of it. However, they do face directly into my cable management system of my CoolMaster. Not a reason not to buy the board, but required a little fineness to get them all plugged in.

- Only 6 SATA (my GIGABYTE board had 8)
- Only 8 GB max DDR2 (my GIGABYTE board supported 16 GB)

Other Thoughts: I really liked the features and layout of the GIGABYTE board I ordered first. However, as I have come to find out, the stability of the mobo out weights some features.

I think this board rocks, and would recommend it to any first time builder.

Pros: Rock Solid Reliablity. Looks to have some great overclocking features. Sinks look build pretty good.

Cons: My sound chip is DOA
The smart fan function is flakey.
The mobo utility looks like it was programed by a 14 year old anime addict lol, it quite literally has spinners haha.
The northbridge heat pipe sink fan is crazy loud at full tilt.

Other Thoughts: My first Biostar build because of the favorable reviews. Too bad the sound chip is DOA I guess I'll just have to buy a PCI sound card. Everything else was a pretty hassel free build. TPower has GOTTA crack you up tho (you'll know what I mean if you buy the board).

Pros: I have tried 3 other boards - Asus Formula / GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R and MSI X48 Platinum. This board kicks but. X48 runs way too hot and the P45 on the Gig pooped out too soon. 3.6g for about 2hrs .. nuts to the extra copper ..

Cons: Just a tad high in price ... but worth it!

Other Thoughts: E8400 / Ocz Blade PC2 8500 LV (rocks!) 4g / 4770 x2 / Ocz 600w just ran my first stress test over 4g for 24hr. on air! You can also just plug in your stuff and go - bar none the best board I have worked with in 10 years! Winner

Pros: Amazing OC ability offering both BIOS and Windows options. Even capable of teaching OC newbies, like myself, decently well! Works great out of the box; didn’t need to update any drivers for Vista 64-bit. Fairly quick boot up using the “quick boot” BIOS option enabled. Install manual was clear enough to get started, but download the online version to get the updated BIOS manual if it no hardcopy was included.

Cons: Had a slight “warp” to it in the corner housing the PS/2 and top most USB ports. The board had no other discernable problems so I simply installed the keyboard and mouse USB cables in the top most port to help push the other ports down. The CPU location and NSB heatsink bridge can make selecting a CPU heatsink/fan difficult. Measure carefully before making any purchases. No official forum created at Biostar and BIOS updates are very rare. Check the unofficial web forums for this board first if planning any extreme (500+ FSB) overclocking. While great for beginners, doing mild to moderate OCs, this board appears to be aggrevating and disapointing for OC veterans.

Other Thoughts: This was used in my very first custom PC build and it continues to provide excellent performance capabilities. I would have docked an egg for the above problems, but the board has been stable for over a year and has yet to disappoint in any other regards. Currently running with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ stock speed w/ a Zalman CNPS9500AT, OCZ Platinum 4GB DDR2 1066, Thermaltake 700W, SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 3870 @ stock speeds, Seagate Barracuda 320GB, SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner, with Windows Vista Home Basic 64-bit in an Antec Nine Hundred.

Pros: Fast and stable so far. Using the following hardware without over clocking.

C2D E7600 3.06G
ZALMAN|CNPS 9700 CPU Cooler
XFX PVT98WYDFU 9800GTX+ 512M
4GB OCZ Dual Channel DDR1066 OCZ2B10664GK

Cons: Onboard NIC didn't work so I had to throw in an Intel 1000 GT which leaves me with only 1 remaining PCI slot. Still gets a 5 egg rating though.