Mother board Guide

[doubledragon5]

We have one for the PSU, can we add one for the motherboard as well. It seems a lot of people when purchasing MB, have a lot of questions on whether they are good or not...

[glc]

We already have a couple motherboard stickys.

[blue60007]

Do you mean a good/bad brand list for motherboards?

[hitchface]

I think that was what he was aiming at. It sounds like a good idea.

[blue60007]

I agree too...while it may not be as expansive as the PSU list as there are probably less motherboard makers than PSU's, it would still be a good resource. Heck, while we're at it, it might be worth while to do the same for memory, etc...

[ajd344]

Sounds like a good idea! Maybe it could be like a Bad, Mid-Range and Good category? My opinion is that the best mobo brand is Asus or Intel, and the worst is probabaly ECS.

[glc]

Actually ECS is getting better - not that I trust them yet though. There are a lot of offbrands that all come out of the ECS factory that are far worse. My concern is if we start ranking motherboards, ram, etc. we are going to start debates. Power supplies are a little easier to determine absolute quality - and if anything can cause damage to other components a bad power supply can. A bad motherboard, bad ram, etc. is very unlikely to damage other components.

It's like anything else - there are a lot of people out there with ECS/PC Chips boards that are perfectly happy and have had zero issues. Not that I'd ever build with one though!

I have a customer with a cheap P4S5A board with a 1.6 Northwood in it - it's overclocked to 2.13 and has a L&C power supply - works fine. Do I trust it? Heck no! Does it work? Sure does.......

Have I seen bad Asus and Intel boards? You bet. have I seen bad Antec power supplies? Yup - got one right here on the bench.

[KilluminatiStyle]

Totally agree with glc here. The current PSU guide already takes a lot of bashing as it is. Posting another GOOD/BAD hardware thread would only bring more flaming and headache. The problem is that people just don't understand that it is just a GUIDE. As glc said there are "bad" company's that make a good product from time to time and there are "good" company's that make a bad product from time to time.

Personally I don't like the PSU guide here too much. In the past I had a Rosewill or Codegen PSU in my main rig which was listed in my sig (Still use one and have for over 2 years OC'd and no issues). EVERY time that I posted a hardware related question the replies always had something to do with my PSU and I would get links pointing me to the PSU guide. It's like everyone who's read the guide has blinders on and can't get past the fact that the list isn't set in stone.

[blue60007]

You've both made some good points, so maybe it isn't such a good idea. I guess the only sure-fire way to make sure you tag everything correctly and not over-generalize...would be to list every single motherboard model, power supply model, etc...but that's anything but practical.

[KilluminatiStyle]

Maybe a better idea would be to sticky the CURRENT known items that are having issue. Like say Thermaltake puts out a round of PSU's that are seeing lots of reported failures or MSI ships a motherboard that is having a TON of ram compatability issues. Letting users know about products like this would be easier then trying to catagorize an entire company as good, bad, or not enough info.

P.S.

I can't spell and I know it.

[hitchface]

I agree with KilluminatiStyle here totally, and thus with glc as well. It would be tough to implement a good/bad thread like the PSU one when it comes to motherboards, but it might be worthwhile to have almost a "Current Status" sort of thread relating to motherboards, RAM, what have you, so that we can direct people there when they have questions. I don't want to know how many times the Asus P5B series of motherboard has been recommended here in the past month. Call this an amendment to my first post here.

[KilluminatiStyle]

Maybe even take it a step further and post a recommended builds in the BYOPC forum consisting of 3 catagories:

High-End - Spare no expense - All the bells and whistles dipped in platinum

Mid-Range - Good performance at a good price

Budget - Very cost efficient but still able to do the every day tasks with ease


All builds would consist of ONLY known good products at that time and the builds could be updated monthly or bi-monthly. Seems to me that maybe the time it would take to keep such a thing updated would be less then the time that it takes to answer 20 different posts about hardware recommendations.

[Alaron]

We have discussed this before folks. The hardware scene changes so frequently, even monthly lists will quickly be out of date. As we covered here earlier, any list is subject to debate, and every user has their own individual needs.

And the biggest problem is that despite our efforts to help people with stickies, they just don't read them often enough.

[hitchface]

I think the point is that it is sometimes easier to send someone a link rather than tell them the the Asus P5B is the board of choice about 40 times. I agree, the scene changes so frequently that it is tough to keep up, but it still might be easier to have a sticky that keeps getting modified. Just lock it so that there isn't room for arguments and state that the parts listed are recommended for a small list of reasons.

Just thoughts, but we understand the concerns of you mod folk.

[KilluminatiStyle]

Originally Posted by Alaron We have discussed this before folks. The hardware scene changes so frequently, even monthly lists will quickly be out of date. As we covered here earlier, any list is subject to debate, and every user has their own individual needs. And the biggest problem is that despite our efforts to help people with stickies, they just don't read them often enough.

The scene does change often. But knowing which components are good, solid performers doesn't. Even if a new motherboard get's released a day after the builds were updated it would still take some time for anyone to know the stability and performance of the new mobo.

Besides, a good build this week is still going to be a good build 3 months from now. Though, the more I think about it, maybe your right. Posting recommended builds would be kinda like linking folks to the PSU thread.

I do still like the idea of a sticky with KNOWN good hardware. Solid performance, good overclockers, best bang for buck, etc.