Gaming World Forums
General Category => Technology and Programming => Topic started by: Jeff on September 15, 2008, 11:46:48 pm
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I think it would be nice to collect information from GWers on their favorite brands of computer parts so that people new to building computers can see what other people have had good luck with.
The format of the topic is pretty simple, just list which brands you have had good luck with and which you have had bad luck with, one of each. If you don't have a specific preference, just list the brand you are currently using for that category (unless you don't like it and are using it only because you can't afford better or something).
Here is an example (and my entry)
Processor: +AMD
Motherboard: +Foxconn, -MSI
Memory: +Kingston, -OCZ
Graphics Card: +ATI, -nVidia
Sound Card: +Creative
Power Supply: +Thermaltake, -Enermax
Case: +Cooler Master
Heatsink: +Thermaltake
Case fans: +Hiper, -MassCool
CD/DVD Drive: +Phillips
Hard Drive: +Seagate
Monitor: +Samsung, -Acer
And if you guys want to suggest other categories, I will add them. Here are the figures so far (as of NES Player). Blue indicates a definite good choice and has been recommended by 5 or more people. Green indicates a possibly good choice, recommended by at least 2 people, black is inconclusive, with only +/- one point, red you should probably stay away from. I will probably increase the number requirements for colors higher as more people recommend.
Processor: +8 AMD, +6 Intel
Motherboard: +5 ASUS, +4 Gigabyte, +2 Foxconn, +1 Biostar, -1 ABIT, -3 MSI
Memory: +7 Kingston, +4 OCZ, +2 Corsair, +1 G-SKILL, +1 Mushkin, +1 PNY, +1 Supertalent, -1 Patriot
Graphics: +11 nVidia, -1 ATI
Sound Card: +4 Creative, +1 M Audio
Power Supply: +2 Thermaltake, +2 OCZ, +1 Cooler Master, +1 Corsair, +1 BeCool, -1 Enermax
Case: +3 Cooler Master, +3 Antec, +2 Thermaltake
Heatsink: +2 Thermaltake, +1 Arctic Cooling, +1 ASUS, +1 Intel, +1 OCZ
Case Fans: +2 Antec, +1 Hiper, +1 Zalman, +1 Nexus, -1 Masscool
CD/DVD Drive: +4 LG, +2 Phillips, +1 Sony
Hard Drive: +9 Seagate, +4 Western Digital, +1 Maxtor, -1 Fujitsu
Monitor: +4 Samsung, +2 Viewsonic, +2 Sceptre, +2 NEC, +1 Gateway, +1 Benq +1 Sony, -1 Hanns-G
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Processor: +AMD
I personally like AMD processors more, not for any reason other than (at least a few years ago) were churning out better quality processors. The slower clock speeds and things like that threw people "out of the know" off, but I always liked them. I'm not a diehard AMD guy though, I suppose, and I wouldn't mind getting a nice Intel processor.
Motherboard: +Gigabyte
I love Gigabyte motherboards. They are always very nice looking and well laid-out. I have used 2 now, in my home machine and my work machine, and they both work great. I love em.
Memory: +G-Skill
Never really tried any other brands of memory. I have 2 gigs of gskill in this computer right now, and it runs great.
Graphics +nVidia -ATI
I've always really used nVidia cards, and they always work well. I don't know if this has changed, but ATI had this retarded thing in the systray, like the nView thing but it for some reason was god awful and always seemed to steal memory and clock cycles. I dunno if thats still in there but it left a bad taste in my mouth and unless AMD and ATI team up officially or something I doubt I'd get an ATI card.
The rest of the shit I dont care about, brand-wise at least.
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Processor: AMD
Motherboard: Gigabyte
Memory: Mishkin, OCZ
Graphics Card: nVidia
Sound Card: Creative
Power Supply: Thermaltake, Cooler Master
Case: Thermaltake, Cooler Master
Heatsink: Thermaltake
CD/DVD Drive: Sony, Phillips
CD/DVD Media: Memorex
Hard Drive: Seagate, Western Digital
Monitor: Viewsonic
Mouse: Microsoft
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Processor: +Intel
I don't really have anything against AMD but my most recent processors have been Intels and I am impressed. They're easy as fuck to overclock the shit out of on nothing but air cooling.
Motherboard: +ASUS -ABIT
ABIT gave me problems in the past and just generally seemed like a shoddy product. My ASUS board has been great so far.
Memory: +Kingston +OCZ -Patriot
Don't buy Patriot. It's cheap shit. OCZ has done me well for my gaming machine, and Kingston has never given me problems in my laptop and other non-high-performance machines.
Graphics Card: +nVidia -ATI
ATI is ass now.
Hard Disks: +Western Digital +Seagate
I have used WDs pretty heavily for a long time and have never had a single problem, but I know everyone has completely different luck when it comes to hard disk brands.
Monitor: +Gateway +Viewsonic +Dell
I had a Viewsonic CRT that was pretty rad but haven't had an LCD yet. My current is a Gateway and it's fantastic. I have seen non-cheap Dells at work that are pretty good, but avoid the cheap ones.
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Graphics Card: +nVidia, -ATI
ATI is worthless and behind nVidia at the moment, they just don't compare, tbh.
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CPU: +AMD, - Intel
Mobo: +Gigabyte or +Asus
Ram: Ultra is all I used
GPU: +nVidia, -ATI
Sound Card: Creative SB is all I've used
HD: +Seagate, + Western Digital, - Maxtor, -Fujitsu
Monitor: +Sceptre (can be amazingly cheap for the given spec), + Acer
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I don't know how you guys are like ATI IS BEHIND because if you look at any hardware site on the net, they will tell you that the 4000 series is blowing the pants off nVidia right now, not to mention that faulty hardware recalls have ruined nVidia's stock in the last two months. It is nice and all that you guys like nVidia because you have 8800s or whatever since they are amazing cards and I can perfectly understand giving nVidia a + for that, but don't say "now" if you have not tried the new ATI cards or at least read about them. You can -ATI all you want and I don't care, because that's what this topic is about, but don't make comments like you actually know what you are talking about if you have no basis for it, because if you are saying ATI SUCKS ASS RIGHT NOW, then I can pretty much assume that you haven't looked at an ATI card in more than 6 months and have totally ignored the nVidia 9000 series that has flopped worse than anything they have ever put out because it is just the 8000 series repackaged with lower performance.
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Processor: +Intel, -AMD
Motherboard: +ASUS
Memory: +OCZ
Graphics Card: +ATI, +nVidia
It is to be noted (!!) that I am currently running an 8800GT and I love this card. But as it stands right now, and if you read what Jeff said, there is really no reason not to look into the 4850 or 4870 over the Nvidia "equivalents."
Power Supply: +OCZ
Case: +Antec, +Thermaltake
CD/DVD Drive: +LG
Hard Drive: +Seagate
Monitor: +Acer
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Processor: +Intel
Motherboard: +ASUS
Memory: +Kingston
Graphics Card: +nVidia, -ATI
Power Supply: +Corsair
Hard Drive: +Maxtor/Seagate, -Western Digital
Monitor: +NEC, +Sony
I've omitted categories of which I have no preference for.
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Also I forgot to mention it but:
Everything EVER they can possibly do: ----------------------------------------------------- SiS
I don't know WHAT all they make besides video cards, but avoid these guys like the plague. If they are even half as bad as they were for my very old PC's vid card for anything, they are horse shit. I used to have an old PC with a vid card from them (Mirage 2), and this video card....nay...company, is so bad, I download drivers for my vid card right? Hahahahaha, this update makes all text in Open GL programs become unreadable. So I download a patch that was supposed to fix this issue, and it not only made it worse, made my card run hotter, but it also made well over 25+ programs I tried fail to run and crash or in some cases fail to detect I had a card at all. I couldn't even get World of fucking WarCraft to run after this update. Needless to say, had to revert to stock vid card drivers.
They are so bad.
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Processor: +AMD, +Intel
Motherboard: +Biostar, -MSI
Memory: +OCZ, +Kingston
Graphics Card: +Nvidia, -ATI
Sound Card: +Creative
Power Supply:
Case:
Heatsink: +Intel
Case fans:
CD/DVD Drive: +LG, -LiteOn
Hard Drive: +Western Digital
Monitor: +Sceptre
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Everything EVER they can possibly do: ----------------------------------------------------- SiS
Oh man, yes. I had a board with an integrated SiS card and it was the worst thing ever. It couldn't even freaking run WINDOWS properly.
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Processor: +AMD, +AMD (I've had two, they were both spiff)
Motherboard: +Foxconn, -ASUS(bad drivers), -ASUS(2 were DOA), -MSI(Caught fire)
Memory: +Corsair, +Kingston, - Unbranded (DO NOT BE STUPID)
Graphics Card: +Nvidia, -ATI (The ATI was good but Nvidia cards have always seemed to handle games better for me)
Sound Card: Never had a good one (much to jeff's distaste)
Power Supply: Casecom or something. It does the job.
Case: Antec +++++
Heatsink: Arctic Cooling+
Case fans: Antec 120mm (quiet and brilliant)
CD/DVD Drive: +LG fairly accurate
Hard Drive: -Western Digital, +Seagate
Monitor: +Samsung (245B), -Hanns-G (total piece of shit no HDCP)
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Sound -Creative
I got one of creatives new sound cards, Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio. First, it's not really X-Fi, they pretty much just put that on the box to sell more. But aside from that, it was a pain . I got BSoDs related to it all the time, even with updated drivers. And I had a hell of a time just trying to uninstall the freaking thing. And some of the junk programs it came with won't uninstall. So I finally uninstalled it and have been happy with my Realtek onboard audio.
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Sound -Creative
I got one of creatives new sound cards, Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio.
I will definitely add this -, but just so you know, the Xtreme Audio is not representative of their products, really. It is widely considered to be a very bad card. If you would like to see how good creative is, I would highly recommend hitting up eBay for an Xtreme Music. I have had mine for over 4 years now and it is still best on the market except for the new Titaniums.
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I got an Audigy 2 SE for free and it rocks. The quality is definitely a notch above integrated.
Also I didn't use the drivers it came with... people had recommended against that. Vista found the drivers and I used those... so no bloat.
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Also I didn't use the drivers it came with... people had recommended against that. Vista found the drivers and I used those... so no bloat.
That is more or less fine with the Audigy series, but you HAVE to use Creative's stuff with the X-Fi cards or there is no point in using them. It gives you EQ, CMSSS-3D, SPDIF-I/O, Dolby Decoding options, THX speaker control, etc. Drivers are a very legitimate complaint against Creative, who is notorious for producing bad drivers. Their sound cards are still pretty much bricks when used on 64 bit systems.
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Sound -Creative
I got one of creatives new sound cards, Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio. First, it's not really X-Fi, they pretty much just put that on the box to sell more. But aside from that, it was a pain . I got BSoDs related to it all the time, even with updated drivers. And I had a hell of a time just trying to uninstall the freaking thing. And some of the junk programs it came with won't uninstall. So I finally uninstalled it and have been happy with my Realtek onboard audio.
This just happened to me. I kept Bsoding on startup and it didn't stop until I booted without my sb card. I am in the process of installing my realtek audio drivers as we speak (it's been disabled since I got this mobo).
As for ATI.... I'm probably just unlucky, but I've had one come in doa and another fry within two months.
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I don't hate ATi, I had one before I had an nVidia card, and have switched back and forth depending on what they currently offered. I've owned several generations of each, and can easily say I've had the most driver difficulty with ATi.
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Processor: Intel E2180 at 2.3ghz
Motherboard: Foxconn G31mx-k
Memory: G. Skill DDR2 800
Graphics Card: ATI X1800XT 256mb
Sound Card: onboard crap
Power Supply: ePOWER 550w
Case: Something I found in the road.
Heatsink: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
Case fans: 4 Rosewill 80mm fans. 35cfm at 25db (crappy I know... and loud)
CD/DVD Drive: None at the moment.
Hard Drive: crappy 40gb IDE drive from an emachines
Monitor: MAG INNOVISION
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The point is not to list what you have, zithe, but to make recommendations based on brands you have had good luck with or warn people about brands you have had bad luck with.
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Processor: +AMD
I personally like AMD processors more, not for any reason other than (at least a few years ago) were churning out better quality processors.
Yes, that was a few years ago, when Intel was selling those horrible, overheating pieces of junk they called Pentium 4. Nowadays, Intel makes quality processors. AMD or Intel; It really depends on what your needs are, though Intel's top-of-the-line processors currently outperform virtually all of AMD's in the same price range. If you ask me, this generation of processors is, without a doubt, Intel's.
I suggest that you go look up some benchmarks instead of asking people to tell you which brand you like better. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/processors/3d-studio-max-9,369.html
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Processor: +AMD
Motherboard: +ASUS
Memory: +PNY
Graphics Card: +ATI
Sound Card: +AC'97 onboard
Power Supply: +Antec
Case: +custom acrylic case (+xoxide.com)
Heatsink: +ASUS
Case fans: +ANTEC
CD/DVD Drive: +Samsung, +LITE-ON
Hard Drive: +Western-Digital
Monitor: +Samsung
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i have to -ASUS. their boards are solid harware wise, but to use all the spiffy features, or sometimes even the normal features, you need their crummy programs that tend not to work very well!
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I've always had good luck with corsair memory, intel chips, and gigabyte motherboards.
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Processor: +AMD
Memory: +Kingston
Graphics Card: +nVidia
Sound Card: +M Audio Delta 1010lt (What? I'm a musician and it rocks plus it has 10 channel output....)
Case: +Cooler Master
Sure I may only use that sound card for recording but I could use it for 10 channel surround sound and heck everyone loves phantom power.
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jeff, whats with the +creative. At least add (except X-Fi Xtreme Audio) or something so as not to mislead.
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jeff, whats with the +creative. At least add (except X-Fi Xtreme Audio) or something so as not to mislead.
This isn't "product wars" it is "brand wars". The point is to get general impressions of brands from GW members. If someone was buying computer components I would expect them to do research on each component.
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Here's my list.
Processor: +Intel
I used to favor AMDs until the C2D CPUs, which have proven to be quality products over and over again. I was very happy with my E6600, and now I'm very happy with my Q9550. Both were very easy and painless to overclock. Nothing against AMD though, I just prefer Intel.
Motherboard: +ASUS
I've always had an ASUS mobo. No reason to switch because I've never had a problem with an ASUS mobo, and I'm familiar with them. Both my last two mobos P5B Deluxe and P5E Deluxe were easy to overclock, and didn't give much trouble.
Memory: +Kingston, +OCZ, +SuperTalent
Kingston is by far the best manufacturer I've used, but I've also taken a deep liking to OCZ. I've only had two pieces of memory from OCZ, but both of them performs very well. My latest OCZ DDR2 1000 MHz RAM is rated to run at 2.1v, but runs very well with 1.8v, and I even overclocked it a bit (loosened timings from CL5 to CL4). That and it has life-time warranty. With my last computer I took a shot with SuperTalent memory, and they performed very well too and never had a problem with them, so + for them too.
Graphics Card: +ATI, +nVidia
I've had equal amount of problems with both of them, but no problems for years really. My last computer had a nVidia's 8800 GTX, and it was an awesome card, although quite big and produced a lot of heat. Now I have ATI's 4870 X2, and the first impression has been very good. It was pretty hot first, but when I upped the fan speed to 45% (still very acceptable noise by my standards), the card idles at 40C now, and the performance is something I've never seen before. Either way, both of them are fine, and I can suggest either of them.
Sound Card: +Creative
I've only used shitty integrated sound cards, and Creative's sound cards, so no contest here for me. Creative's Xtreme Gamer is the best sound card I've used.
Power Supply: +OCZ, +BeQuiet, -Antec
I've had two of my Antec PSUs short circuit and blow up. Both of them were ones that came with a came with a case, but I still can't really recommend them.
Case: +Antec
I've pretty much always used an Antec case, and I love them (they got lot of shitty ones, but also a lot of good ones). Last case I had was Sonata II, and now I have Antec 900.
Heatsink: +OCZ
Don't really have much experience here, because I've almost always used stock heatsinks (which usually suck). My new computer has an OCZ Vindicator, and it seems to keep my CPU pretty cool, so I can suggest it.
Case fans: +Zalman, +Nexus
I usually use Zalman or Nexus case fans, but anything goes really. I don't think it matters that much, as long as they work.
CD/DVD Drive: +LG, -Samsung
I got a Samsung for my new computer, and it broke the first day. I'm not kidding. It was a big surprise because I always thought Samsung is awesome at everything they do. It's not even just an isolated case, I found that a lot of people had their same Samsung DVD drive break in first 3 days. Anyway I just went and bought a good ol' LG's drive, never had a problem with them.
Hard Drive: +WesternDigital, +Seagate, +Maxtor
Monitor: +Samsung, +Benq, -Acer
Samsung monitors are the best I've used, including CRT and LCD monitors. Right now I'm using a Benq and I'm happy with it, although I've seen much better monitors by Benq at my work place. I can't really say much about Acer, except that all the Acer laptops I've used have really bad monitors, with really bad viewing angles, but most laptops I've used are low-end ones, so that might have something to do with it.
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i am only listing the things that stand out to me. a lot of components i just get whatever seems good, but these are the brands that i have had good experiences with:
Motherboard: +ASUS
i have not ever had a problem with an ASUS motherboard and they are very good in general.
Graphics Card: +ATI
i've only ever owned ATI cards and like them very much would recommend A+++
Monitor: +NEC
the best monitor i have is an NEC. mine is a very good quality CRT monitor that i am still using today (have had maybe 4 years).
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Processor: +Intel +AMD
I used to be a bad fanboy for AMD during the Pentium eras, but Intel Core 2 is a major improvement, at least for me.
Graphics Card: +nVidia
I've never used an ATI card since my old Windows 98 computer, which is when I was ignorant about PC hardware. I would like to throw out my 9500GS out of my computer and put in a ATI 2X. I've heard bad reviews about the ATI drivers, but I probably can fix that.
Hard Drive(s): +Seagate