Motherboard comparisons?

[keith]

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 22:43:54 +0000, GSV Three Minds in a Can


That raises a significant point: A "good" mobo maker can't make a good
mobo out of a chipset that sucks. This is what makes me cynical about
"good" motherboard brands; nearly all of them have products based on
bottom-scraper chipsets, that sell on thier brand name as "better".

Perhaps you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but there is most
definitely a difference between motherboard implementations. BIOS,
drivers, and support are the more obvious differences. There is also a
difference between how well the board design is done, from getting the
clocking right to putting the frappin' connectors where the cables will
reach. ;-)

So I look at chipset first (how good could this motherboard possibly
be?) and then the vendor (is the brand bad enough to screw it up?)

It certainly can't get better, but it can get worse.

It's a bit like SVGA cards; folks look at how much memory there is on
it, instead of starting from which chipset it's based on. Just because
it's easier to understand "256M" is better than "128M", doesn't mean to
say this is what is most important.

Sure, but there is a lot more to a motherboard than a single chip.

 

[The little lost angel]

That raises a significant point: A "good" mobo maker can't make a good
mobo out of a chipset that sucks. This is what makes me cynical about
"good" motherboard brands; nearly all of them have products based on
bottom-scraper chipsets, that sell on thier brand name as "better".

But a good one can make sure it doesn't suck as bad or make things
worse. One of my friend runs a shop and blew 3 psu on the same
brand/model. Raised the issue with the distro/manufacturer of the psu
and after some weeks of testing, the result came back that the 2nd
tier mobo making had a USB power implementation that was more than a
bit out of spec. The same electronic pox applies to another brand. It
was a open problem apparently afflicting yet another brand. None of
the real 1st tier model using the same usb chipset had this problem
apparently because they realized/knew/predicted? the problem and used
a different way to feed the USB.

A bit later, like a year or so down the road, the same 2nd tier
manufacturer that seem to forget not just a bit of that lesson did it
again. This time round Antec was apparently forced to modify their
models a bit to prevent the board from blowing the PSU by drawing a
bit too much power from the vsb line.

So a good 1st tier mobo maker can make a difference even if the board
can never rise above a certain level pPpPp


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[The little lost angel]

That was a very interesting time. The differences were amazing, but
one can see the same sorts of differences by looking at how clocks are
treated with a nice oscilloscope.

I don't quite get it, isn't a spectrum analyser (from what I can find)
an oscilloscope? Except they seem to come with a bigger/wider?
bandwidth??

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[keith]

I don't quite get it, isn't a spectrum analyser (from what I can find)
an oscilloscope? Except they seem to come with a bigger/wider?
bandwidth??

Well, sorta. An oscilloscope displays the amplitude of a signal vs. time.
A spectrum analyzer displays amplitude vs. frequency. They're a Fourier
Transform away from each other. ;-)

What George was referring to was, back when I worked on X86 stuff, one
of my responsibilities was EMI pre-compliance. I had a very nice 6GHz
spectrum analyzer and a room full of calibrated antennas to measure RFI
from motherboards and other interesting PC stuff. One of the interesting
outcomes of my year-and-a-half playing was that there was a *strong*
correlation between motherboards that had low emmissions and those that
were found to be well designed by other more complicated means. Good
engineering was evident in many ways. EMI measurements were simple (given
$100K worth of toys and a year to play ;-).

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

It certainly can't get better, but it can get worse.

Definitely - and a bad/cheap mobo can throw away much of the value of
the chipset (e.g. i430HX with insufficient tag RAM to cache > 64M, or
an 815 that has no AGP slot) or attept to fake extra capabilities of a
limited chipset (e.g. 66MHz-limited chipsets clocked up to 75MHz).

What's your take on bad mobo caps, Keith?

---------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

"He's such a character!"
' Yeah - CHAR(0) '

 

[Keith R. Williams]

Definitely - and a bad/cheap mobo can throw away much of the value of
the chipset (e.g. i430HX with insufficient tag RAM to cache > 64M, or

To be fair, few boards/users came anywhere close to 64MB at the time
the HX was front-line. The real cockup was the TX chipset being
limited to 64MB. Though it was done to integrate the tags.

Of course we can't forget the fake (actually fraudulent) L2's either.

an 815 that has no AGP slot)

Well, it was an 815, so why not break the other knee too. ;-)

or attept to fake extra capabilities of a
limited chipset (e.g. 66MHz-limited chipsets clocked up to 75MHz).

Sure. That was one of the things I did in a former life. Figure out
who was hiding the baloney.

What's your take on bad mobo caps, Keith?

I don't know too much more than the others here. Indeed when it first
played out I thought it was another case of the smoking tantallums
(they have a long history of such things). After looking at it, it
seems to be a real case of industrial espionage, with all the intrigue
of a James Bond movie. Dome biggies (and their customers) got stung.
It's a mess, but no different than any other corner being cut in this
market. It was and is avoidable. Sometimes the corner that's cut
becomes important. OTOH, the real story here isn't the capacitors, but
what the manufacturers did, or didn't, to correct the situation.

 

[dennis]

I find it more than just a little entertaining that all of you guys are
"recommending" motherboards without even asking what the guy plans to
do with it. Fast video is a bit of a waste on a network appliance, and
the kind of network controller on the board is a factor also in almost
all cases (if it has a realtek on it, I don't want it).. What O/S will
you be running? A MB that is rock solid in LINUX may not run well on
another OS, or vice/versa. You can't really get advice from people
running windows, because windows is expected to lock up every few days,
so how do you know if its a MB problem or just Windows being Windows?

We used to think Tyan boards were good until we had 25 motherboards
spontaneusly rebooting all over the world. It was a power problem, and
after dealing with them on it I've decided that they don't have a clue
(since they had no idea how to fix it). They did issue a credit for
them, admitting the problem, but I prefer a MB with no problems.

The truth is that every design is a crapshoot, because you're relying
on some taiwanese guy to interpret rather complicated technical
documents, and sometimes they make a mistake. And you can find 20 guys
swearing by a motherboard that you had no end of trouble with. If you
are selling a product and you need continuity, you should think about
intel or supermicro, because they don't discontinue motherboard the
second a new chip comes out (like MSI does). If you're just choosing
one for a server or personal use, look at features and cross your
fingers.

 

[George Macdonald]

I find it more than just a little entertaining that all of you guys are
"recommending" motherboards without even asking what the guy plans to
do with it. Fast video is a bit of a waste on a network appliance, and
the kind of network controller on the board is a factor also in almost
all cases (if it has a realtek on it, I don't want it).. What O/S will
you be running? A MB that is rock solid in LINUX may not run well on
another OS, or vice/versa. You can't really get advice from people
running windows, because windows is expected to lock up every few days,
so how do you know if its a MB problem or just Windows being Windows?

Ah, now we have an expert on hand... who hasn't figured out how to use
Google yet.

We used to think Tyan boards were good until we had 25 motherboards
spontaneusly rebooting all over the world. It was a power problem, and
after dealing with them on it I've decided that they don't have a clue
(since they had no idea how to fix it). They did issue a credit for
them, admitting the problem, but I prefer a MB with no problems.

The truth is that every design is a crapshoot, because you're relying
on some taiwanese guy to interpret rather complicated technical
documents, and sometimes they make a mistake. And you can find 20 guys
swearing by a motherboard that you had no end of trouble with. If you
are selling a product and you need continuity, you should think about
intel or supermicro, because they don't discontinue motherboard the
second a new chip comes out (like MSI does). If you're just choosing
one for a server or personal use, look at features and cross your
fingers.

Yeah RIGHT - just buy Intel.<guffaw>

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[dennis]

Windows?

Ah, now we have an expert on hand... who hasn't figured out how to use
Google yet.


Yeah RIGHT - just buy Intel.<guffaw>

Rgds, George Macdonald

Nice technical arguments you make there George. Very impressive.

I dont like intel MBs personally, but you don't have many choices if
you want continuity over time (ie if you want to be able to buy exactly
the same MB for more than a few months). Supermicro has the best
program IMO. MSI is the worst.

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

You can't really get advice from people
running windows, because windows is expected to lock up every few days,
so how do you know if its a MB problem or just Windows being Windows?

Only if you are running. Win9x/Me, or if the system was
installed/managed by a complete dork. My Win2k/XP system run until I
need to reboot to install some patch or other, or until the power fails,
or until I get bored. Weeks .. months sometimes.

Lemme see, last reboot 16/Dec, Why ..
"
Restart Required: To complete the installation of the following updates,
the computer must be restarted. Until this computer has been restarted,
Windows cannot search for or download new updates:
- Security Update for Windows XP (KB885835)
- Critical Update for Windows XP (KB886185)
- Security Update for Windows XP (KB873339)
- Security Update for Windows XP (KB885836)
"

Nope, the evidence indicates that what you proposed is not, in fact,
true.

 

[George Macdonald]

My GAWD - it worked... he's learned how to quote!

Nice technical arguments you make there George. Very impressive.

My technical "arguments" have all been made in the thread err, dennis(?)...
if you had taken the time to read it. You apparently have no technical
arguments whatsoever -- it may surprise you to hear we've seen the "just

I dont like intel MBs personally, but you don't have many choices if
you want continuity over time (ie if you want to be able to buy exactly
the same MB for more than a few months). Supermicro has the best
program IMO. MSI is the worst.

Dunno what "program" you're referring to but a quick look at a few on-line
resellers turns up only two desktop Supermicro mbrds, both at NewEgg and
one is a 915G - not very interesting to me and of course Supermicro only
does Intel and mostly the high end of that niche.

I also see that there are MSI mbrds available, from multiple vendors, which
take the same CPU and memory as I purchased two years ago - seems
reasonable enough continuity to me; if they're not identical to that 2
year-old purchase, they're close enough and are just improved versions.
For current new systems, I've moved on to new technology - it's called umm,
progress. Do try to pay attention.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Hyperoglyphe]

Nice technical arguments you make there George. Very impressive.

I dont like intel MBs personally, but you don't have many choices if
you want continuity over time (ie if you want to be able to buy exactly
the same MB for more than a few months). Supermicro has the best
program IMO. MSI is the worst.

Like the Intel D925X boards. What did they last? 4 months? Oh, that's
right, they killed them the moment a new chip came out...

Dave