Pros: Excellent MB... has 3 choices of RAID controllers... 2 on Jmicron, 2 on Silicon, and 6 on intel RAID matrix. Has all the makings of a light duty server or an extremely nice A/V rig. Easy to configure and to overclock. I have run both the E6600 and the E4300 CPU's on this board and it does very well with either. The E4300 had actually the most impressive performance gain in overclocking.

Cons: It can be a little picky about RAM... Also I had one board which failed in the PCI controller for the Jmicron RAID and would not allow a bootup after 2 weeks of use... but I think this was just an isolated incident, and I didn't devalue the rating, because NewEgg RMA'd the board in reasonable time and I have not had another incident with any of the other boards or the replacement.

Overall Review: I recommend checking the bios revision to see if it is up to date with the latest and flashing it if it isn't. remember to clear the CMOS with the jumper next to the battery before rebooting. One issue that is worthy of note, and not a negative if you know about it... Be warned... use an old fashioned ps2 keyboard and mouse while setting up the MB for the first time... there is a point in time when the posting will drop the USB support, just before you get to the screen options to hit your Cntrl+J or Cntrl+I for setting up your RAID disks. If you use a USB supported keyboard, you will never be able to access the RAID setup utility during the boot posting. Again... you have to use a ps2 keyboard... period!

Pros: Hmmm... Well, the video quality is ok, and it should be with a decent monitor, graphics card/controller, and CATV. Video capture is ok from what i have seen so far, maybe even pretty good. The price is even decent for getting TV on your pc (if you don't care about features or a remote that works)

Cons: Remote? What remote? I think it is a sales "Token" that tarnished the newness of my previously unopened Duracell AAA's (which in my opinion were worth more that the remote). Remote sucks like a bad toranado... The remote function buttons are in danger of being classified as "legally blonde". Too bad it doesn't weigh enough to be used as a boat anchor...

Overall Review: Instructions are very poor, but manageable. There is no software help to speak of, thus, maybe it is a good thing that the software features are bland and simple. Newegg's processing and handling was great... but UPS still sucks (maybe even more than the romote). Newegg decision makers... please go back to fedex for your default shipping!

Pros: This is the drive to get... The "ES" version is rated 24/7 operation for server duty use... quiet, fast, reliable, excellent choice for RAID arrays. BTW this drive also uses perpendicular recording technology for faster access and more storage capacity... check the specs on Seagate's site.

Cons: Cons? Maybe you'll find them in the state pen...

Overall Review: I have used this drive extensively in business servers and personal desktops alike and have not had one bad experience to date... Two of these in a RAID 0 array can add a whole new life to your system... it can possibly cure your system's bottleneck for speed.

Pros: I had been hearing some rather impressive news about this e4300 CPU, and since it is almost like a "Manifest Destiny" for me to squeeze the last drop of performance out of a chip on and affordable budget, I had to give it a try. I paired this core with an Abit AB9 Pro MB, strapped the FSB @ 1:1 ratio with the RAM, since I was using my old PQI DDR2 533 CAS 3-3-3-8 and set the FSB to 334 x 9 multiplier and the core voltage to 1.42 (which oc'd the RAM to 668 @ 1.85 volts. I then torture tested it running 2 instances of Prime95 running small, large, and blend FFT for 8 hours running at temp's of 59-63C. I now have the CPU running at 345 x 9 (3.1 ghz) and dropped the core voltage to 1.375 and it idles at 26-27C with a max temp of 38-39C under load of DVD recoding.

Cons: Huh???

Overall Review: I attempted to take the core to 3.2 ghz but it became unstable about 5 min after boot up... but this is only the limitation of my 1 gig of poor DDR2 533 RAM (which is currently running at 690 mhz) and wouldn't break over the 708 mhz mark... still impressive RAM for such an aggressive OC. I really believe this CPU will reach a comfortable 3.3 ghz on this Intel stock cooling and still maintain operating temps that are conservatively acceptable. BTW I use Geil thermal paste (5% silver, 5% copper)

Pros: Wow! If you want a COLD running, stable, and excellent performing CPU... stop reading and add it to your shopping cart!

Cons: The only complaint i have is... When i saw such low CPU temps, I assumed it had to be bad temp readings, and spent too much time looking to find bios fixes for my Asus motherboard... Ugh!

Overall Review: Ok... here is the deal... I dropped this CPU in Asus vintage barebones and was turnkey within an hour, and with tempurature readings of 11c at idle and never got over 24c during video encoding. I thought it was a freak thing... but since i just happened to have ordered 2 of these CPU's, i figured i would give the second one a go in the MSI board i had planned for it. The temp readings for this second setup were about the same... 14c on idle and still no more than 23c during video encoding. So to say the least, i am impressed. I will be getting another one soon to experiment with the overclocking potentials... and BTW i was getting as high as 9.5 MB/sec encoding speed while using DVD Shrink... that is about double the speed i am getting from my LGA775 P4 3.0GHZ EM64T with double the ram... GO FIGURE!

Comments: I'm very pleased with this package!! I ordered this for a low budget work system for a client with a little "classy appearance" and space savingform in mind... really didn't expect much for the price, just something that would fit the budget. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised at the quality for the cost!! I found this system to be very stable and nicely quiet! The case is small... but built like a tank, except for the face. no, you probably won't be able to kick it across the room and expect the face to survive, but "normal" people wouldn't do anything to damage it. I found the sound to be very sufficient.. no it is notan Audigy sound, but better than most stereo sound with some added atmospheric and equalizer effects. The Graphics seems to be sufficient for most work applications and didn't even skip a beat with DVD playback... a suggestion i would make if you want a little speedier graphics for this board, is to give up a little of that cheap RAM you put in it and dedicate more of it to the on board graphics in the bios... works well enough, and Ram is still cheaper than a video card. If you want to save a little time in assembly... do these things first after removing the case cover... first remove the power supply (slides off after removing 1 screw) you have to do this anyway to get to the rest of the board... and let it be the last thing you put back in the case after everything is in place. next... remove the hard drive bracket... this has to be done to access the keepers for the snap in face cover... Then... remove the face cover... this is the only way you will get your optical drive in. All in all this is an excellent case (which i am now switching to for all my budget builds for the 2.4 Celeron D) and it still has enough expandability with the 865 chipset to make a good performing high end system with the attractive looks to match it!! A+++