When it comes to Name brands

JohnDoH!

JohnDoH!

New Member
Can I really trust name brand hardware like asus motherboards? It seems there are a lot of fan boy's out there for certin companies.. so... are the reviews that they write for it reliable?
 
Most reviews are accurate, but fan boys may make you swing one way or another. Asus is a very reputable brand.
 
I guess I am a fanboy. The last 6 or 7 systems I have built I have used ASUS boards, never had any trouble with them and have always been super pleased with them. I have a MSI and a Gigabyte board also in some other builds in the past and haven't been too overly impressed with them, but the MSI board was actually pretty solid considering how cheap it was.
 
One other brand that I've used that seems to fly under the radar a bit is ABIT. Never had any problems, although the Asus ones are excellent as well.
 
I am Running a Gigabyte Kn8 Pro-sli in My computer and a Asus board in Family, i would have too say, the Gigabyte would be the better board, for a cheaper price i got ALOT more features in my Gigabyte board such as SLI and multiple Pci Slots, where as the Asus board (bought 2 weeks after my Gigabyte board) just cant seem too even match my Gigabyte.

My Opinon Gigabyte = Great Boards (most)
 
Well, I have 3 Asus boards, one Iwill board and 2 I can't remember running right now. I find that there's no point in being a fanboy of one particular brand. For instance, Asus has been the king for a long time, but lately they've been producing a lot of unreliable garbage. Gigabyte has made nothing but shit for the past 15 years up until the DS3. The Iwill I have is a dual processor server board and it tends to be flakey. Abit is fussy when allocating resources and can be a pain in the ass to configure. MSIs self destruct when you tell them you slept with their mother. PC Chips drivers can be a pain to install, even off their own CD. I could go on and on and on with mobo stories.

Some models of some brands are better than others. The best place for an MSI is in a dumpster (I love MSI.. Yes, yes I do).

Just do your research about the particular model you're interested in. Make sure people have more good to say about it than bad. Just avoid some of these cheaper brands.
 
Many times names became name-brand because that name has been known to make high-quality products.
DFi, ASUS, and ABIT have been my top choices for motherboards because they usually have good feature sets (DFi is well-known for going beyond the standard with overclocking settings) and are very reliable (I've been using an ASUS mobo one my old comp for about 2 years I have an Abit in my current one (about a year old) and none of the problems with either comp have been mobo probs.
same rule goes with most other computer parts.
 
I don't over clock I think its pretty stupid in general. I used to do that crap when I was younger and in all honesty it didn't really perform all that much better in the real world, and it ended up burning out a few things. Now, over clocking tech has gotten a lot better I can not argue with that. It is just not my cup of tea.

I work IT for a living, and my last job I worked at a warranty repair center for Apple, HP, Compaq, Toshiba, Sony, Gateway, E-machines, etc. I can tell you now, everything has a crap run, everything breaks, and nothing is 100% solid 100% of the time.

I started using Asus boards back in like '97 and have never had one fail on me ever, even though maybe they don't offer some over clocking features other boards do, my experience is they are solid. Of course everyone's experience will always vary. I have also NEVER had an antec power supply go bad on me ever once. So I stick with them. I have had several motorolla cell phones turn into giant pieces of crap, so I am totally done using motorolla, and will never buy one of their phones again. However, I bet some people have had great motorolla phones, they are just not for me.

Also, picking a board really shouldn't only be about features, lots of times once I pick my processor, I think about what Chipset I want to run with it, and then base my decision upon that. I went with an AMD with my current build (ordering my C2D combo deal this weekend) and chose an Asus board with a VIA chipset, because at that time it was the most solid combination you could get.
 
tlarkin said:
I don't over clock I think its pretty stupid in general. I used to do that crap when I was younger and in all honesty it didn't really perform all that much better in the real world, and it ended up burning out a few things. Now, over clocking tech has gotten a lot better I can not argue with that. It is just not my cup of tea.

I have also NEVER had an antec power supply go bad on me ever once. So I stick with them.
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Really? I've noticed at least a 15FPS jump on my less intensive games and a 5-7FPS jump on more intensive games after overclocking(not much but it makes a difference). It really has to do if your RAM or CPU are bottlenecks. Obviously overclocking an FX60 prolly wont do much, but after overclocking my 3200+ to FX55 speeds, my CPU jumped the bottleneck that was created between it and my gfx card so my gfx card could run at full potential. After that point you start gaining little to no performance.

I wholly agree with you on Antec PSUs, very very reliable. Mine has never even went to unstable voltage levels even during serious encoding.
 
jumping an extra 5fps in a real game (not bench mark) is hardly noticeable to an actual human. Just my opinion though. Then again, my first computer I ever built (like over 10 years ago) still runs. In fact, I can look over and see it right now taking up space in the corner doing nothing.....That is because I never really got into over clocking, it stresses your system way too much, unless you really buy the nice over clocking tech, and then why spend that much more, when I am just going to upgrade anyways in 2 years. I'd rather buy a pimped out video card than over clock, and yes over clocking does not always cure bottlenecks, sometimes it creates them.

I think I am gonna finally take a bunch of crap down the recycling place this weekend I have too much old crap technology that I don't use anymore.
 
tlarkin said:
jumping an extra 5fps in a real game (not bench mark) is hardly noticeable to an actual human. Just my opinion though. Then again, my first computer I ever built (like over 10 years ago) still runs. In fact, I can look over and see it right now taking up space in the corner doing nothing.....That is because I never really got into over clocking, it stresses your system way too much, unless you really buy the nice over clocking tech, and then why spend that much more, when I am just going to upgrade anyways in 2 years. I'd rather buy a pimped out video card than over clock, and yes over clocking does not always cure bottlenecks, sometimes it creates them.

I think I am gonna finally take a bunch of crap down the recycling place this weekend I have too much old crap technology that I don't use anymore.
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I spent maybe $50 to keep my system cool enough to run my CPU the speed of a CPU that was about $400-$500 at the time of me buying my CPU($190). And yes, you can detect a 5FPS difference if the base rate is low enough. (i.e. 20-25 is noticeable...60-65 isn't). Overclocking is for people who can't buy a "pimped out" graphics card. I can see this system running for another 5-6 years+
 
Yeah I agree video cards get outrageously expensive. However, a good enough card should run most games at at least 35+ FPS, or at least they do IME. Overclcoking may be good for some people that want a good budget system, like you mentioned, but I would rather make sacrifices else where to make my system better, or maybe buy it a few pieces at a time. I am ordering a C2D 6300 and intel mobo for 200 dollars (special package deal through intel resellers only) and I am going to sell that processor and go for the 6600, and then buy some ram and a video card. I always have HDs lying around and usually at least one extra case or something I could gut. So, its not like I build a complete system from scratch every time. Plus I always buy good deals when I see them, like the 300 gig SATA drive I bought a few months back for 70 dollars. I just installed it a few weeks ago because I just now needed the space, however I bought it back in like August because they had a super sale at a local computer store.

If you shop smart you can get your pimp video card.
 
This was when good comp parts weren't dirt cheap like they are now. hehe well its not a problem for me anymore because in about 2 weeks I should be getting my royalty check from my cell phone wallpaper deal and I've estimated it to be about $3000 so I'll finally be able to move from "budget-level" to "performance-level". The games were not the main reason I overclocked though, I encode a crapload of DVDs to DivX and it really shortens the encoding time if I OC.
Also, I can definitely say I shop smart, I got my Z5500s for $220($400 retail) after about 3 days of searching around and with free shipping.

wow.....we really got off the topic here.......well the problem was pretty much answered....lol
 
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