AMD or Intel etc

Back in March I realised that at some stage I would have to replace my aging pc, circa 2003 and was considering either WinXP (SP3) or Win7. My intention being to build later in the year.
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/windows/f/4224370-w...

Anyway, last week's issue
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/windows/f/4233381-f... has brought this forward somewhat. At least I have all my data.

So, next question is: Intel or AMD and which processor to go for? I'm not intending some super sexy pc with water cooling, but something at least medium quick.

Also of course which manufacturer of motherboard? I have used MSI, ASRock and some time back ABit.

I am not limited to size of MB, since I will be using a tower case to fill the pc hole in my desk; so will likely be full ATX size.

Grateful for any suggestions.

Thanks!

Probably Intel at the mo but I'm still running a Phenom X4 Black Edition on a Gigabyte board and I still find it pretty fast. I do the odd bit of video editing but nothing in the way of gaming so something of this standard will do me for a while yet.
It really all depends on what you use and what you envisage using your rig for.

Regarding your current problem, have you checked your PM's?

Ah...

I thought that I had returned a PM yesterday, but seems that I had mis-sent it.

Will retype up and send.

Cheers!

For a medium level system I'd suggest an AMD FX 6300. It's a decently powerful chip that sells for about the same price as Intel's i3. I've built a few systems around the 6300 and been highly impressed. There's also the new FX 6350 which has just appeared in the past few days. It's about £10 more expensive, but has a nice clock speed jump from 3.5 to 3.9.

Motherboard, Gigabyte or Asus. My preference is for Gigabyte but both are generally pretty solid.

I prefer AMD to be honest, the problem is the last few years they have not really gone anywhere, they have increased the amount of cores and that is it.

The bulldozer was not great compared to intel, still a powerful chip mind you. BTW, more cores don't mean stuff will be faster. Still a lot of software that don't support quad.

I got a Phenom II 3.5 quad core at the moment, it does what I want including video editing with vegas. If I was going to update, i would stay with AMD, go for a six core, which Vegas does support.

I've always found Novatech pretty good, particularly for mobo bundles.

I'll second that. Their bare-bones computers are also very good value.

As for manufacturer, although a fan of AMD in the past the smart money is on Intel nowadays.

Intel. Go for an i5 if you want a good balance between price and performance, the i7's are only really worth it if you know you will need the extra processing power.

Don't forget the graphics card. The ones that come integrated in intels newer processors are not too bad these days and can get quite a surprising amount done, but if you will be playing any sort of games or doing any graphical stuff then I would recommend going for a medium range nVidia card.

OS: Get Windows 7, Windows 8 is for tablets and girls as far as I am concerned lol.

The intel i series of processors have been coming in with some very nice performance figures and they run with considerably less power consumption than AMD processors.

Of course that means they run a whole lot cooler.

I have the i7 3770k Ivy bridge sitting at 40 degrees C on air cooled system and the case temp is 25 degrees C.

I would say if you can afford it go and future proof and go with a quad core i7 with win 7 64 bit with as much memory as you can stuff in it (16 or 32 gigabytes)

With recently bought ones, the cases were very tinny. I was pretty disappointed.

It all depends on how much you've got to spend.

The Intel I Series are very good, but they are very expensive. The cheapest dual core I3 Ivybridge processor is around £100.

Comparing that to an AMD FM2 A8 5600K Quad Core, costs £80. The 5600K is faster, and the on chip Radeon graphics are more then double the performance of Intel's cheapest I3 processor.


You may actually be financially better off, to buy a new computer/tower. The reason being is that recent motherboards dont have IDE support for old hard drives and DVD drives, require different power supply connections. The only thing compatible would possibly be the case.

Here's one way to look at it, and it can makes things easier to sort through.

Set a realistic budget (and stick to it). Consider the three main tasks of the PC, then allocate budget accordingly.

Here's a rough breakdown of my last PC's budget split:

Motherboard 14%
CPU & 3rd party cooler 17%
Gfx card 12%
Memory 6%
HDD 10%
PSU 6.5%
KB & Mouse 6%
Speakers 5%
Operating system 15%
Office software 8.5%

Bear in mind that I didn't play many up to the minute games, but did play older games, so a mid-range gfx card was reasonable. In addition, I bought a more expensive than average cooler and overclocked my CPU by 20% (was it worth the extra cost over a more costly, faster CPU?...possibly).

The software can be the most expensive aspect if one's budget is low, and is generally a must pay cost if you want a particular version. That system was roughly 1K cost, so you can estimate the approximate prices. At the time, fast memory was cheap, I wanted a specific hard drive which is a very fast mechanical one. I also had a case, and didn't need to fork out for that. Without a PSU included, you might be £50-£100+ for a top end case (such as silent, gaming, or other specific need).

What's the intended system usage, and is there a lifespan planned (budgeted for)?

Intel - I5 or I7. The Intel site http://www.intel.com/content/www/uk/en/processors/co... give comparisons and specs across all of theirs.

Get a separate graphics card with 2 or 4 monitor capability.

Win7

Go for Windows 8 and save yourself some faff in the long run. Buying new hardware and putting Windows 7 on it is silly, as much as Windows 7 is an excellent operating system. Windows 8 takes it to a new level with boot times, responsiveness, graphics, etc.

I bought one recently and it came with a very nice case. But it was, at the time, their second most expensive i7 model.

I recently completed a build and decided to spent a little more to future proof it for at least a few years. Was able to keep it reasonably cheap be re-using the tower case which is a 4 bay tower. Settled on an ASUS Sabretooth motherboard and Core I7 bundle and after some pondering went for Windows 8 on an SSD drive.

I am very pleased with it, But since I had to put in all new innards, meaty power supply and graphics card, extra fans etc etc the cost went well over £800. It is a mean machine though.

I'm quite happy with Windows 8 once I got used to it. And if you don't like the lack of a traditional start menu, Classic Shell is a free and easy download.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Go for Windows 8 and save yourself some faff in the long run. Buying new hardware and putting Windows 7 on it is silly, as much as Windows 7 is an excellent operating system. Windows 8 takes it to a new level with boot times, responsiveness, graphics, etc.

I disagree the Win 7 path is certainly the safer upgrade route. It is now established Has excellent compatability with older applications running out of the box without tweaking and still has 7 years of support from MS.

Win 8 is a gamble with a quater of users six months in than win 7 had (based on usage stats and a new version with 8.1 later this year with no details of upgrade prices. But knowing MS wanting to shake users by the ankles I reckon another £30-50 would not be unexpected.

As for boot times my win 7 installs take 10 seconds to boot from my 500gig SSD so I cannot see how win 8 can improve on that without breaking the laws of physics.

It does depend on the OP and how much legacy stuff he may want to run.

I for one am sticking with win 7 as any further upgrade path to win 8.x for me will come with over £1000 of software upgrades which I am not planning to do anytime soon.

As for boot times my win 7 installs take 10 seconds to boot from my 500gig SSD so I cannot see how win 8 can improve on that without breaking the laws of physics.

My Windows 8 takes 5 seconds to boot on an old, low-powered laptop with a 5400 r.p.m. mechanical drive.

She canna take it, Captain!

The ones that I saw were the top of the range (I think) for the i5 series of their "iRush" boxes. Very flimsy cases indeed and also very easily scratched.
I should reiterate that everything else was fine except for the cases.

Clearly both yours and my PC has broken the law of physics!

Had the same strange comment from a friend the other day, his friend a so-called "PC Expert" had upgraded his very old PC with all new components (I told him to buy a new system but he ignored the advice) and his friend also told him to put in Windows 7 rather than Windows 8. He was telling me how fast it booted up etc now on his new SSD. I showed him my 5 year old system on Windows 8 and he kind of agreed mine loaded up faster!

He said well at least its better than the 20 minute boot up time he had on XP, again, I think it might be something that he had done with software on it than XP itself. But there we go..

Edited by Pipexer (Thu 02-May-13 13:07:58)

Is that a full boot or a resume? W8 doesn't by default do a full shutdown - it either suspends or hibernates. W7 could of course do the same but most people probably shut it down by default.

You have correctly summarised why Windows 8 boots so quickly. This is not normal hibernation, as in previous versions of Windows, but a very sophisticated system of caching relevant information to allow near-instantaneous booting. Hibernation, as in previous versions, would not be nearly so fast, mainly because it has to store more data to resume the state that the computer was in when it was hibernated.

How the mechanism works matters little to most people - you just switch the computer off and then switch it on. Paradoxically, this is quicker than choosing "hibernate" and almost as fast as "suspend" (which has its disadvantages). As when running Vista the laptop took well over a minute to boot, Windows 8 is worth it for this alone.

Rest assured that none of the known laws of physics are broken; it is just very clever software.

In reply to a post by AEP:

Windows 8 is worth it for this alone.

Vista here. Boots up in under 10 seconds from sleep. Reboot once or twice a month if necessary, and I'll keep the Win 8 money.

Sleep does allow for fast boots. I don't like it, on a laptop in particular, because

1. It uses up the battery.
2. It resumes the machine with a user logged on. That's a security issue in my book.

My laptop coming out of resume requires the password to be reentered for the user - so still secure. I have one W7 laptop that I use sleep on (always plugged in to the mains), a W8 tablet that works much like an iPad where power is concerned and other W7 machines that I always shut down fully.

My work laptop has sleep disabled because for some reason they just don't like coming out of sleep properly - about 30% of the laptops had issues with resuming so we turned it off completely.

Desktop, single user, with WOL disabled. Only other person here is my techno-hating girlfriend.

Being a mean Scot (you are obviouly the other variety) I still object to wasting money by using sleep mode.

Is that with the stock cooler? My bros PC also has an i7-3770k and it also doesn't get very warm, but he is using a ThermalTake Frio (that thing is huge!).

Edited by deleted (Thu 02-May-13 19:24:49)

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Go for Windows 8 and save yourself some faff in the long run. Buying new hardware and putting Windows 7 on it is silly, as much as Windows 7 is an excellent operating system. Windows 8 takes it to a new level with boot times, responsiveness, graphics, etc.

Hardly silly, you boot up once it doesn't matter how long it takes particularly if you have to spend a fortune on new software or spend time looking for drivers for USB hardware. Windows 8 is fine for touch screen computers where you are doing one thing at a time.

In reply to a post by AEP:

Being a mean Scot (you are obviouly the other variety) I still object to wasting money by using sleep mode.

The other variety being grumpy?

sleep mode uses no electricity at all. I've measured it with my meter thingummy. Quicker to come back up, saves time on wasteful boot cycle electricity.

/mean and grumpy

In reply to a post by Alex1M6:

Is that with the stock cooler? My bros PC also has an i7-3770k and it also doesn't get very warm, but he is using a ThermalTake Frio (that thing is huge!).

It is with the stock cooler but I use the Asus Sabretooth Z77 mobo with all the fancy thermal armor and heat distribution stuff.

I also just run it at the normal 3.5Ghz, the locked down one was only £5 less and it is locked to 3.4GHz

So even if I don't want to overclock I still get a better peformance for only a small amount extra.

Windows 8 is also fine for mouse and keyboard driven computers. It is foolish to put Windows 7 on when you can take advantage of the improvements of Windows 8.

I really do question the wisdom of getting a brand new PC and putting Windows 7 on it. I can deal with not upgrading to Windows 8, but putting an old version of an operating system on a new PC is barmy.

I suspect most people bashing Windows 8 have never used it at all, not used it a lot, or are incompetent and did something to the installation and putting the slowness or problems down to Windows 8 rather than their own foolishness.

Professionally, I won't use or trust the services of any IT pro who thinks Windows 7 is better than 8 anymore on modern hardware, it just shows a total lack of their knowledge and computer experience. I was giving some free advice to a local organization with several hundred computers the other week and told them straight away I would not be messing about creating Windows 7 images for their systems when they would support Windows 8 perfectly well.

Edited by Pipexer (Thu 02-May-13 21:19:44)

XP Pro here on a fairly old mobo boots from hibernation to a useable browser within 15 seconds. I don't really see bootup times as an important measure though. If it took 5 minutes to boot it wouldn't worry me...... It's what it does when it has booted that's important.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Windows 8 is also fine for mouse and keyboard driven computers. It is foolish to put Windows 7 on when you can take advantage of the improvements of Windows 8.

I really do question the wisdom of getting a brand new PC and putting Windows 7 on it. I can deal with not upgrading to Windows 8, but putting an old version of an operating system on a new PC is barmy.

I suspect most people bashing Windows 8 have never used it at all, not used it a lot, or are incompetent and did something to the installation and putting the slowness or problems down to Windows 8 rather than their own foolishness.

Professionally, I won't use or trust the services of any IT pro who thinks Windows 7 is better than 8 anymore on modern hardware, it just shows a total lack of their knowledge and computer experience. I was giving some free advice to a local organization with several hundred computers the other week and told them straight away I would not be messing about creating Windows 7 images for their systems when they would support Windows 8 perfectly well.

I disagree with your comments calling everyone barmy and foolish. Not all software is compatable with the latest Windows Operating Systems.

Other business's and myself are still using Windows XP on new hardware. Even in compatability mode, some of the design programs and CAD/CAM software will not run correctly on anything newer and communicate with the CNC machines.

The motherboard manufacturers know this, which is why they still provide Windows XP drivers for the latest products.

If it works with Windows 7 it should work with Windows 8. If it doesn't work with either and it is line of business and required for legacy hardware devices then I think that falls under "we'll let you off" if it is vital to the business, but any business that is stable and sensible will be looking at ways to update their software.

You do realise eventually your workplace is going to have to upgrade away from XP and try and update all their line of business applications etc. It is not possible to run and manage an enterprise network with computers which are no longer supported!

It is an incredible waste installing XP on modern i3+ systems, XP holds back the performance so much, it just wasn't designed with such powerful systems in mind. I am sure you know this though, but it won't be long before you start to have to upgrade, even if it is a year or two past the cut off date of next year.

You may find that it wont be long before motherboard manufacturers etc stop providing drivers for XP.

Is the fact that many application will not run under Win8 and improvement?

Why do you think MS are continuing to sell Win7 in vast quantities? Maybe because they now of the problems millions of users are having with Win8.

If you have an application that runs well on XP and Win7 but with require a £400/user upgrade if Win8 is selected, how would you deal with 50 PCs that need to run that application?

And on my Laptop running XP Pro takes just under 20 seconds from hibernate. It may even be faster if I chose different power management scheme.

I would think of buying i5 unless you need power for multi-threaded programs.

I would consider that an Asus or Gigabyte z77 motherboard is the way ahead just now but the newest lga1150 boards will be on the market this year together with the newest offerings from Intel. If you wait a little then you either get the latest and greatest or maybe a discount on last year's tech.

A z77 and K series cpu combo would be capable of overclocking later if you felt the need at some point in time. It would likely have a better re-sale too if that counts for you.

DO buy an SSD. If you have qualms about the longevity of such then buy a Samsung pro or the older 830. For OS and one or two oft used programs a 128 Gig drive plus a separate HDD for your data and less used programs is a good fit but obviouslt if you can then get a 256 for a nicer experience.

DO buy the best quality PSU you can afford, preferably rated at twice the normal running wattage of your computer. something like a seasonic .

If you are best described as just a user then you will like Win 8 but if you like to adjust things and have a tendency to be found in control panel or deeper still in the operating system stick with Win 7 because everything can be found easily with no learning curve. I got fed up struggling after a week and reverted to 7. I still struggle with my boy's laptop that has 8 on it but then again I only get to use it when he asks me to resolve a problem (thank goodness)

All new operating systems have a learning curve, but Windows 8's is particularly steep. It has a menu system that forces you change screens to launch an app and you often have to work harder to perform the same tasks as in Windows 7. Though you can�t solve all these issues on your own because they say Start button is gone for good ........ That said 8.1 will be with us soon and 8.2 may even give the choice of UI or desktop.

If you want proof that desktop applications are second-class citizens in Windows 8, look no further than the Switcher menu where you'll find separate thumbnails for all of your open Windows 8 applications. The entire desktop gets just one thumbnail, though, no matter how many different programs are running on it.

if you want to find to a program that's running on the desktop, you must navigate from the Switcher menu back to the desktop and look at the windows or taskbar there, a huge waste of time and mental energy.

I did find you can Alt-Tab to see stuff though.

I write all this as an enthusiast and, for hardware certainly, am prepared to qualify any comment here.

On the software front lets just say: I have Linux machines too. I prefer 7 and I will move to 8 when I can elect to not use the current UI

Edited by deleted (Thu 02-May-13 22:22:43)

What problems would these millions of users be having?

Until you can prove to me that Windows 8 is suffering real issues, more than Windows 7, then that is not a valid point.

Also, I am curious as to what applications run fine on Windows 7 yet don't work fine on Windows 8 (of the same architecture).

There seems to be a very "applications-centric" mindset going on here, this is of course fine in theory, but in practice until you or the application vendor comes up with an operating system of their own, then I'm afraid it is tough - if you don't use the latest OS, then face the consequences that come with it, that includes reduced security, reliability, manageability, etc.

From a personal users point of view, that is fine, I don't personally hold something against a user for using an out of date operating system, I just think it is a bit silly. For a company or organization to continue to use something outdated, well then it doesn't give a very good impression, and if let's say they transmitted a virus to all their customers or had a breach of security it would not look very good if it turned out that it was partly because they did not invest in a modern operating system with adequate security - that could be classed as negligence.

Edited by Pipexer (Thu 02-May-13 22:44:49)

READ THE POST. An application not running on Win8 is a good enough problem. £320,000 to fix the problem is a real issue.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

There seems to be a very "applications-centric" mindset going on here

That's what computers are for.

OS's are just a necessary overhead.

In reply to a post by MHC:

READ THE POST. An application not running on Win8 is a good enough problem. £320,000 to fix the problem is a real issue.

Is this hypothetical or real world?

What are you on about?

Yes, but I refer you to what I said immediately after that......

Not particularly relevant.

As MHC said, if a needed application, in use on a large number of machines, won't run on a new OS then the cost of upgrading may be prohibitive. And that's the real world.

Computer systems should be driven by applications, not by OS's.

In reply to a post by MHC:

What are you on about?

Your "£320,000 to upgrade applications to work on Windows 8 yet they run perfectly fine in Windows 7" comment. Did you just imagine this figure and use it as a reason to stick with Windows 7 or do you actually know of an organization or business with this dilemma.

Even if this is true, then as an anecdote it proves nothing, for example has this business contacted Microsoft to see if an application shim can be created to make it run, heck Microsoft might even release a hotfix if this business is a big customer of Microsoft. How much is this application earning the business? If it is earning them billions of pounds, then £320,000 isn't very expensive.

Like I say I think we've got into hypothetical land with this. Surely most home users just want to create documents and browse the web, Windows 8 doesn't have compatibility issues with that as far as I know.

Of course it is relevant, it is part and parcel of computing. The operating system is a key player in the ecosystem, and we don't live in a world where the operating system never needs to be updated and all we need to worry about is applications. If this wasn't important, then there wouldn't be a massive scramble going on by many of enterprises right now to get their systems off XP and move them to Windows 7 and 8.

Since we are on about real world can you give me a real world example of a line of business application that works fine on Windows 7 not working on Windows 8... at the moment this seems to just be a hypothetical application... There is not going to be many out there.

Edited by Pipexer (Thu 02-May-13 23:10:35)

Yes eventually some computers will have to be upgraded away from XP, but not because of network management issues. They either use VNC or just walk 10-20 metres.

Functionality and useabilty is far more important, then out right performance.
A formula 1 car is fast, but cant transport a suitcase or shopping.

You are in an unfortunate situation and I can sympathize ... getting away from XP definitely introduces some costs. My point in this thread is not XP -> Windows 8 but Windows 7 -> Windows 8.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Since we are on about real world can you give me a real world example of a line of business application that works fine on Windows 7 not working on Windows 8

Not really... I retired from that lark about 10 years ago, and at home I use Macs

But whether it's MS or Apple the same principle applies.

I stuck with OS X 10.6 long after Apple introduced 10.7 because they dropped Rosetta support, and I had some PPC apps that worked fine and I didn't want to have to buy (and get used to) newer Intel versions.

I still miss one of them... even it was only Solitaire

Edited by billford (Thu 02-May-13 23:25:54)

I wasn't aware that the OP had asked about Software. Any relevant advice given to him is in danger of being lost in a sea of yet more regurgitated but still boring spats about 7/8.

Indeed.

In reply to a post by Ancient_Mariner:

was considering either WinXP (SP3) or Win7.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Go for Windows 8

I believe you are wrong. Something has to keep those memory cells refreshed. Sleep mode on my laptop will run the battery down quite quickly.

I agree with you there. That's why I like 8. My laptop was almost unusable with Vista (apart from the slow boot times) but flies under 8.

The OP did mention which OS he was thinking of running, so I think it fair for a poster to point out that - in his opinion - it is not the best choice. Whether that warrants the boring spat or not is another matter. Perhaps a simple post from each person about which OS they would use is sufficient.

It does seem to be very difficult to mention Windows 8 without arousing a host of replies that do not always seem to be based on real-life experience.

Just to add a couple of things.
Asrock boards are really good, great value for money from their bottom of the range to their top of the range and cheaper than the big names.

I got a 970 Extreme 3, at the time is was above middle of the range and i am really pleased with it, I have also built budget machines for other people using Asrock boards. all still working after 4 years or more.

Case wise, I suggest to go for something that will last, I kept buying cheap case, about around the £20 mark, but every time i updated the machine I had to get a new case as the old one was falling apart and warped. So I went for a coolermaster Haf,. A mate of mine got the big version, I did not want anything that big, but i wanted a sturdy case, which is why i went for the one I linked too.

Of cause it depends on what size you want the case.

OS wise, nothing wrong with windows 7, well there probably is, but It works fine, it got a few more years of life and compatibility wise it is fine.

Windows 8 is also ok, it boots up fast, even on a restart, it is pretty fast, software seems to run a bit smoother, bulky software like Photoshop and Vegas seems to load in quicker, it is better at managing memory. Compatibility wise, there are a few problems, but I got most sorted now, I still have the odd problem with my wi-fi mind you.

The metro UI, you either love it or hate it, I myself don't use it and got a start menu added.

In reply to a post by AEP:

...... It does seem to be very difficult to mention Windows 8 without arousing a host of replies that do not always seem to be based on real-life experience.

Perhaps that's because there is no stock "real life experience". What works for one person in one situation may not work for a different person or the same person in a different situation..... Everything is subjective.

Not aimed at anyone in particular but could we please kep this on topic and wait for when and if the OP posts in the appropriate forum for views regarding an OS.

I've used a fair few Asrock boards in the past and never had a problem. They are one of the world's biggest suppliers.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Of course it is relevant, it is part and parcel of computing. The operating system is a key player in the ecosystem, and we don't live in a world where the operating system never needs to be updated and all we need to worry about is applications. If this wasn't important, then there wouldn't be a massive scramble going on by many of enterprises right now to get their systems off XP and move them to Windows 7 and 8.

Since we are on about real world can you give me a real world example of a line of business application that works fine on Windows 7 not working on Windows 8... at the moment this seems to just be a hypothetical application... There is not going to be many out there.

I have 2 "business" applications that I use that do not work.

Pinncle studio 12 certified on vista did not work on 7 had to buy version 14
Pinncle studio 14 strangely enough works on 7 but not win 8 have to buy version 16
This is from Avid who's top end software does exactly the same thing.

Also my wife has a computer controlled embroidery sewing machine it cost £3000 new.

Software from XP to vista needed to pay £100 to go to Vista in updates.

Vista update worked well on 7.

Been told by manufacturer that win 8 WILL need new software and security key to work cost £1000!!!

I brought my parents win 8 laptop round to try and sure enough I can't get the software to work and I refuse to pay over £1000 just to get it to run on a new OS when 7 is an excellent OS in the first place.

So no matter what you say the arcitecture may be based on each other BUT there is still enough differences between Vista/7/8 for software to actually not run and work.

Also even if I did pay over £1000 to move to 8 now that MS want to do yearly updates there is no guarentee that this wouldn't happen again and I would be in exactly the same hole in a short while later.

So while you may want to rant and moan and call me names it is my computer and I want to use it in a certain way and I am using win 7 to run modern hardware as there is nothing wrong with doing so.

Edited by deleted (Fri 03-May-13 09:18:59)

For business there is another potential issue with W8. That is the inclusion of IE10. We have core line of business apps that still only support IE8 (or even IE7) so going to IE10 is a complete no-no. Yes, we are pressuring to get these apps updated but there is only so fast these companies make changes that have no direct impact on their bottom line profit.

And moving to a different app would cost very high 6 figure (or even 7 figure) sums.

Edited by ian72 (Fri 03-May-13 09:26:05)

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

I've used a fair few Asrock boards in the past and never had a problem. They are one of the world's biggest suppliers.

They are part of Asus, I think they are like a budget line, but I never had a problem with them. I had more issues with Asus own boards to be honest.

Gigabyte i will not touch with a barge pole these days, yet a mate of mine swears by them.