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Asus Striker II or XFX 790i?
- Thread starter Le037
- Start date
Hi guys I'm trying to choose between the XFX 790i Ultra or the ASUS Striker II 790i Motherboard. They're seem practically the same, but the Asus is more expensive. Anyone know why? Right know I'd chose the XFX, it looks prettier
The ASUS board will have a thicker PCB and also uses all solid-state conductive polymer capacitors instead of the traditional caps found on the XFX 790i Ultra SLI board. It also has an 8-phase power design vs. a 6-phase power design.
I have never used the ASUS board but I have used the XFX board. The XFX board seemed to be completely free of the issues I have always experienced with the 680i SLI and some other NVIDIA chipset based reference boards. The ASUS board would be more tempting to me (even though I haven't used it) because of the superior electrical components used on the ASUS board.
I wouldn't say that. Quite honestly in the past the reference boards were a bit nicer to work with. However while the reference boards had fewer problems in the past than their ASUS counterpart they were less reliable in the long run. The ASUS board is made better but do not assume that it will have less problems because that may simply not be the case.
Do your research and weigh the experiences of both those who have the XFX 790i Ultra SLI and the ASUS Striker Extreme II and then make an informed decision about the two.
Hapatingjaky
Weaksauce
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- Sep 20, 2005
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You should hit up the Asus forums and read about the Stirker II. The board has alot of issues and Asus support is pretty much lacking. The quality from Asus has been sliding. I recently got the XFX 790i Ultra and have no issues.
Are you talking about the ASUS Striker II Formula or the Striker Extreme II?
Hapatingjaky
Weaksauce
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2005
- Messages
- 71
Striker II Extreme, Striker II Formula is 780i not 790i.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
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- 44,154
I've had the Asus Striker II Extreme for about two months (see sig rig). Absolutely solid. I'm not doing RAID or FSB overclocking which may have spared me from the data corruption issue that's been reported with 790 motherboards, especially when FSB overclocking. Asus and XFX both recently released a BIOS that specifically lists fixing this problem, so something must have been going on.
I love this board. It's cool, quite and fast with a QX9650 @ 3.83GHz. If you are looking for a solid top of the line SLI motherboard this is the one. The only problem I had with it is that you have to manually up the RAM voltage. The AUTO setting just didn't supply enough voltage, at least with earlier BIOS'es. I also upped the NB & SB voltages and of course the CPU for the overclock. But that was it and the thing is awesome.
I don't think you can go wrong if you're not concerned about the money. If so, this is not the board. There are much better buys, especially if you count the price premium on DDR3 RAM.
I love this board. It's cool, quite and fast with a QX9650 @ 3.83GHz. If you are looking for a solid top of the line SLI motherboard this is the one. The only problem I had with it is that you have to manually up the RAM voltage. The AUTO setting just didn't supply enough voltage, at least with earlier BIOS'es. I also upped the NB & SB voltages and of course the CPU for the overclock. But that was it and the thing is awesome.
I don't think you can go wrong if you're not concerned about the money. If so, this is not the board. There are much better buys, especially if you count the price premium on DDR3 RAM.
Just making sure we are on the same page here.
I don't think that's true. Their designs seem to be more solid on the surface. They are also made using better components than the reference designs. However according to OCZ's website the BIOS for the ASUS (and other non-reference boards) have screwed up memory support in the BIOS and that is the root of most of their problems. According to them the ASUS BIOS (among others) detect the memory's SPD or EPP values and tightens the timings even further. This is done largely so that at default settings thier boards win all the benchmarks when compared to the reference designs. It is also the reason why running more than 2 DIMMs at once is so difficult on the Striker.
I went through 11 680i SLI reference boards in a year and a half and only one Striker Extreme. When the Striker died the issues seemed to be chipset related more than anything else.
Granted the Striker II Extreme is a different board it is built with better materials and its' issues may very well be largely BIOS related. However I don't think ASUS using thier own design is a problem. They've been designing motherboards for about twice the time NVIDIA has even existed as a company.
My Striker II Extreme is due to arrive tomorrow. Despite reminding myself to check the Asus forums repeatedly, I still neglected to to do so before ordering.
The only thing, looking there now, that truly gives me pause is the SLi issue some are reporting. Some are reporting that with SLi enabled, they can't even watch a video file without the system freezing. They seem already convinced it's a BIOS issue. Yet, from here, I'm suspecting that Vista and drivers are also a factor. There's not always a lot of detail in the posts.
At least, I hope it's a Vista-only issue since I intend to continue using XP Pro x64 until all the issues are sorted out
The only thing, looking there now, that truly gives me pause is the SLi issue some are reporting. Some are reporting that with SLi enabled, they can't even watch a video file without the system freezing. They seem already convinced it's a BIOS issue. Yet, from here, I'm suspecting that Vista and drivers are also a factor. There's not always a lot of detail in the posts.
At least, I hope it's a Vista-only issue since I intend to continue using XP Pro x64 until all the issues are sorted out
My Striker II Extreme is due to arrive tomorrow. Despite reminding myself to check the Asus forums repeatedly, I still neglected to to do so before ordering.
The only thing, looking there now, that truly gives me pause is the SLi issue some are reporting. Some are reporting that with SLi enabled, they can't even watch a video file without the system freezing. They seem already convinced it's a BIOS issue. Yet, from here, I'm suspecting that Vista and drivers are also a factor. There's not always a lot of detail in the posts.
At least, I hope it's a Vista-only issue since I intend to continue using XP Pro x64 until all the issues are sorted out
Those issues with video playback and freezing have nothing to do with the board exactly. I've experienced this on the 680i SLI boards numerous times. So while I do believe this is an NVIDIA issue it isn't an issue that is related to the ASUS boards in particular.