PC builders: Please advise on common online brands

  • Thread starter Jonathan Appleseed
  • Start date
J

Jonathan Appleseed

I've encountered some brands that always seem cheap, and I was hoping
that some of you seasoned PC builders would offer advice. Please rank
the following brands in each category to indicate which brands are
respectable enough to buy on a low budget and/or which would be best to
avoid period:

CASES w/ PSUs FOR ATHLON64 *Stable and quiet?
Aspire, Chenbro, Foxconn, TurboCase

SOCKET 939 MOBOs w/ 8x AGP slot *Stable?
Abit, ASRock America, Chaintech, Gigabyte, MSI

PC3200 MEMORY *Compatible and stable?
Corsair, Samsung, "generic" (any good generic?)

HD *Stable, fast, and quiet?
Magnetic Data Technology, Maxtor, Samsung

VIDEO CARDS *Quiet and reliable?
EVGA, BFG, Chaintech, MSI, XFX

DVD RECORDERS *Stable and quiet?
Aopen, Lite-on, NEC
 
G

Greyfrog

Let me ask the obvious: What OS do you intend to use the hardware
with? That makes a difference.
 
J

Jonathan Appleseed

Greyfrog said:
Let me ask the obvious: What OS do you intend to use the hardware
with? That makes a difference.
Click to expand...
XP Home and probably a newer one later on; a Linux distro for hobby and
backup.
 
T

Tweek

I don't have experience with all of the brands you listed, but below you
will find advice based on what I have used over the years.

Jonathan Appleseed said:
I've encountered some brands that always seem cheap, and I was hoping that
some of you seasoned PC builders would offer advice. Please rank the
following brands in each category to indicate which brands are respectable
enough to buy on a low budget and/or which would be best to avoid period:

CASES w/ PSUs FOR ATHLON64 *Stable and quiet?
Aspire, Chenbro, Foxconn, TurboCase
Click to expand...

I like Antec Cases, very good build quality and nice power supply. I have a
P4 3.2 overclocked to 3.6 with the Antec 350 PSU. It is very quiet too.
SOCKET 939 MOBOs w/ 8x AGP slot *Stable?
Abit, ASRock America, Chaintech, Gigabyte, MSI
Click to expand...

I have been and hopefully always will be an ABIT man. I started with an IT5V
and have used them exclusively ever since. Never a single problem. Right now
I have an IS7-E, an AN8, and a KV8 Pro. The only ABIT S939 board with an AGP
slot is the AV8 with the VIA K8T800 Pro chipset.
PC3200 MEMORY *Compatible and stable?
Corsair, Samsung, "generic" (any good generic?)
Click to expand...

I usually just use generic stuff since I am not a hard core tweaker, the P4
system has MWAVE brand PC3200 from www.mwave.com and it works great. I also
have an Athlon 64 machine with Rosewill PC3200 running at 440Mhz DDR with no
problems.
HD *Stable, fast, and quiet?
Magnetic Data Technology, Maxtor, Samsung
Click to expand...

I have had problems with just about every brand, but I like Western Digital
the best. I have heard that Maxtor is having some reliability issues these
days.
VIDEO CARDS *Quiet and reliable?
EVGA, BFG, Chaintech, MSI, XFX
Click to expand...

I have had nothing but ATI cards since the original Radeon came out. Radeon,
Radeon 7500, 8500, 9700 and 9800Pro (in the P4 Machine). Until recently it
was always ATI branded cards, but in my A64 machine I have a Sapphire Radeon
X700pro that works great. Played Half Life 2 from beginning to end with no
issues. It is not much of an overclocker though.
DVD RECORDERS *Stable and quiet?
Aopen, Lite-on, NEC
Click to expand...

I have been a Lite-on fan for awhile, in my P4 I have a Lite-On DVD rom, DVD
burner and a CD burner. All work great. I bought a Rosewill DVD +/- RW for
the A64 machine and so far it hasn't had any issues, even with cheap generic
media.
 
M

Matt

Jonathan said:
I've encountered some brands that always seem cheap, and I was hoping
that some of you seasoned PC builders would offer advice. Please rank
the following brands in each category to indicate which brands are
respectable enough to buy on a low budget and/or which would be best to
avoid period:

CASES w/ PSUs FOR ATHLON64 *Stable and quiet?
Aspire, Chenbro, Foxconn, TurboCase
Click to expand...

Can't beat the Antec SLK1650, SLK2650, and SLK3700 for value if you
don't have unusual power requirements.
 
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