Whats a good board?

[stevo1210]

Re: Whats a good board?

With GigaByte, you can get a decent board with good caps or total crap with GSC and Choyo.
I'd say that ECS is better than ASRock. Some ASRock boards have really stupid design mistakes - such as powering P4 CPU from 5V rail or using a linear regulator with underrated transistor (runs hot and simply dies after some time) for powering the chipset and DIMM.

Rainbow, is this the model you are referring to as being powered by the 5V line? This model is the P4i48, for some reason i can't find the ATX 12V connector on the board?.... so i can only guess it is powered by the 5V line.

[tazwegion]

Re: Whats a good board?

Asrock is half decent? does that mean that they are crap?

No it means Asrocks heritage (or parent company because it's a subsidiary) helps them bring some credentials to the table, though Asrocks primary goal is cheap motherboards

More about the Asustek/Asrock story @ The Inquirer

[Rainbow]

Re: Whats a good board?

Rainbow, is this the model you are referring to as being powered by the 5V line? This model is the P4i48, for some reason i can't find the ATX 12V connector on the board?.... so i can only guess it is powered by the 5V line.

I've seen two and this is one of them.

[stevo1210]

Re: Whats a good board?

Theres just one thing i don't understand about Asrock.... Why are thier boards so cheap and offer great stuff like Intel Chipsets? I wonder what they stripped off to make them cheaper....

[stevo1210]

Re: Whats a good board?

Just an update.... My brother got his Gigabyte GA-8iG1000-G motherboard back and it was faulty even though it was new. I had to return it and now i'm waiting for it to come back again.... Hows Gigabyte QC these days? Everything from Gigabyte that i've owwned fails in one way or another.... Probably have to switch to Dell soon.... Thier support is great just as long as you know what you are talking about.... The best part is the in-home service.... I don't have to drag myself anywhere....

[Rainbow]

Re: Whats a good board?

Intel chipset does not mean great board. Only some of their boards have Intel chipsets and you'll find that evertything other on the board is crap (CPU VRM, chipset power, buggy BIOS).

[toastygoodness]

Re: Whats a good board?

That's some bad luck with Gigabyte there. I enjoy their products and all of the ones from Gigabyte that I have bought work well. It must be something with Australia, like maybe they distribute bad products there? Half of my family lives in the United Kingdom and ASUS products almost always completely fails there. It's kind of strange. You know by any chance where that GA-8IG1000-G was made?

I think Dell's got some okay service... depends on who you get, but their in-home people (well the ones around Seattle) are pretty friendly and helpful.

[stevo1210]

Re: Whats a good board?

I was planning only to use the Asrock motherboard for a 2GHz Celeron PC.... Currently I only use that PC for the Internet and music.... no gaming though. I guess that the Asrock P4i65G can live up to that? .... Rainbow, what do you mean by buggy BIOS as in incompatability?

toastygoodness, I checked the boxing of the Gigabyte motherboard, it says made in Taiwan.

[stevo1210]

Re: Whats a good board?

Hows the QC for ECS these days? are thier boards still crap? I have a feeling that Asrock boards are not very well designed as they are kinda cheap and have great chipsets etc.
ECS has been around for 20 years so I guess they might be better? I'm just wondering how the SiS 661FX chipset compares with other chipsets like VIA and Intel. I hope it's better than the Intel 845G chipset i have.

[stevo1210]

Re: Whats a good board?

But then again, Asrock can at least invest some money into having a few good caps on the board. ECS on the other hand have all OST caps.... Asrock do too, but at least they have a few Sanyo or KZG caps between the CPU and the rear panel. A Celeron 2GHz CPU shouldnt be too much strain on the board I guess. The Celeron 2GHz chip I have stays pretty cool all the time and I don't even have any thermal contact adhesives on the heatsink or the CPU.

[bgavin]

Re: Whats a good board?

A Celeron 2GHz CPU shouldnt be too much strain on the board I guess.

I was reading the PSU article on EETimes about how critical the power sections are to meet Intel specs. Even a crap processor like a Celeron runs within a tight spec. I don't care for Celerons at all, but they should be properly fed and housed just like a real processor.

After reading all the forums here and reading the external links, what really hits home for me is how pervasive the cheap-out problem is. Wide spread corporate cheating/greed has compromised the PSUs and boards from so many manufacturers.

Even the high end stuff is guilty. I took apart a dead Antec SmartPower 350 PSU, and found it riddled with crap caps. A real pity.

[willawake]

Re: Whats a good board?

Abit AW9D-max is very good value with all chemicon polymers at 149 euro.

http://www.tweaktown.com/popImg.php?img=aw9l_8.JPG
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/961...ion/index.html

only 1 pci slot though

Asus Striker Extreme is kinda FUCKING expensive at 329 euro but all fujitsu polymers
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...hlbnRodXNpYXN0

[gonzo0815]

Re: Whats a good board?

If you need a budget board, i certainely would prefer an Asrock board over an downsized Asus, shure.
It is obviousely, that gamers and tweaker (read: ocers) are fore shure not the intended customer groupe.

Yea, Asrock does not made full solid polymer boards, that is something you will never see from them.
But from my point of view, they know, how to produce a cheap board, wich fore shure will do it for most people over a long period.

The other big players realy have problems with this, they have no clue how they should come that cheap with a working board.

Don`t get me wrong, i never do recommend Asrock to anyone, it is always easier to have high end stuff, but that is not the way, this busines do work.

I personally have used many Asrock boards and i know the quirks they sometimes have, but it is certainly not true, to say that thew hole desing is bad.
Shure you have to know, how to make those systems stable, but this is not something unusuall in this busines, regardles of price.
No OEM system is going into production, without that some very expensive and high skilled people have done some compatibility testing & tweaking
(most MEdion systems do have MSI or Asus boards....so are they that great?)

Yes, a 2 phase VRM is not great, but why not if it is working? 5v powered Intel p4 board is no great idear too, but i am shure, that Asrock has not intended it as a future proof upgrade board, so the VRM (yes it is 2 phase too) was fore shure not desinged for the later p4 models.

I personally have had great succes with all the older and some newer AMD Asrock boards, either as pure office / internet systems and a few (my own system too) for gaming (complete K7sx series, Asrock DS2, K7s741G(x) ).

The latest Asrock boards, especially those aimed at the Conroe market, do have a very nice desing, from my point of view.
Sadly they skimped on the caps this time (Evercon) wich should make it a nogo for most people (except me, as i always do void warranty by replacing caps on my own stuff).

Even those boards with crap caps will probably last the usuall two or three years, and than for most people the time is right for more power, regardless if they need it or not.

[willawake]

Re: Whats a good board?

if i was building an office pc today and had to be cheap i would probably get one of these Intel BOXD946GZISS L LGA 775 Intel 946GZ Micro ATX
at 98 euro. although i dont much like m-atx, intel have been very good for me.



i was pricing up some budget stuff today for someone but impossible to compete with the shops on price........so they went to buy some special which has Asus P5L-MX and Hannstar LCD.....wtf?

[stevo1210]

Re: Whats a good board?

Ok, success at last, I finally got my motherboard.... It wasn't a new one but it works fine so far....

One of my friends decided to upgrade thier PC so I put one together for them.

In the end they had this motherboard as a spare so I took it.

It is a Gigabyte GA-8iPE1000-G motherboard and it also came with a Pentium 4 3Ghz Prescott CPU.... I've had bad experiences with Gigabyte mohterboards in the past
but because it was free, I accepted this gift.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Whats a good board?

Gigabyte is not bad, shure not that great ocer, but all in all i would say rock solid, easy & hazle free setup. IF you don`t oce, there is no problem with GB.

many of the more high end brands e.g. Abit are not that easy & troublefree.....

Shure some older boards have had some bad caps, but even my old GA-5AX was doing very well with those Choyo caps.

[stevo1210]

Re: Whats a good board?

Hello Everyone,

I haven't been back to this thread for a while but now my main PC is having problems with booting and also the fact that the Gigabyte RMA service center did really dodgy repairs with my Gigabyte GA-8i945P-G motherboard so now the store I bought it from has agreed to let me pay extra for a different branded motherboard since they are really frustrated about the fact I keep returning the Gigabyte boards that I buy from them. Seems to me that every single Gigabyte motherboard has had random issues and it's really ticking me off so now I'm going to look for a different brand motherboard.

Now I have a choice between Asus and the Intel Desktop boards. Asus boards are really good because I haven't seen any failures with them since I use them for my customers.

Right now I need a board that has the following from Intel or Asus:

* Socket T (LGA 775)
*ATX form factor.... i'm not going to use a Micro-ATX boards since they don't offer a lot of expansion slots etc.
*DDR2 RAM support.... I currently use DDR2 modules and I can't just throw them out and go back to DDR1.
* Intel 945 or 965 chipset or anything that supports DDR2 and isn't too expensive. I also need support for the Intel Core 2 duo CPU support.... I currently use a Pentium 4 530J but i'm going to upgrade it soon.

Can anyone please suggest any models of Intel or Asus motherboards that have the following?

I don't get the idea why some Intel boards here in Australia are OEM and only come in a static bag with the CD and manual etc. What happened to the box? Also, how long is the Intel motherboard warranty?? I know that Asus is about 3 years.

Now I have learnt two lessons.... Never buy a Gigabyte motherboard and Never put a motherboard into RMA.... unless you really need it repaired.

It also seems to be the case for many customers that I know.... they buy a Gigabyte motherboard and all they get is trouble. Gigabyte was good quality back in the S370 days but now they are nothing but junk.

My GA-6VXE7+ motherboard (filled with G-Luxon caps) is still running fine today and it has been well over 6 years. I got it in October 2000 and its been running till now without any major issues.

Thanks.

[shadow]

Re: Whats a good board?

Yer, I posted a reply on this topic in your other thread stevo1210. I may as well give you the link here

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3436

A very big consideration that you absolutely have to take into account is that the 945P chipset was not designed for the Core 2 Duo CPU's. Therefore only the later revisions of many boards have Core 2 Duo support. Do not get the first version of a board because it has a good chance of being incompatible with Core 2 Duo processors. The P965 chipset never did have this problem. It always supported the Core 2 Duo processors from day one.

I do not have any further information on the Intel boards. I would not have a clue why they are sold OEM over here.

In the other thread I gave a list of models, I got them from Intel Australia's website. I may as well give you direct web links in this thread.

Intel DG965WH (ATX, G965 chipset, LGA775): http://www.intel.com/products/mother...65WH/index.htm

Intel DG965RY (ATX, G965 chipset, LGA775): http://www.intel.com/products/mother...65RY/index.htm

Intel DP965LT (ATX, P965 chipset, LGA775): http://www.intel.com/products/mother...65LT/index.htm

The reason why there are so few Intel boards in this list is because I checked for Core 2 Duo support and Intel does not support the Core 2 Duo CPU's on any 945P and 945G chipsets. Therefore if you are going to buy an Intel board, then it would have to have at least a P965 or G965 chipset.

In the other thread I posted a list of Asus boards, however there are so many that are basically based on the same chipset, the vanilla version costs around $100 while the one with all the bells and whistles costs around $400. There are also all different ones in between as well.

[shadow]

Re: Whats a good board?

Just to add some stuff. I went onto the website of my preferred store for computer parts and they claim that the 945P and 945G based Intel boards do have support for Core 2 Duo processors. I guess it may be the same thing that the early revisions did not have support but the later ones do. So I will list the 945P and 945G based Intel boards here too.

Intel D945PWM (ATX, 945P chipset, LGA775): http://www.intel.com/products/mother...5PWM/index.htm

Intel D945PVS (ATX, 945P chipset, LGA775): http://www.intel.com/products/mother...5PVS/index.htm

Intel D945GNT (ATX, 945G chipset, LGA775): http://www.intel.com/products/mother...5GNT/index.htm

Intel D945PLRN (ATX, 945PL chipset, LGA775): http://www.intel.com/products/mother...PLRN/index.htm

Intel D945PSN (ATX, 945P chipset, LGA775): http://www.intel.com/products/mother...5PSN/index.htm

The stores website only lists the microATX version of the Intel boards based on the 945P and 945G chipsets. However they list the ATX P965 and G965 based boards and all three cost around $160. Not sure about the difference between them yet.

[shadow]

Re: Whats a good board?

Dang caught by the 10 minute edit time again.

Anyway I just investigated the difference between the three P965/G965 based Intel boards.

Besides the obvious G965 having built in graphics while P965 not having any built in graphics there are some very minor differences.

The DG965WH board supports the relatively new Intel VIIV technology (gimmick?), it however has six SATA ports while the other two have four. It also has a different sound chip which has 7.1 surround sound instead of 5.1 surround surround sound, high definition (I think) and comes with Dolby Home Theater certification. The DG965WH also has optional PS/2 ports while on the other two boards they come as standard.

Considering that all three go for $160 (plus or minus around $2 ), I would go for the DG965WH board if I were buying an Intel based board since it has more for the same price. Although I would look for the version with PS/2 ports.