RAM :-Kingston HyperX Fury 4GB 1866Mhz DDR3 - 6500.00
The first thing I checked with the boards was the audio chip. Usually manfacturers want to cheap out on the audio chip in the low end/mid range. As expected, Asus has a weak chip : the ALC887, but I was amazed to see the MSI coming occupied with the much superior ALC1150. So I would probably lean towards the MSI board with that alone. The next thing I checked was whether either of them were using a crappy Realtek LAN. Luckily, the Asus uses an Intel LAN controller whereas the MSI is using one made by Killer. Intel is the best, but Killer isn't far off, so I would say they are a match. Both have good NICs.Then I took a look at the SATA ports, and their orientation. Both of them have two of the SATA 6Gbps ports in vertical orientation, which I don't like, but since both are alike, cannot give points to either. In addition, both of them have the exact same number of SATA ports.The MSI board has 8 USB ports on the rear I/O panel whereas the Asus has only 6. However, only 2 of MSI's USB ports are USB3.0 and Asus has 4 USB3.0 ports. I'm not sure if that really means much to anyone. But in my case, since I only have one USB3.0 device - a USB pen drive - and I plug it from the front, I would opt to go with the board that provides more expansion opportunities - which is the MSI board.Remember that the Asus is a Micro ATX board thus the top most PCI-E slot is close to the CPU socket, which might limit your choice of air coolers. However since you cannot overclock your CPU, I bet you are not investing in a large air cooler, in which case this is a non-issue. i personally like Micro-ATX though, but that's just me. If you have a ATX board, then MSI board being larger would not cause any issues.It is true that the Asus board comes with 5 year warranty, but you should ask yourself whether you would keep it for more than 3 years or not. However, when you try to sell it after 3 years but within 5 years, the Asus board will have the edge, because it would have some warranty remaining and people prefer parts with warranty to parts without.Price is similar, although the Asus is a tad expensive. So I wouldn't really take this small difference into account. But if you have a tight budget, it yields in more points for the MSI. All in all, I feel the MSI board is the better board in terms of features and specifications. Bare in mind that I haven't checked any of the reviews to see if there are any inherent issues with the MSI board. Edit:LOL that turned out like an essay
