Recommended Manufacturers

[Lamsey]

OK, many people are asking about what's good and what's not.

The only way to find out for sure is to research yourself at impartial sites like Tom's Hardware Guide (http://www.tomshardware.com) or Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com). But, to give you a head start, here is a list of manufacturers who have a good reputation for certain types of product:


CPUs

AMD are good value for money but high-end Intel chips are slighlty faster (due to very high clock rate).
There are lots of threads in Hardwareworld about AMD/Intel - read them and do your own research before making a decision!


Motherboards

Asus are probably the best high-end motherboard manufacturer. For mid-range or budget systems, I've had good experiences with Elitegroup.


Motherboard Chipsets

For Intel systems: the Granite bay chipset from Intel.
For AMD systems: nVidia nForce2 all the way!


RAM

Crucial have an excellent reputation for reliable RAM, as do Corsair (thanks for reminding me Soul184!)


IDE Hard Drives

Western Digital and Maxtor make reliable, high, performance hard drives.


CDROM/CDRW/DVD drives

LiteOn and Teac are good.


Video Cards

nVidia Geforce cards are affordable and powerful, but ATi are currently the performance kings.


Sound Cards

Two words: Creative Labs


CRT Monitors

Ilyama, Philips, and LG all have good reputations.


Mice

Logitech make good, reliable mice of all kinds.
Genius make very good budget mice - they make decent optical wheel mice for less than £10.


Printers

HP make the highest-quality printers but they can be expensive to buy and run.
Epson make less robust printers, but they are more inexpensive.




This is by no means an exhaustive list - I don't have enough experience to make recommendations about everything. Please add your own, but please be impartial and make sure your views are well-founded. :)

[ooo]

corsairis good ram....

cdrw.... acer.... u forgot speakers :P klipsh, altec, logitech

mice/keyboard
logitech, microsoft

sound cards
hercules...

[Lamsey]

cdrw.... acer....
I think Acer are now called Benq.

I didn't forget speakers, I just don't know enough about them...

and how did I forget Corsair RAM? editing first post now...

[ooo]

ahh icic...

[ooo]

you should have something abuot cases...

[Lamsey]

Again, don't know enough... I just buy cases from my supplier, they tend to have good ones.
I don't know about approved brand names.

Anyone got any ideas?

[ooo]

Originally posted by Lamsey@29 March 2003 - 23:17
I think Acer are now called Benq.

are you sure? there is an acer and there is a benq... i saw two websites

www.acer.com
www.benq.com

umm well cases are for looks arent they...

http://xoxide.com/chenming.html

i like these cases...

[Lamsey]

Make sure that any case you buy is roomy, has adequate cooling facilities and has a AMD or Intel approved PSU.

So, not just for looks...

[slammy_dunken]

Cases:
Cooler Master <--- Definitely

Optical Devices: (ex. CD-ROM, CD-RW)
Plextor
TDK
Lite-On

Videocards:
ATi <--- Still king after 6 months
Any other cards powered by R300 (Radeon 9700) or R350 (Radeon 9800) chip
nVidia <--- Still makes the most reliable drivers

Printers:
Epson <--- Prints really well

Speakers:
Klipsch <--- Best sound, ever
Logitech <--- Same sound as Klipsch, but cheaper

Gaming Accessories:
Gamepad: Thrustmaster Dualstorm (I think)
Joystick: MS Sidewinder
Steering Wheel: Logitech MOMO

[ooo]

altec for speakers are not bad at all...

[ooo]

casing... anyone know where to get this?

http://www.alienware.com/Images/sub_page_images/prd_system_cyborg_green.jpg

itz alienware&#39;s newest case... looks nice...

[slammy_dunken]

It actually fits an Audigy Live&#33; Drive.

Where to get it: Alienware, Best Buy (I think they have it)

[ooo]

yea well i know those places have it... im only looking for the case, not the computer... bestbuy and alienware onli sell the computer

[zapjb]

Micron for RAM is a good name. Also with their financial woes their usually premier prices have come way down. Also like TDK for CDRW&#39;s.

[Schmiggy_JK23]

You will soon be able to buy the Alienware "project predator" cases by themselves from either alienware, or some 3rd party site, i read it in maxium pc, so patience, and yes, taht case is bad ass...

BTW..

How can you can not count IBM/HITACHI in for best hard drives? Their 180GXP is currently the fastest drive around....

[zapjb]

Cause IBM has had a lot of HDD failures probs. this last year.

[ooo]

wait now for just plain old cdrom drives

whats a good one?

element? benq? are they good... <-- only 18 dollars

can a chiefitec wireless keyboard be trusted?

[Lamsey]

wait now for just plain old cdrom drives

whats a good one?

element? benq? are they good... <-- only 18 dollars

CDROM/CDRW/DVD drives

LiteOn and Teac are good.
Read the original post, Soul...

[ooo]

eh sorry didnt quite see :P

[PcH]

CPU: AMD
LCD: Samsung
Memory: Crucial
Graphics Card: ATI
Sound Card: Creative
DVD/CD-RW: Plextor
Networking: 802.11b or 802.11g wireless
Printer: Epson
Keyboard: Microsoft
Mouse: Evoluent
Hard Drive: Maxtor [at least 7200rpm]

[ooo]

now pch i dunt agree w/ ur format... in alot of them... i agree w/ lamsey

[Schmiggy_JK23]

No they didnt have alot... it was one specific type of drive... and it was on the 1yr warranty models.

Now almost all drives come with at least 3yr warrantys by ibm/hitachi

[Luca_Snipes]

Originally posted by Lamsey@29 March 2003 - 21:18

Motherboards

Asus are probably the best high-end motherboard manufacturer. For mid-range or budget systems, I&#39;ve had good experiences with Elitegroup.


You forgot the kings of the motherboard world, ABit, much better and more relable than some of the Asus boards out there.
There is also Gigabyte and SuperMicro which I would place above Asus

For networking always go for the Intel NIC&#39;s, for both wired and wireless

personly I&#39;ll never trust Creative with my money again, the S/N ratio on some of their cards is bad

For SCSI disks, IBM are probably the best, however for IDE go for Western Digital

[Nobody1234]

What about monitors?

I say Lg, Sony or Samsung.

I like Antec cases: Site (http://www.antec-inc.com/pro_enclosures.html)

[ooo]

Originally posted by Nobody1234@31 March 2003 - 19:22
I like Antec cases: Site (http://www.antec-inc.com/pro_enclosures.html)
antec cases are dragon cases.... similar to cheiftec in my previous posts...

[ooo]

Flash Usb Hard Drives
SOYO Cig@r

Cases
LIAN-LI
Antec

i prefer CHIEFTEC dragon cases... itz like alienware ones :P

Scanners
Epson

[ooo]

i think this deserves to be pinned since people are asking what type of hardware is the best etc... well if this was pinned ppl wouldnt have to ask...

[Benno]

HD: Seagate

They make great HDs

[ooo]

ahh nice... more manufactors.... :P

[ooo]

Digital Cameras
Olypiad - cant spell it well
Cannon

Webcams
Logitech

[gumbydancin]

I agree for the most part, but I don&#39;t think lite-on cd/dvd rom drives are that great. Consumer reports on them aren&#39;t very good either. For good quality at a great price I go with LG every time.

[wienerschnitzel]

DVD Burner

Sony (the DRU-510A or DRX-510UL)


Their latest burns DVD±RWs at 4x. You shoud be safe no matter what happens. I just they were smart enough to put their DVD burner in their VAIOs. Mine came with Pioneer that only does DVD-RWs. If it did + too it would be just as good though.

Aslo, I think that some other compinies came out with DVD± burners recently. I can&#39;t remember who they are but I would go with Sony because these drives have already proven themselves and the look the best.

If you don&#39;t have that much money try the 2x DVD±RW drives that sony makes. Hope this helps

edit:made DVD Burner underlined and add this line in

[ilw]

For cooling:

Case fans (and anywhere else u want to use 60, 80, 92, 120 mm fans eg cooling cpu):
Papst the best for quiet and good cooling
Ys-tech cheap but good and quiet
Delta ultimate power, but serious noise


Processor cooling
Thermalright currently selling the very highly rated SLK800 & SLK900 heatsinks
Coolermaster innovative designs of heatsinks and fans
Thermaltake high performance coolers.

[wienerschnitzel]

cooling

Liquid Nitrogen

[DarkBlizzard]

I perfer to have everything on my computer from HP. Like the printer and stuff. HP is such a good company. I think they make the best computers and stuff for a good price. Just make sure you have lots of RAM and GB on your comp and make sure its fast enough. About 2 GHz is ok. 2.5 or 3 GHz is real good. But my computer is only like 1.6 GHz, i have 56 GB, and 650 ram.

[gumbydancin]

Originally posted by DarkBlizzard@15 July 2003 - 05:56
HP is such a good company. I think they make the best computers and stuff for a good price.
My first instinct was to laugh at this statement, but now I think it just makes me wanna cry :(

[3RA1N1AC]

this thread could use some more opinions on video card companies. ATI still manufactures a lot of their own cards, but some of it is done by other companies now. Nvidia makes virtually none of their own cards... they make the video chips and sell them (along with a suggested "reference" design) to card manufacturers like PNY, Gainward, etc and the quality can vary wildly between those companies.

[ooo]

now what&#39;s a good company for tv cards?...

umm i was planning to get one that allows me to hook up gaming consoles n the tv onto it...

ati all in wonders do the trick but they are quite expensive~

[3RA1N1AC]

an all-in-wonder is just a vga card with a TV Wonder card grafted onto it. essentially it just kills two birds with one stone-- it&#39;s a display card and a capture card at the same time. you can continue using your current video card, and just buy a TV Wonder, which is significantly cheaper than an all-in-wonder.

i think TV Wonder and hauppage&#39;s WinTV are the two most popular tv tuner/capture cards. i&#39;ve had good experiences with TV Wonder, but people seem to also have good opinions about WinTV.

[ilw]

Originally posted by Soul814@16 July 2003 - 02:49
to hook up ... the tv onto it...

r u wanting tv out as well as tv in? ie watch your divx videos on the telly as well as playing consoles on your monitor?

[justin_9733]

DO NOT ever buy Gigabyte motherboards, after spending 160.00 mine was broken missing parts and there customer service is a joke.

[ooo]

playing consoles on the monitor...

[Neo 721]

Speaking of Hard dirves you have also fogot that Seagate are the only people who make Serial ATA drives. And they also make the fastest harddrive in existence
The Cheetah X 15 (15,000 RPM)&#33; 4.2 ms seek time

[Livy]

seagate arent the only company making serial ata drives, maxtor and western digital also do them

[3RA1N1AC]

Originally posted by Soul814@22 July 2003 - 04:00
playing consoles on the monitor...
i would not recommend using a tv card to connect a game console because the signal from the console would still be very low resolution, just like the signal it sends to a regular tv.

if there is any way to directly connect the console to the monitor (i.e. like the VGA adapter for Dreamcast), that is the best way to go. the console needs to detect what kind of screen it is connected to, so it can send a high resolution signal.

[Will_518]

talking about hard drives, i heard SCSI drives with 15000RPM is alos good, but unreasonably pricey. Western Digital Caviar (they are generally good) 80, 100, 120GB drives have a JB series, they were good 1/2 year ago, but the world don&#39;t stand still.

talking about video cards, does anyoene know how to turn a VHS video into a .avi file? [or maybe i should start a new thread about this?]

[metalichris]

Does anybody know a good site in the US where I can find good prices on gaming computers?

[ilw]

i don&#39;t personally but theres a list of recommended retailers in the &#39;computer resources&#39; pinned topic. maybe check a couple of those ?

[metalichris]

O.K. Thanks&#33;

[Octopussy]

www.colorcases.com KIK @&#036;&#036; CASES

[vader]

nvidia is yesterdays news, I have had nothing but trouble with 3 of their cards and drivers and site....pure crap in my book..won&#39;t even listen to change my mind so forget it. But I got 3 Nvidia cards that collect dust. Probalbly to old now anyway to be any use to anyone.They were just basic 32&#39;s and 64&#39;s. ATI all the way. As for others if it don&#39;t say LG,Maxtor,Ati or logitech,sony.samsung..forget it...my opinion of course...

[szoboszp]

Where are the hubs and switch boxes from this topic? :(

[Snee]

I&#39;ve used MSI mobo&#39;s for some time now, haven&#39;t had any probs with them.

And the D-Led was great help when I&#39;d built my first one, it was really nice to just be able to look as the diodes and see what was wrong when it wouldn&#39;t start, since I&#39;d usually assume that it was my cpu going, when it was software related and that kind of stuff.

[KurtCocain]

Originally posted by Lamsey@29 March 2003 - 23:17

cdrw.... acer....
I think Acer are now called Benq.

I didn&#39;t forget speakers, I just don&#39;t know enough about them...

and how did I forget Corsair RAM? editing first post now...
ALTEC LANSING A L L T H E W A Y &#33;

[FrieghtTrain]

The biggest Thing to watchout for today is the power supplies that they put into cases&#33;. whatc the 3.3 volt lines they usually do not put much amps on the line&#33;&#33;. causing problems with the pci bus and the microprocessor&#33;. remember your AGP port also uses the 3.3v lines and geforce video cards are AMP hungry as well as the processor&#33;. :rolleyes:

[TalonKarrde]

A word of advice about Intel processors:

They cheat. Unless your going with their new "M"s, first take the advertised speed of the processor, devide it by 3, and then subtract that from the advertised speed. That&#39;s the real quality of the clock speed.

Intel only does 2/3rds of a normal cycle to get that speed. It loops the extra 1/3rd onto the next cycle, and so on. It will be doing things faster, but it will have much more to do.


AMD doesn&#39;t.



Edit: ATI also did this for a long while as well, but I believe they have stopped.

[adamp2p]

Originally posted by TalonKarrde@21 September 2003 - 06:23
A word of advice about Intel processors:

They cheat. Unless your going with their new "M"s, first take the advertised speed of the processor, devide it by 3, and then subtract that from the advertised speed. That&#39;s the real quality of the clock speed.

Intel only does 2/3rds of a normal cycle to get that speed. It loops the extra 1/3rd onto the next cycle, and so on. It will be doing things faster, but it will have much more to do.


AMD doesn&#39;t.



Edit: ATI also did this for a long while as well, but I believe they have stopped.
You can say whatever you like; I think your opinion is interesting, but the truth is that Intel microprocessors are the fastest, although not the cheapest.

Welcome to hardwareworld. B)

[gumbydancin]

Originally posted by adamp2p+21 September 2003 - 00:54--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (adamp2p &#064; 21 September 2003 - 00:54)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-TalonKarrde@21 September 2003 - 06:23
A word of advice about Intel processors:

They cheat. Unless your going with their new "M"s, first take the advertised speed of the processor, devide it by 3, and then subtract that from the advertised speed. That&#39;s the real quality of the clock speed.

Intel only does 2/3rds of a normal cycle to get that speed. It loops the extra 1/3rd onto the next cycle, and so on. It will be doing things faster, but it will have much more to do.


AMD doesn&#39;t.



Edit: ATI also did this for a long while as well, but I believe they have stopped.
You can say whatever you like; I think your opinion is interesting, but the truth is that Intel microprocessors are the fastest, although not the cheapest.

Welcome to hardwareworld. B) [/b][/quote]
I&#39;ve never heard of this &#39;partial cycling&#39;. The main reason an intel processor at a higher clock speed runs no better than an amd at a bit lower clock speed is their stepping. The best way to explain it is to say that a processor has so many steps in a cycle. I can&#39;t remember the exact number, but I beleive P4&#39;s have 24 steps and new amd&#39;s have 12/14. Well, every time your processor executes something, it guesses as to what the next &#39;step&#39; is going to be. Every time it guesses wrong (which is many times per second) it has to backtrack from whatever &#39;step&#39; it was on to &#39;step&#39; 1. So a P4 has further to backtrack each time, and it inevitably slows it down. Because of this efficiency AMD&#39;s don&#39;t have to have to same clock speed as intel processors to perform at the same level. PC World had a great article on this a while back. I&#39;ll see if I can find it.

[Mavol]

interesting, that about the processer. thx TalonKarrde,adamp2p,gumbydancin. :o

now if you had to suggest a good mainboard for a computer and is cheap which type would you chose? not like the manufactures name but a type.

[Smurfette]

Originally posted by Lamsey+29 March 2003 - 21:18--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Lamsey &#064; 29 March 2003 - 21:18)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>OK, many people are asking about what&#39;s good and what&#39;s not.

The only way to find out for sure is to research yourself at impartial sites like Tom&#39;s Hardware Guide (http://www.tomshardware.com) or Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com). But, to give you a head start, here is a list of manufacturers who have a good reputation for certain types of product:
[/b]

Reputation unfortunately does not guarantee performance.


Originally posted by Lamsey@29 March 2003 - 21:18
Motherboards

Asus are probably the best high-end motherboard manufacturer. For mid-range or budget systems, I&#39;ve had good experiences with Elitegroup.


Although I would agree that Asus are quality (used the A7N8X-X a coupla times) I wouldn&#39;t suggest that they were out in front of a good number of competitors. Also, you&#39;re only as good as your latest board and Gigabyte come directly to mind as one company dropping down the respect ladder a few years ago.


Originally posted by Lamsey@29 March 2003 - 21:18
Video Cards

nVidia Geforce cards are affordable and powerful, but ATi are currently the performance kings.


Yep, ATI have a blistering series in the Radeon but how long will they produce stable drivers?
I went right off their stuff after an AIWPro I bought wouldn&#39;t run reliably on anything I plugged it into. I still have it and it still doesn&#39;t have decent drivers so I could put it in my kids&#39; second puter with Win98.


Originally posted by Lamsey@29 March 2003 - 21:18
Sound Cards

Two words: Creative Labs


Two more words: WDM drivers.
I will never recommend anything from CL after they flatly refused to develop WDM drivers for about half a dozen SB128 cards from the range that they produced. I have three of these cards; they all have different chipsets and none of them will drive rear speakers on systems with WinME or later OS. CL stated that they never developed any sort of WDM drivers for these (and other) SB128 derivatives and completely shut up when asked who wrote the functionally incomplete WDM drivers on the WinME CD. Even better, CL deleted negative posts from groups on their own news server before eventually pulling the plug on said server completely.
CL are lower than whale droppings.
IMHO :)


Originally posted by Lamsey@29 March 2003 - 21:18
Mice

Logitech make good, reliable mice of all kinds.
Genius make very good budget mice - they make decent optical wheel mice for less than £10.


I buy Trust mice. Apart from one problem that could&#39;ve been dodgy Epson USB scanner software (now updated and fixed) I&#39;ve found Trust mice to be reliable with a high build quality.
I&#39;d also suggest an optical wheel mouse but if you&#39;re at your puter a lot, I&#39;d say steer clear of cordless ones &#39;cause the battery will need charging a lot&#33;

<!--QuoteBegin-Lamsey@29 March 2003 - 21:18
Printers

HP make the highest-quality printers but they can be expensive to buy and run.
Epson make less robust printers, but they are more inexpensive.
[/quote]

HP make printers that cost more than others and usually don&#39;t give as good results.
The only advantage I can see that HP might have over Epson is that the print head is part of the cartridge and gets changed when you renew. This means you can refill the cart with cheaper ink (HP carts cost a bit, don&#39;t they&#33;) a few times before quality declines. With any printer (I like Epson) I&#39;d suggest not getting a &#39;budget&#39; one but look at the (UK)£100-ish range as bottom line.

[Mavol]

Originally posted by Smurfette@17 October 2003 - 19:31
Reputation unfortunately does not guarantee performance.
just what i was thinking

[InverseKinetix]

Originally posted by Mavol@17 October 2003 - 04:59
now if you had to suggest a good mainboard for a computer and is cheap which type would you chose? not like the manufactures name but a type.
I have a intel serverboard which was a bit pricey,

I also have this too which has never given me any probs and their update site is pretty good too http://www.msi.com.tw/

[Mavol]

thx InverseKinetix, ive heard about msi. good to know that their boards are good.

[Smurfette]

Originally posted by Mavol@30 October 2003 - 11:16
thx InverseKinetix, ive heard about msi. good to know that there boards are good.
You can get very decent nVidia nForce2 boards for a decent price now - I&#39;ve got Soltek&#39;s SL-75FRN2-L (http://www.express-computers.com/prices.asp?Cat=MAINBOARDS(AMD)#MAINBOARDS(AMD)) (it&#39;s a cracker) and Komplett have the Asus A7N8X-X (http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?action=info&sku=118692&p=&t=&l=&AvdID=1&CatID=&GrpID=&cks=SER) at a good price too.

[Mavol]

k, good to know that there are ones with decent prives out there. ill keep those 2 boards in mind when i go looking for one.

[**GASHA**]

I just bought an Abit NF7S board for £85.00, and an Athlon 2800MHz BARTON cpu for £107.00. I was so pleased with the first Abit board I bought I had to get another :) So far so good, excellent board (with SATA) and fast chip for the money. Only (slight) problem I had was with the NFORCE chipset IDE drivers, they fool windows into thinking you have SCSI devices attached for better performance. Nero wont burn anything using these drivers, you have to roll back to the default windows IDE drivers. Can&#39;t say I noticed any difference in system performance after rolling back the drivers.

[Triadcool]

I just bought an Abit NF7S board for £85.00, and an Athlon 2800MHz BARTON cpu for £107.00. I was so pleased with the first Abit board I bought I had to get another&nbsp; So far so good, excellent board (with SATA) and fast chip for the money. Only (slight) problem I had was with the NFORCE chipset IDE drivers, they fool windows into thinking you have SCSI devices attached for better performance. Nero wont burn anything using these drivers, you have to roll back to the default windows IDE drivers. Can&#39;t say I noticed any difference in system performance.


Good for you&#33; :lol:

[_John_Lennon_]

One word for any LCD purchases: Samsung

Okay, and maybe the viewsonic, the company with the 3 birds on the branch, as both seem to dominate the offices around here.

[Mad old tory]

K, heres my take on this -

CPU - AMD win on VFM hands down. Get a 2500+ Barton and you should be able to clock it to 3200+ speeds without too much problem, but adequate cooling both on the CPU and in the way of case fans is a must.

Intel - bit pricier but a lot of their 2.4GHZ processors will clock to 3GHz easily. Just dont be fooled into thinking that clockspeed is everything as a AMD at 2500mhz will completely wipe the floor with a 3GHz p4.

Motherboards - Especially if you are looking to overclock, Abit and Asus lead the way. For AMD the only board of choice is teh NF7 or NF7-s, they are both very good vfm and will overclock well. For Intel either the Abit IC7 or Asus P4c800

RAM - Geil, Corsair, Twinmos are all good brands for overclocking, Crucial are good for stock speed ram.

Video Cards - Geforce FX was a big flop, ATI is the way to go. Rad9800 is the best top end card, in pro or newly launched XT format, the 9600 series represents great vfm and dominates the middle range. Check out the 9800SE allinwonder for about £160, some can be softmodded into 9800pros and they also have the tv tuner.

Cases- Coolermaster are phasing out their range so be quick, other than that try Lian li or antec they have a good range.

PSU- Antec or Enermax are the best choices.

[GCNaddict]

Originally posted by Mad old tory@11 November 2003 - 16:37
Video Cards - Geforce FX was a big flop, ATI is the way to go.&nbsp; Rad9800 is the best top end card, in pro or newly launched XT format, the 9600 series represents great vfm and dominates the middle range.&nbsp; Check out the 9800SE allinwonder for about £160, some can be softmodded into 9800pros and they also have the tv tuner.
i had a huge pain-in-the-ass problem with the ATI cards (all of them)

and it was a very simple issue: the Catalyst drivers (specifically the SmartGart)

the smartgart apparently begins sending a signal after its first run to the mobo, telling the mobo to drop the AGP speed (if necessary, which is what my SmartGart thought). My mobo refused to accept the SmartGart signal, and thus, would not boot at all after successfully booting once.

if i removed the card and removed the drivers for it, and reinstalled the card, the whole issue would start from scratch (boot once, not boot at all afterwards)

My NVidia card/drivers never had this issue.

i also overclocked my 5600u to get slightly better performance than the 9600xt, so...

My conclusion: ATI&#39;s "supersafe" drivers work on 99.9% of all PCs, but fail on the other 0.1%

I LOOOOOOVE ATI, as they made the gpu for the gamecube, and it is absolutely flawless&#33;

but of course, i cant use something which doesnt work, and i feel that the
fx 5(6/7)00u does a better job, and their newly released drivers are superb.

final take:
-------------------nVidia / ATI
--------------------------------
top-end-------------5950u / 9800xt
almost-top------5(8/9)00u / 9800p
top/mid----------5(8/9)00 / 9800
hiMid/topMid:----5700u-oc / 9700(p)
vHi/mid-------------5700u / 9500p
hi/mid-------------5700oc / 9600xt
mid ------------5(6u/7)00 / 9600p
low/mid--------------5600 / 9600
low-----------------5200u / 9200p
dont consider--------5200 / 9(2/0p)00

if u see a (x/y) it means that the 5x00 and the 5y00 are both good
if u see a (Xu/y) it means that the 5X00u and the 5y00 are both good
if u see a 5(x/y)00u, it means that the 5x00u and the 5y00u are both good
if u see a 5950(u) it means that the 5950u and the 5950 are both good
u means ultra
p means pro
XT means XT
oc means overclocked

sidenote: why did i even consider the 5800? cuz it, to be truthful, does a hell-of-a-better job than the 5900. in fact, if the 5800 was done on a smaller chip process, then the fan could have been smaller, and it would have completely laid the other FXs and Radeons to shame.

example: the 5800u can pull better graphics than All of the other cards, including the 5950s and the 9800XTs, in games such as Doom3, HL2(beta), and ut2004, along with every other graphix-intensive game out there&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;

so, why isnt it ranked with the 5950? one word: noise

there you go: a complete take on which cards are better, driverwise, and a comparison chart. (for anyone looking for a 5800, they were discontinued by nVidia, but some companies are still making them. look hard, my friend)

[DanB]

Has anyone had any meetings with any Excelsor hardrives? :unsure:

I have just bought this one (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=57114).

The reviews on the 60Gb & 40Gb ones were good :)

[The Legend]

If you wanna do anything more hardworking than just listen to mp3s and have surround sound..avoid Creative cards.

A step up would be something by Terratec or preferably M-Audio.

[Explosive]

Originally posted by The Legend@10 January 2004 - 02:00
If you wanna do anything more hardworking than just listen to mp3s and have surround sound..avoid Creative cards.

A step up would be something by Terratec or preferably M-Audio.
I have Creative Audigy 2 soundcard and Creative Inspire 6.1 Speakers. I&#39;ve never experienced any problems with creative produkts and audio quality is superb&#33;

Creative owns audio&#33;

Edit: spelling.

[Voetsek]

I like PNY great after sales service

[GepperRankins]

Originally posted by Voetsek@11 June 2004 - 09:12
I like PNY great after sales service
:o aftersale :rolleyes:


all you need is your 14 day guarantee and this place :01:

[Afronaut]

Originally posted by Explosive+10 January 2004 - 11:20--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Explosive &#064; 10 January 2004 - 11:20)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-The Legend@10 January 2004 - 02:00
If you wanna do anything more hardworking than just listen to mp3s and have surround sound..avoid Creative cards.

A step up would be something by Terratec or preferably M-Audio.
I have Creative Audigy 2 soundcard and Creative Inspire 6.1 Speakers. I&#39;ve never experienced any problems with creative produkts and audio quality is superb&#33;

Creative owns audio&#33;

Edit: spelling. [/b][/quote]
CL has extremely poor Drivers.

The hardware is good but with their own Drivers,
if you want to do more that listen some mp3&#39;s or play a game or two,
they are utter-shite.

If you have SBlaster and want better drivers, you might want to check out
the kX Project (http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/index.php?skip=1).

:cool2:

[Smurfette]

I have Creative Audigy 2 soundcard and Creative Inspire 6.1 Speakers. I've never experienced any problems with creative produkts and audio quality is superb!

Creative owns audio!

Edit: spelling.

You mean you haven't had problems yet, anyway.
Just wait until there's a new driver model for Windows and CL say they're not gonna make drivers for old products - about 12 months has been 'old' to them in the past. God forbid you should complain about not being able to use a feature on the card after upgrading, as they've been known to suppress vocal discord in the past, too.

[ooo]

Wow this thread hasnt been updated in a while but as of now

RAM - OCZ is really good
HARDDRIVE - Segate/Western Digital
=D

[twisterX]

shouldnt this guide be like updated?

[suprafreak6]

yeah i would say so

[Seedler]

update this sticky

Nforce 2 mobos...lmao

[S!X]

IMO epson owns HP printer wise.

[fkdup74]

update this sticky

Nforce 2 mobos...lmao

I still own an nForce2 mobo.... :dry:

runs my Linux box just fine :happy:

[dzturbd]

IMO epson owns HP printer wise.
I have 4 Epson printers in my house and I hate them all. They take forever to turn on... My HP printer on the other hand takes a second to start up and it's good to go.

From person experience, I like MSI Mobo's over Asus.
For LCD monitors, I really love Dell :)

[smalle]

...but HP laptops own Acers (have about 20% RMA's)

[frizshizzle]

dell for monitors great size for the price.
dfi for mobo if you're a hard core gamer.
amd cpu way better value than intel.

[raseec]

AMD and ATI :D

[salambin]

if you want to buying Graphic Card i think HIS is best.for their best cooler that known as IceQ.

[flotron]

I actually hate Maxtor, so many of their drives have failed on me

:'(

[salambin]

I actually hate Maxtor, so many of their drives have failed on me

:'(

yes, i think WD is more better than Maxtor.

[dawidziu]

WD for hd, Intel for cpu, abit & asus for mboard, gigabyte & asus graphic

[Fortech]

CPU - Intel
MB - ASUS
GFX - nVidia
HD - WD

[ElGatoo]

CPU- AMD
Mobo- ASUS or DFI
VGA- ATi
HD- WD or Maxtor

[rodrigof]

CPU - Intel
MB - ASUS
GFX - nVidia
HD - WD

Idem

[Punxunite]

CPU - AMD
Motherboard - Asus
VGA - Nvidia
HDD - Samsung

[tzotzo]

From my little experience on computers i believe on mobo's and vga's there's nothing better than MSI and Gigabyte.On mobo's an excellent solution is TYAN but there'so expensive.
Now on hard drives Raptors are really fast for high end systems,but also expensive.
Optical drives,no doubt plextor are the top.

[blacbladez]

voodoo pc quality at its finest

[rom110]

CPU: Low budget: AMD, High Budget: Intel.
M\B: Asus, Gigabyte and for pros - DFI.
GFX: NVIDIA for now but AMD\ATI gonna catch up with NVIDIA soon so you have to wait. The card's assembler can be Leadtek, BFG, Gigabyte, XFX etc.
HDD - WD, Seagate.
Case - Thermaltake, Antec, HEC-Compucase.
PSU - Thermaltake, Enermax, Antec.
Cooling - Thermaltake, AC, ZALMAN.

[TorrenTy]

Asus mother board is pretty good instead of others

[REVTTtorrent]

for me

CPU - Intel
MB - Gigabute
GFX - nVidia
HD - WD

[ZZDMAN]

For me:

WHATEVER IS GOOD AT THE MOMENT

i can't stress this enough. I see people on forums all the time going "OMG MY AMD KILLS YOUR INTEL, n00b!"

With every generation of components come superior products from various manufacturers and those are the products u should go after.

(an exception is the budget motherboard manufacturers such as soyo, ecs, pcchips etc..)

[bad_andy]

Laptops? w/Nvidia and if possible compatible w/OSX86 and of course linux?

[myminpins]

For laptops, I like Dell. I know a ton of people hate Dell but I have had a couple Dell laptops and my latest one, an Inspiron 6400 dual core Intel, is great and I got it for a great price last year.

For desktops, I prefer Asus for motherboards; AMD or Intel - whatever's newest and best at the time; I like Mushkin for RAM; Plextor for CR/RW or DVD/RW though they're expensive; and Western Digital for hard drives :)

[yerlo]

CPU- intel c2d ou QX6800
MB -asus ou DFI
HD -WD RAPTOR 10.000 RPM
VGA-ate the momento its nvidia 8800 ultra
CASE-LIAN LI
PSU-ENERMAX

[evacide]

I highly recommend building your own system, but if you're unwilling to explore the new opportunities of creating your own rig, it'd be good to just get a Dell with a good warranty.

[Sin4pz]

Really dig my ati 9800pro. Kind of ancient now but i have a soft spot
for it. Half life 2 still looks the shit with 1gb or ram.

[AmpeD]

Ive actually had bad experiences with asus mobos and have loved every bit of the DFI mobo's. corsair ram is also solid

[marcelodamian]

:whistling Apple! what else... :yup:

[fstrulz]

Edit.

[Tenebrous]

CPU - AMD
Motherboard - Asus, Abit
VGA - Leadtek, XFX, Gamecube
HDD - WD
Audio - M-Audio
RAM - Corsair, Geil, OCZ

[dinamo82]

CPU: Intel
LCD: Dell
Memory: Crucial
Graphics Card: nVidia
Sound Card: Creative
DVD/CD-RW: LG
Networking: 802.11b or 802.11g wireless
Printer: Canon
Peripherals (mouse, keyboard, speakers) : Logitech
Hard Drive: WD
PSU: Seasonic
MBO: Abit
Chasis: Coolermaster
Headphones: Trust

[Magnum]

MOTHERBOARD-Asus
VGA-Leadtek,Gamecube
AUDIO-MAudio
RAM-Geil,Corsair
CPU-AMD
HDD-Western Digital

[LoKaLiRi]

thnx m8 for sharing this :D