Comments on: CPUs And Motherboards

By: Frank Schnyder

Frank Schnyder — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:39:40 +0000

I recently had an HP motherboard where a heat sink fell off. This little hoop where an arm across it just popped off. I was livid! it was only 2 1/2 years old. I will NEVER buy an HP computer again no matter how good the deal is.

By: AdrielK

AdrielK — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:26:04 +0000

Late February, 2008 I bought a $200 cheapie Sears/Mirus FreeSpire Desktop which I received before catching up with Alan Stafford’s article in PCWorld bad mouthing Linux “cheapie” machines as “no bargain”. Beyond his bias toward MS Windows XP/Vista, his “Linux too complicated, etc for the average User who shops at Sears/Walmart, etc., he commented about the less than stellar hardware of the Mirus Box.

I had to rebut his viewpoint and commented that one measure of quality in my purchase is the use of a ASUS motherBoard P5GC-MX/1333. My argument, that from a quick perusal of its UserGuide, I received a bargain.

Would you comment on the ASUS motherboard argument I offered as valid, or was I clutching defensively, at straws? For now, as a senior citizen, I’m doing all the things I did with my XP, namely, ThunderBird eMail, FireFox Internet, WordProcessing and playing card games, chess, etc.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:21:38 +0000

If you are thinking of switching to Intel, do yourself a favor and also use an Intel motherboard. Stay with Intel’s retail line and you will find a super-stable platform with a 3 year warranty. In my opinion, AMD’s biggest problem is that they don’t manufacture their own motherboards. This thus leaves AMD customers in the hands of 3rd party’s and their “idea” of innovation. Most stability problems are derived from these variations in product and quality.

By: Frank Kivler

Frank Kivler — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:24:58 +0000

Asus motherboards, till lately, were always my choice also. But, i bought a new M3A last month. The sound just would not work. RMA’ed it and received a new one. Sound would now work but was scratchey and noisey to the point where it was replaced with a cheap sound card which was a vast improvement. Secound problem, the onboard network card started to hand the system. Asus tech says to upgrade bios and network to lastest releases. Did that, nothing helped. Finally replaced onboard network with a Dlink NIC and the motherboard now works great. Anybody can build a clunker but ASUS tech support was horrible. I have bought about 50-60 of there M/Bs but won’t buy any more after the bad treatment. Check out the ASUS forums on this.

By: Ken

Ken — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:34:36 +0000

Well……I agree ASUS is good mobo vendor…..but they also make something bad. We used a good old P4T-E mobo long time ago. It’s obsolete technology running RAMBUS……if anyone still remember.
One day, the boards started to die without any symptom. You might think it’s nothing…….consider 15+ mobo died out of ~20 P4T-E we had. We have older mobo, CUSL2, and they are still running strong except this P4T-E one which keeps haunting us.
Also, I would not try to use cheap, entry level mobo from ASUS……from my experience……

By: Aryeh Goretsky

Aryeh Goretsky — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:02:09 +0000

Hello,

The first consideration for me when building a system is not performance or features, but reliability. While I have had good experiences with motherboards from ASUS, SuperMicro and Tyan, I have used Intel brand motherboards for the last few years for my personal systems. There is nothing particularly special about any of the boards I have selected from them over the years. In fact, they look rather plain compared to most motherboard manufacturer’s offerings who like to differentiate their offerings via the coloring of their plastics, but they have all just seemed to work well without any compatibility issues, and Intel is excellent about releasing updated firmware and device drivers for their motherboards.

As it turns out, my next personal system which I am assembling is not going to have an Intel motheboard, but rather one from SuperMicro. The reason for this is quite simple: I was looking for a specific feature set and implementation, and SuperMicro had a motherboard which met those considerations. Right now, I’m still waiting on some RAM, but I am expecting to spend a a fairly uneventful evening building the system.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

By: the oracle

the oracle — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 02:01:48 +0000

I certainly agree with choices 1 and 2, but I’ve had nothing but problems with MSI products, from back in the days of 486’s up to today, so I avoid them like the plague. As for video cards, I like EVGA or BFG for the warranty performance, I have also done well with XFX.

BTW, my next purchase will be the Spider platform, as I definitely see a benefit to the ‘whole is greater than the sum of the parts’ idea.

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