What motherboard brand(s) are you using?

As the title says. If your brand isn't listed, check other and explain.

I'm currently using the DFI LanPartyUT NF4 Ultra-D and the Chaintech VNF3-250. I've got an Asus A7V and A7V133 lying around, but not active...and I think that the A7V finally kicked the bucket...after 4 years of near constant use.

 

Hmmm... lets see here,
My main computer uses a Albatron KX18DS Pro,
My Linux Computer uses a ASUS CUV-NT (some HP specific thing),
and my server uses some old Gigabyte board with a 300Mhz AMD :good:

 

Off topic -
I admire you people using more than one PC.
I'de love to do that :crying:
But I ahve been given a very small corner in the house for my play area and two PCs will not fit there.
End off topic....

Anyway, to the point - ASRock P4V88. Not brilliant but does the job.
I think it was mega value for money (it was very cheap.... ).

 

• Abit x2
• Gigabyte x2
• Other (Tyan) x1

My workstation and my wife's both have the same Abit KV7, my firewall has some ancient PGA370 Gigabyte the model of which I'm not sure, and the same goes for my outward facing server which handles Apache and proxying for secure fileserver access. The fileserver itself has a Tyan Tiger Rev. E.

 

Mines ASUS

 

MSI one is buggy, replacing it with Abit one soon.

 

Gigabyte for me, though ever since the video card fiasco I haven't used my PC for over a month. Was damn stable when I had it up though.

 

MSI 865PE-Neo2 for me, it's a few years old but does the job, no major problems so far :good:
*touch wood*

 

I've got a couple of interesting motherboards.

Firstly, an ECS P6bat-A+ which has both a slot 1 and socket 370 which is rare. Unfortunately you can't use both at the same time

I also have a Supermicro P6DBE Dual processor board running 2 P3 700 Mhz. Lots of power!

I've got an Intel seabreeze board somewhere, but the less said about that the better!

 

an abit nf7-s v.2
some weird epox.

 

I had a Tyan Trinity P3 board that had the slot1/socket 370 combo. That was a great board. Stable as hell and could OC pretty well for lack of voltage adjustments and that everything was operating on dividers still.

 

I think if I tried to OC my Tyan dual Palamino rig it'd burn down.

 

ECS here, and I assure you, not by choice. It was purchased for me by my parents for xmas last year, and they don't really know much about PC's :/

If I had a choice, I think I'd buy an Asus or a Gigabyte board.

 

Don't knock ECS! My motherboard may be old but it can still handle an overclock! I managed to overclock a 700Mhz P111 into a 933Mhz!

 

For all the knocks ECS gets, from what I've seen, they make pretty good boards. Now, if you want to overclock the hell out of something, I'd suggest looking at something from DFI, but otherwise, they're inexpensive boards with a decent feature set. I wouldn't have a problem throwing one in a rig for a basic box for someone. Right now, they seem to be making a move to come into the enthusiast market, but have some work to do in the overclocking department. They make boards with great layouts and that have top-notch performance at stock speeds. There's also the stability factor. The only thing they're having some trouble with is mega-OC potential...and quite honestly, that's not priority 1 on my list. What's the point of overclocking if you're not building a motherboard that can work properly at stock speeds? (ahem, Epox).

 

Motherboad manufacturers seem to be sending out conflicting messages.

Take ECS for example, their website boasts about the overclocking potential of their motherboards and how you can tweak them. But when you read the user manual for the product, it tells you overclocking is dangerous and shouldn't be done!!

 

Every company does that, and probably for legal reasons. There's a lot of people that simply don't do any research on how to properly overclock or the inherit risks of doing so. There are idiots that will use stock cooling, but pump 2V into their Athlon64...and then find out what a burning CPU smells like. It's there to make someone who reads the manual think twice before attempting something they don't know. Secondly, overclocking does void your processors warranty. Depending on the motherboard, that may or may not be the case. DFI has been pretty active about supporting overclocking, but that's more of an exception.

 

For sure, these companies want to cover their arses if something goes wrong!

Instead of stating not to overclock in the user manuals, they should lay out the pros and cons. Even better, they should lay out basic instructions for the overclocking process for beginners. That way, there is less chance for things to go wrong.

 

Alot of the boards we deal with are ECS, and we quite frequently get PC'S with ECS boards that have popped capacitors. Just my experience with them anyways, they might be good for you!

 

Yes, one of the reason I buy Abit boards is that they always use Rubycon capacitors, which are excellent. They last a long time.