I'm leaving AMD camp

[x51out]

Some people should be spoon-fed PCs from Dell...

I'd rather see them get a Dell-enema.

[Crashman]

I've never had a problem with an AMD CPU. I've had problems with some Socket 7 motherboards BIOS compatability with them. I've had 4 PC-Chips (makers of the ECS boards) boards that were all garbage, I've had problems with certain ALi chipsets being slow and certain VIA chipsets being unstable...

Moved all my K6-2's to TX chipset boards, and all my Athlons to nForce 2 chipset boards, NONE manufactured by PC-Chips, and AMD has been a great CPU for these systems.

Those are the systems I've sold. I run a P4 myself.

[zybch]

Although I've had problems with ECS, I've had far more with Via chipsets.
Nowdays, I only ever use nForce and nForce2 boards. Not a problem so far and it lets me save a few $$ when my customers are happy with the on-board video (which isn't too bad at all).

I guess when you cut corners, problems begin happening.
I personally would never stick a sub $120 (australian $) board in ANY PC. I'm sure most of them would be fine, but absolutley none of the more expensive boards that I've used have had problems.
To get the price down quality control offten goes out the door.
Just look at some of the cheap boards with only single/double phase power. If that isn't a ticking timebomb I don't know what is.

That it unless you use the board for something other than building a PC from.

[Rugor]

All I know is that in our last two builds at the house, we've had one ECS board and one Asus board. Both are AMD and neither one has had a problem that couldn't be traced to something else.

In fact the only problem with either was that the Asus board was first set up with a 2400+ and a 250W PSU (someone wanted her new system up and running before the new 400W PSU got here).

The fact that the USB 2.0 controller on the ECS K7S5A Pro shares the first PCI slot is fine by me. Most people don't use all the slots anyway, and it's good practice to keep the one beside the vid card free.

[tcom50]

Oh my gawd, lets find out who can put the money where the mind and mouth run ...When there is no high temp control thermal protection on the cpu or the mother board, you have to get the Thermaltake Nexus temp and fan speed control assembly, that way you can monitor temps and speeds with the glance of the eye....Plus it adds a little more of a dash board control to the empty drive slots, making things look even better for $29. So if you do not have it get it, dont rely on the various manufactures or a single on chip device that could either become defective or malfunction, get a visual backup. My Vantec cpu fan has been running very well, yet motherboard monitor says the speed of the fan is in a state of constant flux by as much as 1500 rpm, I have a windowed case so I can see it aint so, now why I keep getting poor readings is anyones guess.....

[OMAD]

"kevrob1: I'm sitting here digesting OMAD's post and while there may be something to some of what he/she says, the Cyrix processor ran hot and I'm still waiting to find one that ran at it's pr-rating."

Are you saying that the cyrix chips were good because of their PR rating achievements? Or that the AMD XP CPU's rating's aren't the same? If it's the first, seek help. If it's the second, I agree. But I guess it must be a farmiliarity thing. But I guess essentially it is the same thing. I mean, it's still a rating against a Pentium :P

Also I'd just like to say that PC Chips boards *are* evil. No matter what you say or that you may have had one good experience or whatever, the fact is they are cheap ****. Just because you buy a Teac or AKAI tv and have no issues with it doesn't make it a good TV. It's still a peice of ****.

[Zorcht]

Hey user0209, I think you just didn't do enough research and questioning. I've got two AMD computers running on ECS boards and one absolutely no problems and the other was fine when I replaced the mobo battery. If you are upset about everything, then you just need to buy a prebuilt machine. That is a bunch of B.S. that manufacturers have to protect consumers from accidents. I think the instructions that come with the AMD chip and the mobo are straight forward enough. Besides, building your own system is taking a risk that you chose to take. AMD didn't force it on you. Next time you need to do better research, follow instructions better and if you mess up you need to suck it up and accept that you made a mistake and not the product.

[kevrob1]

OMAD,

I'm saying that the Cyrix processors didn't live up to their PR-rating, and they ran hot. I have no problem with the AMD processors other than their marketing. I liked AMD better during the Thunderbird days when they actually kicked Intels **** clock for clock. The Athlon XP's are good also but they confuse the average joe in my opinion. Bad marketing.

[zybch]

AMD chips STILL beat Intel ones clock for clock. Its just a real bugger that there doesn't seem to be any Athlon chips with a real clock speed of 3.2GHz.

Now that'd really give Intel a scare

[HOT RODDER]

Well folks i have around 900 ECS/PCChips boards out and very few if any failures(usually from lightining, elec. spikes, user error or user dinking with cmos settings or trying to over clock thier comps cause a buddy did it.
I do have over $4000 worth of Intel **** and there prefered MB 's burnt up sitting on "warranty shelf".
I just sold all my Intell memory on ebay (I stocked a rather large box ) and broke even( some dude thought I was selling it super cheap and bought it all and the 7 p4's and boards I still had on shelf.
I really beieve that it was some stupid little mistake in assembly that broke the AMDS and ECS MB's.
I do how ever use other boards other than just ECS.
BUT so far I also have had problems with the 1700/1800s in the heet areana.
Now I have 2500+, 2800+ Barton cores and those AMD's flat rock AND run super cool.
Oh and with money I made from the Intel sale I have a parts room cramed full of AMD parts and got a d%&n good deal on window cases,neon,clean cables, 3 case deal on cd-r/rw/dvd units (12 to a case) and a super hot deal on some maxtor hard drives, (as for hard drives i stay away from WD,IBM before the merger) and some samsungs too.
A quick sanding job on bottom of most name brand HS/Fan combos and some arctic silver thermal compound and let'em wrock.
I have a chrome orb that will get some clearacing to miss the caps on my old PCChips 598 board with K6-2 550 Boards 4 or 5 yrs old ,processors about a year. Hmm might even add 2 more 256's of memory while in there.
and my nexy unit is gonna be a Barton 2800+ unknown mobo and probably hit my brother for a good fan (he keeps severeral on hand).
Hmm just thought since I can get new atx case for 37.95 I may remount my 598 and run it ATX for a while just for fun.
anyway good luck on floating loan on Intell good luck and as for anyone saying intel is stable , I have about 200 lbs of intel , intel related **** thats all blown up, anybody give me $5 a pound Ill let'em have all the junk(haha just kidding)

[kevrob1]

I guess I should have said "insructions per clock cycle", which allows the XP's to compete with Intel processors with much higher clock speeds.

[Dreamwalker]

Originally posted by Slade54
There is a difference between pulling off the entire cooling solution, and having part of it fail.

Pulling off the whole thing means NO cooling. None at all. Nota, zero, zilch, nil, nothing.

When only part of it dies, there is still something there to cool it somewhat, which gives you (or your hardware) a lot more time to react.

If the cooling in your car completely stopped, it would prolly heat up too fast for you to notice your gauge going up. But if only part of it failed, you would prolly notice the temperture steadily increasing much faster then it should. Giving you time to pull over, and saving yourself a **** load of trouble.

Same with your computer. If you heatsink just falls off, you obviously didnt attach it right, bought a heatsink way too heavy and obviously outa the weight spec, or a **** cheap board. (all of which would be your fault, if you didnt quite catch that part which was implied)

Now, if you know what your doing, and none of the above happens, but say your fan fails. Well, that could happen to anyone, but as long as your have you thermal protection setup at good tempertures, and actually turned on. There would be enough time for your board to react to the tempeture increase, and shut down for you. (as the heatsink at the least is still dissipating heat quite a bit better then no heatsing at all)

my gauge was broken I had to go off the whim that the burning sound coming from my engine was a bad sign...read the original posts btw..he stated his board didn't have thermal protection!!! Sure that's his fault...but what's the use in saving money from an AMD when I have to pour the extra $$$ into a good mobo.

Originally posted by Plaster
Slade, don't confuse the boy.

oh sorry didn't know you couldn't speak for yourself ...

[genesound]

"Life is hard. It's even harder if you're stupid." -- John Wayne

[Slade54]

Originally posted by Dreamwalker

but what's the use in saving money from an AMD when I have to pour the extra $$$ into a good mobo.

What are you talking about?

Pour the money into a good mobo?

A good mobo cost the same as a good Intel mobo. I dont see that money being "poured" into a good mobo.

To illustrate. We will buy a cpu and mobo (of the same levels) and see how much you "pour" in.

Pentium 4 2.4 - $151
Barton 2400+ $75

so far, thats a savings of 76dollars.

Asus A7N8X (nforce2 board)- $85
Gigabyte i865PE - $100

Both of those mobos are high quality, but the Intel solution is quite a bit more expensive ($251 vs $160, thats a difference of $91)

o, and its seems im mistaken, the AMD mobo is cheaper.

Now tell me about "pouring money into a good mobo"

[x51out]

"Life is hard. It's even harder if you're stupid." -- John Wayne

Rocks are hard. An automobile bumper is hard. Life? "Life sucks, and then you die."--Beavis and Butthead