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Mass Motherboard Review
Niscenus writes "The folks at AnandTech are buzzing about this article originally posted here at CS. It's an extensive comparison of motherboard manufacturers, which is great for people who want to build their own system."
All the biggies look to be here. Good timing for me since I'm planning on
building a system in another month or so.
I have very bad experience with Epox boards: a friend of mine bought one, and even the parts that were on board had interupt-conflicts with each other. Really horrible design.
But come on, let's be honest: Something that works for me (with my hardware) doesn't have to work for you and vice versa. This review is purely useless!
What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
I dunno who told these jokers that ECS make underperforming boards, but it's a lie. It is true that they don't have some of the more popular overclocking features, but for stability and performance their boards are up there with the "big boys" at often less than half the price. I wouldn't use anything else in the machines I build for clients OR myself.
Did these guys just make the shit up? I mean, just do a quick google search for 'ECS motherboard' and read the reviews. Look at the benchmarks. Better yet, drop fifty or sixty bucks on one and try it yourself. I am an Asus convert, and I'm never going back. I've got a Windows box that has been up for almost six weeks. WINDOWS! SIX WEEKS! THANK YOU ECS!
And no, I do not work for ECS, but I have had this debate a dozen times IRL and the performance/stability argument is quite simply a load of crap.
Good to hear Abit is on the top! I built a killer system based on the Abit KT7A, and its an awesome board! It has more options than I need, and they didn't make the BIOS friendly, which is good for us geek types that like to tweak. I plan on purchasing another ABIT board when I build my next system.
For those looking at a KT7A, it is an older board. However, the specs on Abit's site are outdated. As of rev 1.3, the board theoretically could go into the 2ghz neighborhood. I'm currently running a 1.4 t-bird.
Strong points (my own, not from the article):
1. BIOS tweaking, BIOS tweaking, BIOS tweaking. This board has the most in depth BIOS setup I've ever seen, with the ability to overclock your system in 1 mHz increments.
2. Stability, even at OC speeds.
3. Board features, such as 4 USB headers, chipset cooler, temperature sensors galore, plenty of fan headers.
4. Nice thick manual.
5. No problems running linux on this board.
My conclusion: Abit good.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
these guys obviously did a lot of research. from the article (on Gigabyte):
;-)
Stability
Their boards are being focused on reliability and stability. The dual bios option is just one sign. From personal experience, I've noted their boards to have a high degree of stability. They aren't extremely stable, but they are far above average. Their stability during their performance market days was questionable.
Rating: 7.5/10
funny. a review from Tom's Hardware pissed all over the dual bios saying it caused more problems than it fixed, making stability a very touchy issue.
Seems to me this article was written by a couple of DIY'ers who've heard the term "overclock," but never "benchmark." Oh, and as for history???? I sure as shit hope they don't tell everyone to run out and buy a 3Dfx board "because they were the original high-end 3D graphics board maker"
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
>the Abit KT7 in my dad's machine is the most twitchy and unstable board I've had the misfortune of using
again, more anecdotal evidence, abit motherboards are popular and I too own one and I can just as easily say I go 6 month without rebooting.
It's easy to blame the motherboard for other problems such as a cheap unreliable power supply or bad ram or a misbehaving pci (ahem, sound blaster live) card. Some boards/chipsets are more sensitive to these problems than others. (In your case, the 80 ECS K7S5As are from a different manufacture and they have a different chipset)
I personally believe in buying name brand hardware backed by a good tech support and a good return policy. A lot of times it's the luck of the draw and people end up with bad boards. But I like the fact that ABIT is frequently releasing new BIOS revisions to add new features and bugfixes to their boards. I know the KT7 has had at least 10 bios releases in the past year. And of course, buying it from a store that you know and trust is much better than buying from some shady, cheap place just to save $10. I mean, who knows where they get their crap.
Yes. The last several computers I have built, I passed on the savings I gained buying Athlon and bought Asus MB's(and I always pay a few extra bucks for ECC RAM). I've been very happy with these choices.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Please.... ECS != PCChips. They bought PCChips ages ago, but that does not make them == PCChips.
And it's absolutely deplorable to review using the manufacturer as the basis for everything that is holy. DON'T pick a board based on the manufacturer, pick a board based on THAT BOARD'S merits. The only time the actual manufacturer comes into play is when you need warranty work or support done. But since I deal with a (good)retailer, they take care of that for me.
I'm sure ECS has had it's share of bad boards in the past, and I KNOW that Asus/Abit have had their share as well. But the fact is that the ECS K7S5A is a good board and provides a lot of bang for the buck.
I have trouble trusting any random person's perception of reliability (unless say they come from a VAX background :)
People are just too beaten down with poor expectations bred by years of working with crappy hardware, crappy OSes (DOS/Win or MacOS), and beta-level video drivers. In the average person mind, a few reboots a week is probably perfectly acceptable as "rock solid". Plus they may feel the need to conform to the majority opinion that (Mobo) or (Chipset) is a good thing and avoid getting flamed.
It's also tough because the whole hardware hobbiest culture (the people who are hands-on and publishing the info) seem to treat their computers as disposable game consoles with 6 month upgrade cycles. For the most part they reject stability features like ECC RAM in favor of miniscule performance increases.
Anyway, I would kill for some reliable information about reliabity. My expectation has been set by my last couple boxes (Compaq and IBM 'workstation' stuff) that could run NT4/5 24x7 without trouble.
The problem is not unsolvable or necessarily overly tedious, just at some level we have to give up our faith in experts.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.