Mfr Part Number: 7207-040 (K8NGM2-FID) CPU: Socket 939 Supports 64-bit AMD® Athlon™ 64FX/64 processor upto FX60/4800+, FSB 1000MHz Chipset: nVidia® C51PV (GeForce6150) & MCP51 (MCP430) Memory: 4x 184-pin DDR-266/333/400 DIMMs, Dual Channel, Upto 4GB Slots: 1x PCI Express x16; 1x PCI Express x1; 2x 32-bit Master 3.3v/5v PCI IDE/SATA: 4x IDE 133/100/66 Devices; 4x Serial ATA II with RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 5 Video: Graphic integrated Audio: RealTek ALC880 7.1 channel audio codec LAN: VITESSE vsc8201RX Gb LAN IEEE 1394: VIA VT6307 chipset, Supports two IEEE1394 ports, transfer rate is upto 400Mbps Ports: 8x USB2.0 ports (4 rear/ 4 front); 2x IEEE1394 (1 rear/ 1 front); 1x VGA; 1x DVI; 1x TV-out header; 1x RJ-45 LAN; 1x Parallel Form Factor: Micro-ATX, 9.61 x 9.61 inch Package: Retail
Not bad for a uATX.
Why uATX cus you might need to build a HTPC, and most HTPC cases only take uATX boards.
since I had many MSI boards that seems to out last the rest... I decided to get this one. But i was comparing with DFI, Gigabyte, Asus.
DFI - INFINITY RS482 here Looks good, but didnt hear anything good from it, and not sure about the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 RS482 chipset. nVidia has much more mature chipsets: GeForce6150, DFI didnt have any mobo with this.
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Joined: June 2003
Posted: May 28 2006,15:49
I took a chance with opteron hoping to get the CCBWE stepping. I've been reading that these are crazily cover-clockable, even more crazy with the right cooling. Thats why I went for it.
I thought about getting more exotic ram, but frankly, this is going to be an HTPC, the most work it will do is live-record 2 tv shows at once into high-def mp2 files. I'm already going to slightly over-clock it, but nothing too crazy.
I even though what I got may be a bit of a over-kill for an HTPC... but i definitely wanted some affordable dual core. As I do not want any slow down or lack of quality when multitasking here. I have an auto-schedule to defrag all partitions at 4am. But just incase, the second core should come in handy when it happens to be defraging and recording at the same time. =/
Besides, I got the 165 opteron for $160USD. Thats almost a steal from amazon.com! Even cheaper than the X2 3800+, with twice the cache. The goes easily for $325 on ebay for oem. I got a retail box. Before anyone ask how, and gets jealous, it did cost $325 on Amazon.com. I had a $175 discount from there due to racking up points from my amazon.com credit card. Hence how I picked this up for less than $160.
I read these cpu's has the potential to clock higher than FX-60s. :X Too bad I'm not going to clock it that high or use it for my gaming system.... or should I????
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Posted: June 01 2006,18:57
finally got the CPU by mail.
Good news and bad news.
Good news It's absolutely gorgeous! 90% of all things are good.
Bad news, that lat 10% well it's not so bad, but I'm a bit dissappointed, oh well.. anyway, the motherboard, as good as it is, does not allow over-clocking!!!! So I guess, I dont even get to try to see how overclockable the CPU is before putting this into production. Thats pretty much my only peeve now. Just got it assembled, last night, and put in a 500GB Seagate SATAII HD with it last night, with Windows XP MCE 2005.
Picked up the HD from ebay, for $220 back in April. Not bad of a price for April and for a Seagate SATAII.
I ended up getting it for $160USD no tax and free shipping too! 
