ASUS M2A74-AM AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 740G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Compact board which is suitable for general use. Plenty of USB connections (internal & external). Surprisingly painless install - was able to swap with A8N-VM without having to reinstall Vista. Seems to be fairly stable and offers some overclocking options in BIOS (though the 780+ chipset would be best if that's your plan).

Cons: If you require specific connections, don't assume, check the specs carefully. Not until I had begun installing the board did I realize there is no on-board support for FireWire. Also, location of SATA ports in cramped after installing video card. Only two DIMM banks available.

Overall Review: My fault for not checking the specs more carefully regarding the missing FireWire connection. Able to squeeze in an old IEEE 1394 PCI card to compensate.

Pros: with 4GB DDR1066 and 2.8GHz AMD dual core, it's working perfectly.

Cons: I wish the overclocking instructions are more clear

Pros: Clean and solid board Inexpensive ASUS quality

Cons: Hiccups discovered in two months of use: Ethernet was lost soon after the build was complete. Reinstalling the downloaded driver did not help. I removed the NIC from the Vista Device Mangler and rebooted. Vista found it and completed the install. No problems since. I have to agree with "B" on the front panel connectors. I used the board for a case mod and worked a solution into the build but the location is really dumb. No video when adding a video card. Had to find a VGA cable, and a monitor with a VGA input, boot with the OB video and then change it in the BIOS. I expected it to autodetect. Not sure if this is the norm with all M2A74's but it was with mine.

Overall Review: Aside from the few minor oddities I still like the board and do not regret my purchase. I am also a big fan of the blue PCB. My eyes aren't what they used to be and I find that blue is a much easier color to look at when reading the headers or looking for pinouts. As per my previous review, the board with a 45W 5050e and HD3450 handles WMC with ease while drawing no more current than an ordinary home light bulb.

Pros: Inexpensive board with nothing you don't need. Installation was a painless 15 minutes and updating to the latest BIOS was smooth as a gravy sandwich. Sound: Not many people put on board sound in the pro box so here's a first. The OB sound is amazingly good!! It is far better than expected and I see no need to upgrade it at all. There is no noise or buzzing - just crisp and clean sound with great dynamic range. BIOS and POST go by in a flash. It gets to the MBR of your drive very quickly, and Vista installed with less effort than with any other build. I've used ASUS and other boards for a long time, and ASUS has always all been incredibly solid and reliable. Just because this is a value board doesn't mean it doesn't deliver.

Cons: None really. I wish it had more than 2 fan headers but I was fully aware of that going in, and I don't knock off eggs because an item doesn't have a feature that is not listed. What you see is what you get. Look it over carefully so you don't complain later because it doesn't support megawatt CPU's or have 27 DIMM slots. I looked at it for days and decided the few design bumps I found were worth it to have another ASUS board.

Overall Review: Bought this board for a media mod box and it worked perfectly from first boot. I must have passed out during the Vista install because I think it was done in about 10 minutes from a DVD drive. Not all mATX boards have the same dimensions so check carefully if you are planning an unusual installation. As for using it in a standard ATX\mAX case you will be fine, but installing it in a large case may leave the case leads for PWR, HDLED, RESET, etc a little short because the headers are located about a third of the way down the board - not up near the corner like most boards. Look it over carefully and make sure it's what you want. If it is you should be very pleased with the result. I am using a 300W flex PSU, WD Scorpio SATA notebook drive for the OS, a WD Green 1T drive for storage, couple of fans, DVDRW, X2-5050e 45W, 2x2g G-Skill 800, HD3450 card and Vista Home Premium. Kill-a-Watt shows 54W idle. This is a solid and very speedy board AND I LIKE IT.

Pros: the onboard graphics are decent and it works

Cons: I put this motherboard into my computer, hooked everything up, installed a fresh install of windows XP SP2, and the Audio drivers didnt install properly, and so they wouldn't function properly, I couldn't repair them, couldn't uninstall them, so I had to reinstall windows to get them to work, second time around everything works fine, I set it up to download some big files overnight, and when I woke up the ethernet adapter had stopped functioning, not disconnect or anything like that it just turned off and I can't figure out how to turn it back on. This seems to be a fery common problem and I'll have to go and buy an ethernet adapter or something to get t to work.

Overall Review: When I boot it up it tells me my processor isn't supported, I have an AMD Anthlon 64 2x 6000+ AM2+ at the bottom it says to continue press F1. Pressing F1 proceeds to the boot menu and it boots like normal If you want internet you may just have to buy an ethernet adapter to plug into one of the slots because the one on the motherboard seems to be faulty. If you buy this motherboard, be prepared and get another ethernet card or make sure you have one lying around.

Pros: Inexpensive solution for just about any small pc build. Built an HTPC with this and an Athlon II. Runs super cool (96F tops playing back MKV files).

Cons: No S-Video out. No DVI-D to S-Vid or Component adapter provided, which was a surprise from Asus. Normally these are provided by Asus. I had expected one for the ATi HD chipset.

Overall Review: Thus far NewEgg and *local stores*do not carry any DVI-D to Comp/S video adapters. This makes finishing this build as a HTPC a bit difficult.

Pros: I'm a big fan of ASUS. I ordered two of this particular model MB. One of the best features is the TPM (Trusted Platform Module) which means I do not need a usb key for Windows BitLocker. Another pro is that a similar model running with an intel microprocessor does not run quite as efficiently. More and more often I am finding it more beneficial to use AMD rather than Intel Microprocessors.

Cons: No support for ASUS Express Gate? Not that big a deal. The only problem I have with ASUS is their Express Gate software which is currently a bit limited, especially in the media arena. For instance, Express Gate does not yet support DVD watching, which is big for many users. Oh well, I'm sure they are working on it.

Overall Review: As I said before, great product, great manufacturer.

Pros: I'm a software developer running Windows XP and frequently in Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server Management Studio to do my work. I purchased this board along with an AMD Phenom II X2 550 processor in one of NewEgg's MB/CPU Combo packs. With Kingston HyperX 2GB DDR2 1066 memory, this system is a solid workhorse for me. I had absolutely zero problems swapping this board into my Micro ATX case, mounting the CPU & Fan, and plugging everything back together. I have not engaged in any overclocking, etc. as I am not a gamer, so cannot comment on the board's capabilities in that department. Asus has a great website where it is easy to find BIOS and other utility upgrades.

Cons: None.

Overall Review: To the guy that had his board arrive DOA (Dead On Arrival) -- that happens. I don't think this says anything about Asus QA. I have received DOA boards from most of the major mfgs over the years, including Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, Tyan, to name a few. Get over it. NewEgg's RMA program is well done and it is easy to get DOA parts replaced.