On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 10:54 AM, Ian Clark <<a href="mailto:mrrooster@gmail.com">mrrooster@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2008/6/27 Sarah Katherine Hayes <<a href="mailto:sarah@sarahhayes.is-a-geek.net" target="_blank">sarah@sarahhayes.is-a-geek.net</a>>:<div class="Ih2E3d"><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
It looks good, however Jetway, ECS & Foxcon boards are to be avoided<br>
unless their is very little alternative. </blockquote></div><div><br>Agreed, First PC had a jetway mobo, never again. (Personally, I've had good expeience with abit over the years.)<br><br>[snip SIS]<br></div><div class="Ih2E3d">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
I'm not going to bash AMD or the various chipsets that support either<br>
CPU manufacturer, but to be really honest I have had zero issues, not<br>
drivers, not weird issues, not even the odd 'well that's too new' with<br>
Intel chipsets. </blockquote></div><div><br>I have. :) This is no reason to not use them though, they do a good motherboard chipset do intel. However, the current modern stuff from AMD is just as good. (Not so sure about nVidia stuff, that's more aimed at the high end gamer unles you get to the server class parts, and I often feel that while performance is there the reliablilty/stability isn't.)<br>
<br>That being said, my current 'sat behind a seteee' home server has a DFI board with an nForce 3. (which I didn't like when it was my main windows machine, it just felt... flaky) and that's reliable as hell (even after the fan on the southbridge failed about 2 years ago.)<br>
<br>My current myth box is a dual core AMD on an Asus board, which again I was not particularly happy with as my main PC. (It's an A8N-E I think; it was unable to maintain a reliable voltage supply to the cpu so no overclocking.) Now it's the myth box it has some nice features (being able to stop the CPU fan makes for a very quiet system.) however it's still a bit 'flaky', which I've not narrowed down yet, but I'm blaming the motherboard as I don't like it.<br>
<br>That being said Asus do have a very good rep so I suspect I've just got a baddun!<br><br>I think any midrange board from a well respected mobo maker will be fine though. Dont' go for super high end as they tend to sacrifice stability over features, and low end probably aren't up to running something as demanding as myth.<br>
<br>FWIW I just built someone a HTPC (Running windows though) using a small AMD 708G mobo and a tri core phenom, and that was a lovely little setup, although for myth that would mean dealing with teh ATI drivers. :|<br>
<br>
</div><div class="Ih2E3d"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">That's admitidly on three laptops not desktops, but<br>
hey, universal chipsets (give or take). Curiously the only board to<br>
come close to that level of 'just works' is a Soltek 'shuttle-esque'<br>
machine with an old nForce 2 chipset; I couldn't tell you if this is<br>
true of more modern nvidia boards or not though.<br>
<div><div></div><div></div></div></blockquote></div><div><br>In my eperience consumer nvidia stuff is geared towards performance more than stability. That could be just the drivers though. (I've a motherboard that will blue screen windows if you disable the on board lan.) <br>
<br>I</div></div></blockquote><div><br>Interesting, if I have the choice I will only buy ATI (or Intel) graphics chips because of their serious support of open source drivers (as well as there now serious support of improving their closed source drivers as well, they're now even providing linux drivers on disk in the box! 8@)<br>
Hopefullly buy the time I have the money for all this a 780G mini-itx board will be out. *dribbles* 8)~<br><br>How times change, eh?<br><br>In my decade of PC building experience I too have sworn by the rule of spend-the-money-on-the-board-and-the-psu.<br>
<br>I've found:<br><br>1) Cheap board + Cheap PSU = BAD<br>2) Good board + Cheap PSU = BAD<br>3) Good board + Good PSU = GOOD<br><br>But I have yet to try:<br><br>4) Cheap board + Good PSU = ????<br><br>Asrock. I know a man who owns an Asrock board with an Enermax PSU and he says it's flawless.<br>
Although I realise that Asrock, although a budget manufacturer, is a sister company of one of the good manufacturers.<br><br>J1M.<br><br><br></div></div>