After experiencing some problems with the K8V SE motherboard in the system I built recently, I decided to try out a different motherboard for a second project.
Commonly, Gigabyte is regarded as a slightly lower quality manufacturer to the top tier of Asus and a few others. However, not long ago I punted on a really cheap Gigabyte graphics card, and found that it performed well. So, I thought it'd be worth the risk to go with a Gigabyte motherboard, and I was happy to find a suitable one, the K8VT800 Pro at a price 20% lower than the Asus K8V SE Deluxe. One thing I did notice, as with when I was choosing my video card, was the huge variety of Gigabyte products, all with just tiny variations in some technical aspect. This makes choosing just that much more fun.
The problem with the K8V SE was that the hard disk light does not work for disks plugged into the VIA SATA port, and this is a general bug with all K8V SE motherboards. If not for this, I'd have been happy to buy it again. On the other hand, I have found Asus technical support to be efficient and responsive, which goes a long way to assuaging any fears of problems.
For this new motherboard I got an AMD Sempron 3100+, as opposed to the Athlon 64 3000+ last time. It's a bit slower, but a lot cheaper, and my favourite feature this month, Cool'n'Quiet, is included in both. The Sempron won't run 64bit software, but for its intended recipient that won't be a problem.
You can read the products web pages to compare their techical details, but for my needs they were identical. The Gigabyte board was noticably smaller, such that it screwed into the case backplate using 3x2 screws instead of 3x3. Plus the Gigabyte's hard disk LED worked perfectly.
The BIOS setup for the Asus was far better laid out than the Gigabyte. In fact, the Asus BIOS setup was by far the most logical that I've ever used, whereas the Gigabyte's was a little odd, though still usable.
Cool'n'Quiet, the underclocking of the CPU when it's not heavily loaded, requires more steps to turn on in the Asus, but paradoxically is easier because it's actually documented in an easy to find place on their web site (though not in the manual). For the Gigabyte I had to email support (a few days for a response, which is pretty fast) to be directed to a page on their web site that described the process.
So my conclusion is that you do get a slightly more polished, better featured product from Asus for a slightly higher price, and that Gigabyte provides a perfectly functional product. In addition, you will find many more people have purchased the K8V SE than the K8VT800, which might assist if you need user-to-user support. However, the overriding result from this head to head showdown is that the Asus board has a hideous bug and that if it's going to affect you then the Gigabyte board is a perfectly suitable substitute.