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  1. #1
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    Question Non-technical Mainboard Question

    Hopefully this post is ok in here (Lounge)

    Lately, I've been thinking of building another computer, you know... That monster computer with at least 2 processors, 2 gigs of DDR, etc. The ultimate multimedia box.

    Currently though, I'm not sure of what processor I'm going to use, but I'm aware of their pros and cons, so this doesnt need to be debated.

    Do you know of any good, rock-solid, multiprocessor (minimum of 2 processors) boards for desktops for either AMD or Intel? Of course I'm expecting to see more Intel boards than AMD.

    Any recomendations of boards that you know are good, or had little difficulty with?


    Thanks in advance
    Don't like what I say? Ignore me.

  2. #2
    All I can say is go with brands like ASUS if you want reliablity and quality. I had countless ASUS boards and never had any problems with any of em.

    Had 1 ABIT too, slight minor problem that was eaily solved.

    What you could do is read those review sites to get a better viewpoint.
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  3. #3
    Net trend, asus isn't holding it's own here about 45 minutes from silicon valley anymore.

    All of my systems were P2b, p5a, p5a-b, p2b-s. 3 p3b-f's, and everyone of them were solid, stable and ultra reliable.

    The last year or two has shown asus to be tanking with a couple systems I built for local customers, and then a new business we are doing work for with 4 retail outlets (Computer parts distributor East Gate Micro, Aroma Tech) are reporting very bad results with the ASUS boards... sad really, used to love asus.
    dotGig
    <:<: [Fruit eating linux administrator]

  4. #4
    Whoa, never noticed this many changes. But i recently built a couple of new comps for myself and friends using asus mobos with no problems.

    Hopefully, they are just isolated incidents?
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  5. #5
    I asked the same question, but look what I just posted.

    4 Computer retail outlets, east gate micro, all stating that asus has turned to crap (Started hearing this about 5 months ago regularly)

    Just upgraded a couple systems here and what do you know, same thing.
    dotGig
    <:<: [Fruit eating linux administrator]

  6. #6
    Could be a bad batch? But if ASUS are failing now, who are the current best? ABIT? Gigabyte? MSI?

    I'm so lost if ASUS really heads to the dump.
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  7. #7
    hahah funny, I feel the same way.

    I'm going to be meeting with the owner of east gate and aroma on Saturday, I'll bring up the conversation and see what I find out.

    Gonna be nice to be able to speak directly to the owner of a large distributorship and retail outlet chain.

    If I space out after saturday send me a PM and I'll tell you what I find out (I will not forget to ask about asus), but after the meeting it looks to be a busy day.
    dotGig
    <:<: [Fruit eating linux administrator]

  8. #8
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    might want to consider a tyan thunder k7 with dual athlon mp's... very stable on windows...

  9. #9
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    I've been using an ABIT for a while now and pounding into it almost daily (Using Premiere, Photoshop, and a few good 3d games) and never had a hiccup with it.

    Although if your really serious in building a nice box that can do some heavy work and high FPS don't skimp on anything.

    I tried to do this last year and I skimped on the simple stuff: The case and the PSU (it was a 400 watt)... Both failed within one year. The cases power button got stuck. I had to rip the front off the case and get a new switch from RadioShack to hack onto the wires. Then the PSU simply just stopped working and had to replace that.

    Just don't buy generic, it comes back and hits you in the end.
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  10. #10
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    Tyan makes excellent mobo's for dual athlon configurations.

  11. #11
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    Whoa... Bigger response than I thought

    My choice of OS will most likely be Windows 2k Pro. Hmm, I've heard a lot of good about Asus, as well as some negative stuff. I've been looking into Asus, Abit, Supermicro & Tyan specifically, but, I really cant make a decision until I know which processor I want to use.

    Otherwise in general, here are the brands of components I'm looking into.

    PSU - Allied (I never had any probs with thier PSU's)
    CPU Cooling - Coolermaster, or perhaps liquid cooling. My case decision will reflect my choosen cooling method.
    Thermal Paste - Artic silver
    RAM - Crucial (I've only had 1 stick go "bad" on me... ever...)
    HD's - Maxtor and probably an IDE RAID array using an adaptec raid controller for my important files if case space permits. (I've never had a Maxtor die on me, but It's time to be prepared )
    CD-ROM - Plain CDROM (afterall, I dont mess with CD's too much unless I'm installing something)
    Sound - Creative (Most likely Live! 5.1 Platinum, but it will definately be Creative and the sound will be plugged into my surround sound system)
    LAN - Netgear, Linksys, 3com, Intel or Realtek 10/100 lan adapter.

    So far those are the things I have in mind, the rest I'm still thinking of. I'm also very undecided on a case. I'm wanting to purchase the case, and PSU separately and if the case somes with a PSU, I'll most likely take it out and use it for a backup in case if one of my other PSU's go out. I'm also debating between liquid cooling, and monster heatsinks.

    I'm still looking for a monster mainboard. I'm actually leaning towards dual athlons (and/or mp's)over the P4/Xeon, but I've seen the benchmarks...

    Anyways... I got some more running around to do.
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  12. #12
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    im personally not a fan of tyan but thats just me... what i can say those is if you have money stick with supermicro...as for a cpu stick with intel ive messed with amd mp's and IMHO they outright suck....msi makes a good dual p3 board its like the 649D PRO....i honestly dont see why you would need more then a dual thats just me though...and my worhtless 2 cent's
    -Robert Norton
    www.SophMedia.com

  13. #13
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    If you want stability, go with Supermicro (no AMD option). If you want bandwidth, you need a ServerWorks chipset (aka the company that has alwasy said no to AMD).

    Both will cost you some money. Dual Xeons arent cheap.

  14. #14
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    one more thing...for your choice of os's if your doing 2 or less cpu's stick with win2k pro..(unless you want to use it as a web server)..win2k server supports like 4 cpu's i believe...and win2k adv server supports like 8...i have no idea how much they cost (well actually i think around like $799) cause i have a msdn membership....as for hd's i'd use a raid0+1 card...with JBD (just a bunch of disks)....if your gunna go with ide then use maxtor if your gunna go with scsi stick with seagate....now i dont understand why the hell you would be concerned about a big bad machine if your only gunna use ide's but that again is just my opinon....
    -Robert Norton
    www.SophMedia.com

  15. #15
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    Originally posted by interactive
    as for hd's i'd use a raid0+1 card...with JBD (just a bunch of disks)
    Id go RAID 5 to get some redundancy though it wont be too fast. Plus seek times will still suck.

    Originally posted by interactive
    now i dont understand why the hell you would be concerned about a big bad machine if your only gunna use ide's but that again is just my opinon
    Agreed, IDE can never have a <5ms seek time.

  16. #16
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    About cases: One of the most popular cases out there for the hi-end consumer do-it-yourselfer is Lian Li.

    The make some really nice,durable, light, aluminum cases. On of their better features is that all of their cases has rounded edges everywhere. No sharp pieces anywhere over the entire case. So if you plan on swapping out components or playing w/ the case it's a good thing. I have many little nicks and cuts on my knuckles from fumbling around in my case trying to get a stick of RAM or an AGP card in or out...

    Just a suggestion.
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  17. #17
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    lol honestly ve worked around comps all my life never once cut my hand on a case....i'd stick with a rack as it sounds liek your trying to do a server....
    -Robert Norton
    www.SophMedia.com

  18. #18
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    Originally posted by interactive
    lol honestly ve worked around comps all my life never once cut my hand on a case....i'd stick with a rack as it sounds liek your trying to do a server....
    NEVER cut your hand? You must not open the box too often then, or you have to be wearing chainmail gloves.

    It doesnt happen ALL the time (constantly) but its pretty common to make a "Blood Sacrifice to Deus Ex Machina" when working on a machine, especially in a tight area.

  19. #19
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    Talking

    Originally posted by interactive
    one more thing...for your choice of os's if your doing 2 or less cpu's stick with win2k pro..(unless you want to use it as a web server)..win2k server supports like 4 cpu's i believe...and win2k adv server supports like 8...i have no idea how much they cost (well actually i think around like $799) cause i have a msdn membership....as for hd's i'd use a raid0+1 card...with JBD (just a bunch of disks)....if your gunna go with ide then use maxtor if your gunna go with scsi stick with seagate....now i dont understand why the hell you would be concerned about a big bad machine if your only gunna use ide's but that again is just my opinon....
    Well, about the OS, I already have a Win2k pro CD and I'm currently running it on this machine which will become a linux box if/once I get this monster built.

    Hmm... Why the hell would I use IDE ? Because SCSI totally slipped my mind , thanks for kicking me and reminding me about SCSI . I've heard a lot of good stuff about Seagate SCSI drives, and that they also get quite hot, so I'll need some more fans. Now I guess I'll have a SCSI RAID... But I'm fairly unfamiliar with which raid would be good. I want mostly redundancy, but I also want the speed to be acceptable. This is raid 1 right? I'm wanting the raid array will only be for my files, assuming I can have the OS on one SCSI drive, and have a raid array set up for my files.

    Studio64, thanks for the link. I found some interesting things on there... I especially like the thermometers, and I'm thinking about getting one for my current box since it is an AMD. Also about cases, I think I'll need to get a full tower for all the stuff (especially since I want to set up a raid array and will need some more fans). I'm really beginning to like black cases, and some of these case mods. *thinks this computer is going to sound like a Saturn V rocket at liftoff, and prolly just as much thrust from all the fans *

    Duals are just fine, and I've thought about going quad, but that is definately overkill for a home desktop system. Since I do 3d, it can be very heavy on the system especially rendering. And also for the "bragging rights" online .

    The round edges are definately a plus... I've scatched, bashed, pinched, cut, etc my hands enough especialy on those tiny cases. Those damn cuts hurt like hell too then you usually gotta wipe some blood off the case it if was a bad one.

    Sharp edges

    Thanks for the responses so far

    Anyone know of some other good desktop cases that they think all this would fit in? How 'bout a PS, what wattage would be good? 450+?

    <edit>
    Added a couple things and fixed some silly spelling errors.
    </edit>
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  20. #20
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    depends what you are trying to do when it comes to a ps' if your gunna run a ton of drives figure 35 watts a drive 35 for the mboard (jusat a estimate)...and yea i open boxes all the time (i play with a different video card every week thus i change my main system quite a bit). ive fried a ton of crap, but no i haven't cut myself weird...ive magnitized my hand quiet a few times also (was working on my laptop, touched the speaker went to get ready to go somewhere put on a watch bam it died so im like wtheck i had another watch it died that same day too) anyways i got off topic sorry...if you got a load of money (if so pass some this way i wouldn't mind it) go with scsi...a scsi raid card is gunna kill you price wise..(i have one and i paid like $1200 for it)...and as for more then a dual, it would be way over kill'in it...i have a intel board (still searching for a case it will fit in) i threw it in a rack case (its a p3 quad zeon) bench marked it and it hit aroudn the same as my dual p3 system..if your gunna go with amd get water cooling!!! this sog's (son of a guns) get hot!!!! and contrary to popular belif its not really that dangerous...
    -Robert Norton
    www.SophMedia.com

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