If you were to rate motherboards....

[Rich]

....say 6 brands from best to worse, what would the list look like? Not
individual boards, but overall brand ratings themselves. I've only
ever used Asus and Soyo boards but I'd be interested
in people's opinions.

 

[Cal Vanize]

...say 6 brands from best to worse, what would the list look like? Not
individual boards, but overall brand ratings themselves. I've only
ever used Asus and Soyo boards but I'd be interested
in people's opinions.

From a personal perspective with no particular reason (preference
rating)....

Asus (10)
MSI (8)
DFI (8)
Gigabyte (6)
Biostar (3)
Foxconn (3)

 

[Brownz \(mobile\)]

...say 6 brands from best to worse, what would the list look like?
Not individual boards, but overall brand ratings themselves. I've
only ever used Asus and Soyo boards but I'd be interested
in people's opinions.

From a reliability & stability POV.

1. Intel DPSD
2. Asustek
3. Fujitsu OEM
4. Foxconn
5. MSi
6. AOpen

 

[Wes Newell]

...say 6 brands from best to worse, what would the list look like? Not
individual boards, but overall brand ratings themselves. I've only
ever used Asus and Soyo boards but I'd be interested
in people's opinions.

They're all made from pretty much the same copper clad multilayer
material. Many are oem made by one of a few large volume PC board
manufacturers who may or may not have their own brand or several brand
boards. So bare in mind that my list has nothing to do with quality,
value, functionality, features, etc, but strictly name recognition. And
at best, it's only my opinion, as others would have there own. And any
opinion of this is pretty much worthless on deciding what brand to buy.

ECS (PC Chips)
Asus (ASRock)
Intel
MSI
Gigabyte
Abit

For value, I'd rate it this way.

ECS
PC Chips
ASRock
MSI
Chaintek
Biostar

 

[VanShania]

1. MSI
2. Gigabyte
3. Asus
4. ECS
5. Abit
6. DFI

I've used 3 MSI boards without any problems. I put Gigabyte 2nd because
their drivers were a little out of whack and I critisized this MB hard, but
after loading the Raid drivers, this motherboard stabled out real nice using
nvidias IDE driver. I used one asus board without difficulty but I purchased
a A8N-SLI Deluxe board which was dead out of the box. Asus tech said it was
because my A64 3500+ was not recognized because it wasn't new enough. And
there the asus sits still on my desk. Due to a bad Thermaltake power supply
I didn't find this out untill my free exchange expired. I'm going to try
flashing the bios sometime and hope that fixes it
--
Sapphire X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower(4X80mm fans),Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
2XSATA WD 320gb Raid Edition, PATA WD 120Gb HD
Pioneer 110D Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall-3134 1024X768, 4XAA/8XAF 6.4Drivers
Cpu -4405
3Dmark2001 - 8702 4XAA/8XAF 1280X1024

Games I'm Playing- Battlezone II, IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV

 

[VanShania]

I would also say get a motherboard with at least 6 sata ports, 8 if you can,
since sata optical drives will hopefully become more abundant

--
Sapphire X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower(4X80mm fans),Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
2XSATA WD 320gb Raid Edition, PATA WD 120Gb HD
Pioneer 110D+Liteon 1693S Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall-3134 1024X768, 4XAA/8XAF 6.4Drivers
Cpu -4405
3Dmark2001 - 8702 4XAA/8XAF 1280X1024

Games I'm Playing- Battlezone II, IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV

 

[Merrill P. L. Worthington]

I would also say get a motherboard with at least 6 sata ports, 8 if you can,
since sata optical drives will hopefully become more abundant

What advantage would SATA optical drives provide other than easier
cabling? (once its cabled-in, its not a problem, right?)

 

[Bill]

What advantage would SATA optical drives provide other than easier
cabling? (once its cabled-in, its not a problem, right?)

None.

Bill

 

[VanShania]

Well, thats like saying theres no difference between IDE 100/133 hard drives
and sata150/300 drives. But you get a huge boost in performance when you
have sata( even though the fastest sata hard drive only transfers at about
57mb/s(WD 400/500's)). Just have to make sure the optical drives have fast
access times. The Plextor PX-16SA is a sata optical drive but is rated
slower than the current 33mb\s optical drives because of this. But that will
change fast I hope.

--
Sapphire X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower(4X80mm fans),Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
2XSATA WD 320gb Raid Edition, PATA WD 120Gb HD
Pioneer 110D+Liteon 1693S Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall-3134 1024X768, 4XAA/8XAF 6.4Drivers
Cpu -4405
3Dmark2001 - 8702 4XAA/8XAF 1280X1024

Games I'm Playing- Battlezone II, IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV

 

[Merrill P. L. Worthington]

Well, thats like saying theres no difference between IDE 100/133 hard drives
and sata150/300 drives. But you get a huge boost in performance when you
have sata( even though the fastest sata hard drive only transfers at about
57mb/s(WD 400/500's)). Just have to make sure the optical drives have fast
access times. The Plextor PX-16SA is a sata optical drive but is rated
slower than the current 33mb\s optical drives because of this. But that will
change fast I hope.

From a performance perspective, there is no difference between IDE
100/133 hard drives and SATA [anything] drives if everything else is equal.

Since optical drives are VERY slow in comparison, it makes no sense to
use SATA optical drives except for ease of cabling.

 

[Bill]

Well, thats like saying theres no difference between IDE 100/133 hard drives
and sata150/300 drives.

Aside from burst rates there isn't'

But you get a huge boost in performance when you
have sata( even though the fastest sata hard drive only transfers at about
57mb/s(WD 400/500's)).

The WD SATA Raptors are a bit higher than that, due to the 10,000 rpm disk
speed. But no, you don't get a huge boost when it comes to total throughput.

Just have to make sure the optical drives have fast
access times. The Plextor PX-16SA

( couldn't find that model, did you mean the Plextor PX-716 SA )

is a sata optical drive but is rated
slower than the current 33mb\s optical drives because of this. But that will
change fast I hope.

The perfomance of the PX716-SA <sata> appears to be identical to the PX-716
A <atapi> according to Plextor. BTW, take a look at the new PX-760 SA.

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=17069

High burst rates are nice if you're moving a few files smaller than the
buffers involved but when you're writing/reading gigabytes of data the
advantage goes away. You can only move data as fast as it can get under the
read/write heads.

You've reached the max rpm that you can spin a cd or dvd with out it
exploding from the centrifugal force unless you change the material they're
made of; gets expensive. Access times aren't going to diminish much for the
same reason; you can only move the heads so fast or they self destruct due
to their mass and the material their made of. That leaves increasing the
aureal density of the disk, enter Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

Now I love the smaller/simpler cabling of sata and the fact you can put a
bunch more sata controllers on a motherboard than pata controllers, but the
price difference between the sata and pata drives, for the present, kinda
puts me off. Especially when the pata controllers aren't doing anything
anyway if your using sata hard drives. I also see a lot of complaints from
people having trouble with their sata dvds not working properly on some
chipsets.

Maybe in a couple of years, when sata II Blu-Ray dvd drives get down to
under a hundred dollars, it'll be worthwhile.

Bill

 

[VanShania]

Lets hope the PX-760 SA is faster than its IDE brother. The PX-760A IDE
version only has a transfer rate of 25mb/s and access times of 150ms, even
though it is rated Ultra ATA/66 standard.
--
Sapphire X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower(4X80mm fans),Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
2XSATA WD 320gb Raid Edition, PATA WD 120Gb HD
Pioneer 110D Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall-3134 1024X768, 4XAA/8XAF 6.4Drivers
Cpu - 4405
3Dmark2001 - 8702 4XAA/8XAF 1280X1024

Games I'm Playing- IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV, Warhammer 40,000 Gold

 

[Merrill P. L. Worthington]

Lets hope the PX-760 SA is faster than its IDE brother. The PX-760A IDE
version only has a transfer rate of 25mb/s and access times of 150ms, even
though it is rated Ultra ATA/66 standard.

Its not rated at ATA/66, it just connects at that speed. Sorta like a
SATA II drive connecting at 300 MBs but it only reads at 60 MBs.

So if this drive was converted to operate with a SATA II conntection, do
you think its speed would be much different?

IMHO, the only benefit of Plextor drives is that most of them (I'm not
sure of the whole line) have bigger cache.

 

[Bill]

The only difference between the two will be the connecting interface. If
your car will only do 100KPH then it's only going to do 100KPH even if your
driving on the Autobahn.

You have to look at how things work and disregard the marketing hype.

Its not rated at ATA/66, it just connects at that speed. Sorta like a
SATA II drive connecting at 300 MBs but it only reads at 60 MBs.

So if this drive was converted to operate with a SATA II conntection, do
you think its speed would be much different?

IMHO, the only benefit of Plextor drives is that most of them (I'm not
sure of the whole line) have bigger cache.

Well, they're supposedly better built. Supposedly. I have an old Plextor
Ultraplex <scsi2> that still works. I've had several cd drives bought around
the same period fail; Memorex and LG drives in particular. I also have some
other bought around the same period that are still working; Yamaha 426
<scsi2> and Lite-ons. Anecdotal evidence that's statisticaly insignificant.
FWIW. Shrug.

Bill

 

[VanShania]

you 2 can stick to ide then and I'll move on to sata. Also Plextor isn't the
only one who will be making sata optical drives in the future. And newer
technology is almost always faster, even though transfer rates may remain
unchanged. Which is why sata hard drives provide a good performance boost
over IDE, especially the big drives like the Western digital 400 and 500gb
models. Even their 320 gigs were rated top of the class until the 400s came
along. And then add raid 0( I will use 4 drives for this), you have a
smoking system that is stable and reliable.

--
Sapphire X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower(4X80mm fans),Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
2XSATA WD 320gb Raid Edition, PATA WD 120Gb HD
Pioneer 110D Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall-3134 1024X768, 4XAA/8XAF 6.4Drivers
Cpu - 4405
3Dmark2001 - 8702 4XAA/8XAF 1280X1024

Games I'm Playing- IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV, Warhammer 40,000 Gold

Lets hope the PX-760 SA is faster than its IDE brother. The PX-760A IDE
version only has a transfer rate of 25mb/s and access times of 150ms, even
though it is rated Ultra ATA/66 standard.
--
Sapphire X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower(4X80mm fans),Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
2XSATA WD 320gb Raid Edition, PATA WD 120Gb HD
Pioneer 110D Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall-3134 1024X768, 4XAA/8XAF 6.4Drivers
Cpu - 4405
3Dmark2001 - 8702 4XAA/8XAF 1280X1024

Games I'm Playing- IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV, Warhammer 40,000 Gold

 

[Bill]

you 2 can stick to ide then and I'll move on to sata. Also Plextor isn't the
only one who will be making sata optical drives in the future. And newer
technology is almost always faster, even though transfer rates may remain
unchanged. Which is why sata hard drives provide a good performance boost
over IDE, especially the big drives like the Western digital 400 and 500gb
models. Even their 320 gigs were rated top of the class until the 400s came
along. And then add raid 0( I will use 4 drives for this), you have a
smoking system that is stable and reliable.

You let us know when you get those optical drives running in Raid 0.
<snip>

Okay, you go ahead and continue to drink the marketer's koolaid. Pay no
attention to the man behind the curtain.

Bill

 

[Merrill P. L. Worthington]

you 2 can stick to ide then and I'll move on to sata. Also Plextor isn't the
only one who will be making sata optical drives in the future. And newer
technology is almost always faster, even though transfer rates may remain
unchanged. Which is why sata hard drives provide a good performance boost
over IDE, especially the big drives like the Western digital 400 and 500gb
models. Even their 320 gigs were rated top of the class until the 400s came
along. And then add raid 0( I will use 4 drives for this), you have a
smoking system that is stable and reliable.

But that doesn't change the physics of spinning a DVD or CD. To get
better performance, the disk must spin faster. If the disk is forced to
spin faster than it is now, it will fly apart.

So how do you propose to improve performance with that barrier?

 

[Wes Newell]

But that doesn't change the physics of spinning a DVD or CD. To get
better performance, the disk must spin faster. If the disk is forced to
spin faster than it is now, it will fly apart.

So how do you propose to improve performance with that barrier?

I haven't followed whatever it is you're discussing, but the answer to
this question is simple. More heads.

 

[Bill]

I haven't followed whatever it is you're discussing, but the answer to
this question is simple. More heads.

Well, I've always been in favor of more head. But that usually costs more
money.

Bill

 

[VanShania]

Wow, you must be smokin something real bad if you can connect 2 optical
drives in raid 0. I just do hard drives myself.

--
Sapphire X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower(4X80mm fans),Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
2XSATA WD 320gb Raid Edition, PATA WD 120Gb HD
Pioneer 110D Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall-3134 1024X768, 4XAA/8XAF 6.4Drivers
Cpu - 4405
3Dmark2001 - 8702 4XAA/8XAF 1280X1024

Games I'm Playing- IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV, Warhammer 40,000 Gold