Recommended Manufacturers

[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'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's and 64's. ATI all the way. As for others if it don'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've used MSI mobo's for some time now, haven't had any probs with them.

And the D-Led was great help when I'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't start, since I'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't forget speakers, I just don'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 !

[FrieghtTrain]

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

[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'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'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'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'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.

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 or Anandtech. 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.