Originally posted by sammorris:

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I still eagerly await 3840x2160 (or similar) PC monitors. I wouldn't care if the refresh rate and response time is naff, just having that amount of desktop real estate to use office programs and a browser with is so liberating...

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Originally posted by omegaman7:

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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I still eagerly await 3840x2160 (or similar) PC monitors. I wouldn't care if the refresh rate and response time is naff, just having that amount of desktop real estate to use office programs and a browser with is so liberating...

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Ditto! I would sell just about anything I own for a monitor like that! Can't wait :D

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Originally posted by Mr-Movies:

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Originally posted by omegaman7:

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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I still eagerly await 3840x2160 (or similar) PC monitors. I wouldn't care if the refresh rate and response time is naff, just having that amount of desktop real estate to use office programs and a browser with is so liberating...

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Ditto! I would sell just about anything I own for a monitor like that! Can't wait :D

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I agree I would love to have something that high-end and would certainly use all of the space it would provide.

I wasn't aware that the new boards were rolling back the BIOS rev if they encounter a problem when OC'n. If that is true what a mistake the board manufactures are making in doing so. Who wants to keep a low-end extra CPU around to make sure they can always flash the BIOS in case of emergency. Not very smart I'd say, I can see reverting back to default settings but not rev'ing down.

Good to hear about the ARCTIC fan I will definitely go that route for my new case when I start adding fans soon. Russ you better get a coat on we don't want you getting sick in that 68deg weather.... :D

Stevo

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Originally posted by Estuansis:

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I agree about that. AFAIK my board POSTs with an X6 but does not recognize the chip and doesn't show some settings without a BIOS update. Have heard good and bad about the newer BIOS so interested to see what happens. In my case the board might need a BIOS with questionable stability. Looking into that. I doubt it holds much weight. There are several revisions so I imagine one of them is decent. I have a backup image in case...

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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Quick little chart I made using the Hardware.fr returns data:




Couple of interesting points to note here:

1. Motherboards are generally somewhat more reliable now than 3 years ago
2. Although there is no great difference between brands, Asus is consistently the least reliable brand
3. Apart from a short period, even under Asus rule, ASRock products are still of a higher standard than those of their parent company.

It is also worth noting that the increased reliability of motherboards since 2008 is almost entirely attributed to the discontinuation of the nvidia nForce chipset range - the majority of entry-level boards have had a higher reliability rating - e.g. MSI's entry level P31/P33 boards typically had a 1:100 failure rate.
I will list some 'worst offenders' shortly.

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Quote:

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Estuansis,

The F5 bios would probably be the best choice, if you have a rev 1.0 board.

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3376#bios

If you have a rev 2.0 board, the FB bios would be the beat choice.

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3421#

Best Regards,
Russ

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Quote:

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One of the things I wanted to draw attention to with that graph is that all the lines, including Asus' slope upwards, i.e. they are all improving. The improvement just doesn't change the relative standing of the manufacturers, in most cases. It's interesting to see that Gigabyte and MSI both suffered a downturn in late 2011/early 2012, and in both cases this was due to a popular model that was a bum product for reliability. We're not talking huge swathes of failures, but rates more like 1:15 or so, rather than the 1:40-1:50 common of the period. Again, the lack of nforce products is attributable to the increase more than most, but it should be noted that Gigabyte almost point blank refused to sell nforce products back in the day so the fact that their failure rate in 2008 barely escapes that of Asus who produced loads does in fact hint that back then, Gigabyte boards, in a chipset-neutral environment, were less reliable, at least for a time. However, the one nforce product Gigabyte did manufacture scored the worst reliability score of all boards that year, so make of that what you will.

Unfortunately the period during which I had my long string of bad experiences with Asus is 2006-2008 and there's no data from this site earlier than that shown above. I'd speculate that failure rates were higher still then, but that is as I say, purely speculative.

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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One of the things I wanted to draw attention to with that graph is that all the lines, including Asus' slope upwards, i.e. they are all improving. The improvement just doesn't change the relative standing of the manufacturers, in most cases. It's interesting to see that Gigabyte and MSI both suffered a downturn in late 2011/early 2012, and in both cases this was due to a popular model that was a bum product for reliability. We're not talking huge swathes of failures, but rates more like 1:15 or so, rather than the 1:40-1:50 common of the period. Again, the lack of nforce products is attributable to the increase more than most, but it should be noted that Gigabyte almost point blank refused to sell nforce products back in the day so the fact that their failure rate in 2008 barely escapes that of Asus who produced loads does in fact hint that back then, Gigabyte boards, in a chipset-neutral environment, were less reliable, at least for a time. However, the one nforce product Gigabyte did manufacture scored the worst reliability score of all boards that year, so make of that what you will.

Unfortunately the period during which I had my long string of bad experiences with Asus is 2006-2008 and there's no data from this site earlier than that shown above. I'd speculate that failure rates were higher still then, but that is as I say, purely speculative.

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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One of the things I wanted to draw attention to with that graph is that all the lines, including Asus' slope upwards, i.e. they are all improving. The improvement just doesn't change the relative standing of the manufacturers, in most cases. It's interesting to see that Gigabyte and MSI both suffered a downturn in late 2011/early 2012, and in both cases this was due to a popular model that was a bum product for reliability. We're not talking huge swathes of failures, but rates more like 1:15 or so, rather than the 1:40-1:50 common of the period. Again, the lack of nforce products is attributable to the increase more than most, but it should be noted that Gigabyte almost point blank refused to sell nforce products back in the day so the fact that their failure rate in 2008 barely escapes that of Asus who produced loads does in fact hint that back then, Gigabyte boards, in a chipset-neutral environment, were less reliable, at least for a time. However, the one nforce product Gigabyte did manufacture scored the worst reliability score of all boards that year, so make of that what you will.

Unfortunately the period during which I had my long string of bad experiences with Asus is 2006-2008 and there's no data from this site earlier than that shown above. I'd speculate that failure rates were higher still then, but that is as I say, purely speculative.

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Originally posted by Deadrum33:

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Anyone have suggestions for a proper CPU and graphics card for a gaming rig? Long story short, i have a friend that wants to make some cash by having people watch his game streams.
Once we have a CPU, i will probably steer him toward whichever Gigabyte board he feels comfortable with feature-wise, i know he wants to teach himself "The Art of the Overclock" but doesnt want to burn up the hardware as he wants to build this beast to last some years.
He thinks he wants to SLI 2 GPU's but i told him that 1 top of the line card usually works better than 2x midrange cards, i read that here awhile back is it still true?

Thanks in advance.

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Originally posted by Deadrum33:

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Anyone have suggestions for a proper CPU and graphics card for a gaming rig? Long story short, i have a friend that wants to make some cash by having people watch his game streams.
Once we have a CPU, i will probably steer him toward whichever Gigabyte board he feels comfortable with feature-wise, i know he wants to teach himself "The Art of the Overclock" but doesnt want to burn up the hardware as he wants to build this beast to last some years.
He thinks he wants to SLI 2 GPU's but i told him that 1 top of the line card usually works better than 2x midrange cards, i read that here awhile back is it still true?

Thanks in advance.

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Originally posted by theonejrs:

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Sam,

Put me down for 3 P5N-SLI failures. The sad part is the never really fixed it to work like it was designed to. The only one's who saw 4.0GHz out of the E4300, a 1.8GHz Intel chip, were the earliest buyers, and of course, the Media they conned with them, hyping the motherboard. Their second shipment was junk, using inferior board level components. They even managed to con Leo Laporte, the computer guy on the radio with it. Hundreds were sold on his say so alone. I don't know what the price was in England, but it was a $50 motherboard here, and became a struggle to OC past 3.2gHz.

I got 3.6GHz out of mine on a GigaByte GA-965P-DS3R, the motherboard that saved GigaByte from going out of business. When they followed that up with an almost as successful P35-DS3R, GigaByte was back in business. Right about a year after I got the 965P, I bought the E6750, which had a 1333 fsb speed, the problem for me was the Canadian market board I had, didn't support a native 1333 bus, even though it said so on the box and in the manual. I worked out a deal with GigaByte to pay $50 and my 965-DS3R for a new P35-DS3R. It turned out to be a bargain. For the last 4 years, it's been being used daily in an office environment, and runs 24/7. It's still running strong, at 3.8GHz. Great motherboard.

Russ

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Originally posted by DXR88:

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if its strictly for gaming id go with the AMD 975BE or Intel i5, as for the SLI vs one powerful card, id say get the one powerful card now and SLI it later if need be. i haven't had any real troubles with SLI on Popular titles...just expect problems if you go outside the "Hot Now" Game Zone.

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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Your advice about SLI is sound. Unless you're spending more than you can throw at a single GPU, crossfire/SLI tend not to be worth it much, as on the occasions it doesn't work, you get left with one weaker card.

For overclocking, there is no 'art' to overclocking modern Intel CPUs these days, you just put the number in, hit save and you're done. The downside is that the first overclockable CPU of any worth is the i5 3570K, which is reasonably pricey, but certainly not out of the reach of people building gaming PCs.
AMDs are far more complicated to overclock with, and there's plenty to learn about there if you feel so inclined, but while you'll save money, you'll never get even close to the performance offered by the i5 in anything but a very small selection (<10) of titles.

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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you'll never get even close to the performance offered by the i5 in anything but a very small selection (<10) of titles.

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