MSI 880GM-E43 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: First build I did. Love the features of this board. I've never overclocked before, but I really like the switch inside, makes overclocking easy for noobs (me). Plenty of overclocking features in the BIOS. 16gb memory supported, always a good thing. Lots of Sata ports. Decent number of USB ports.

Cons: would have liked to have seen more system fan connections

Overall Review: None

Pros: fantastic parts used with long term reliability, nice heat dissipation, and great specs. It's a great budget board to build a standard AMD build for an office or general use computer.

Cons: MSI dropped the ball on this one. I've used 3 of these boards so far and all 3 failed to boot on the first power cycle for some reason. Then after about a 30 second delay, it reboots and takes quite a while again then boots properly or lets you access the BIOS. Some sort of odd first time BIOS setup glitch I guess.

The layout is pretty bad. The entire board is really wide for an mATX. It barely fit in 2 of the normal sized cases I used and doesn't leave clearance for a 2nd DVD drive in either.

There is no chasis fan hookup, just one "system fan" connector in the bottom right for a hard drive fan. Most cases have a chasis fan but no hard drive fan so you'll find yourself either using a 4 pin molex to 2 pin fan adapter or crossing the fan's cable over the entire board to get to that hookup. Just bad design.

Also, the blue LEDs next to the CPU are INSANELY bright! If you don't have a windowed case, you'll feel like you do because light will get out like a laser beam.

Overall Review: If you can put up with forced bad cable routing and first time setup weirdness, this is still far better than the majority of boards out there for speed and reliability. Oh, and you have to be able to put up with blue glow escaping every little gap and hole in your case from those CPU LEDs. There are multiple in a row and the 2nd on keep flashing on and off, I think to indicate the CPU's current multiplier (it turns it down as a power saving feature). It might just be CPU activity it's measuring but either way, your case is going to be glowing and pulsing blue. You might want to consider using any other board than this one.