ECS AMD690GM-M2 AM2 AMD 690G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Super stable (See ATI driver note) Features galore (Onboard DVI!) Great price (A real steal especially at Newegg)

Cons: Random reboots in XP were driving me nuts & took me awhile to narrow down to ATI video drivers. Dropping back to Catalyst 7.3 8.351 has been rock solid. Too scared to try 7.9 9/10 upd. lol

Overall Review: I've always been an Intel man but I loved this board so much I've built 3 systems with it, X2 chips & 2GB DDR2 with only the ATI driver fiasco to complain about.

Pros: I installed this board in a box that was giving me hell after installing vista. The os installed all the needed drivers, and after rebooting twice for drivers it was up and stable.

Cons: None.

Pros: This board is amazing. Nicest onboard graphics I have ever seen. The 690G chipset is affordable and functions perfect. Very nice/cheap board that gives the more expensive ones a run for their money.

Cons: Only one IDE channel, but not a biggie. Also, I have seen a few boards with this chipset default the video out to the DVI port... So if you have a VGA screen then borrow a friends DVI monitor and change the setting in the bios.

Overall Review: Killer board, runs like a dream. But a word of warning: Make sure you have kernel 2.6.20 atleast if you plan to use this board with linux. Both on the install disk and on the OS you install.

Pros: Low cost board. Had Vista pre-loaded on hard disk. Started on first shot. Ran drivers from support CD, and updated others. No problem

Cons: Only one IDE, but since I have a SATA drive, no problem for me.

Overall Review: Excellent low cost board, with lots of bells and whistles for the price range. If you know your stuff, it is a good deal.

Pros: This board is packed with features for the price - awesome value! DVI & VGA , Gigabit LAN, RAID, 8 Channel HD Audio, 3GB/s SATA. Piece o' cake install - everything worked first time out.

Cons: Only two DIMMS.

Overall Review: Great addition to a decent value build- AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Dual-Core 2.0GHz, Cooler Master 80mm Rifle CPU Cooler, 2GB Corsair XMS2 (2x1GB), Antec Earthwatts 380 Watt PSU, Western Digital Caviar SE 160 GB, Lite-On 20x DVD Burner w/Lightscribe, Xion II Gaming Case - all this for only two fifty!! Newegg Rocks!!

Pros: Easy setup with XP. I have used this product twice, both times with XP. Once with Sempron 3400+, once with Athlon LE-1600 and 2GB RAM. Both worked blazingly fast with no trouble. Definitely recommend for budget + speed.

Cons: Zip Zero Nada

Overall Review: Had absolutely no trouble with anything on this board. Nice DVI and VGA graphics out from ATI.

Pros: Stability. Reliability. Onboard graphics are good. Easy setup. Price. $20.00 rebate was also nice while it lasted. Newegg's hypersonic shipping.

Cons: None. Had to flash BIOS for them to recognize Athlon LE-1600, but it was no big deal.

Overall Review: Have built 5 units with this motherboard and never had a problem with any of them. Much improved over previous ATI chipsets. I had an ECS 939 board with an earlier ATI chipset that was garbage and was reluctant to give them another try, but I'm glad I did. Used both Athlons and Semprons with them and they performed flawlessly with both. If Newegg and ECS decide to offer another rebate on them, I will definitely buy more.

Pros: None.

Cons: * Will not pass POST with any PCI-e video card plugged in. I tried three that worked in other systems. This was with all combinations of video settings in the BIOS. * Randomly fails POST and continues to fail until memory is reseated (multiple DIMMs have been tried). * Blue screen of death occurs while windows is loading.

Overall Review: Will likely return it DOA.