The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Mr-Movies,

Could you be a bit more specific about GigaByte boards being some of the slowest out there?

My first GigaByte motherboard, also happened to be GigaByte's first major effort at producing a feature rich, highly overclockable platform. That was the legendary 965P-DS3 v. 1.3. It was the best and fastest 965P board by a wide margin. Even the US version 1.33 was no match for it. Mine was an import from a Canadian dealer, and not generally found in this part of the world. Doc TY sent me a link for it, suggesting I check it out. $99 was a great price at the time so I bought it. It's the first motherboard I had ever seen with a CPU PLL Voltage control, NB/PCIe/PLL Voltage control, and a CPU NB VID Control. After about a year I bought an E6750 with GO stepping, and promptly discovered that the 965P didn't have a 1333 FSB, even though it said so right on the box. GigaByte wound up exchanging the 965P-DS3 for a P35-DS3R, which was the hottest motherboard on the market at that time. It's still running today, but in a new modern case, and is currently running at 4.5GHz on air. He says that it's a pretty competent gamer!

After that I switched to AMD and built the E6750's equivalent to it, the Athlon II 7750BE on a 790X motherboard, which easily ran with the E6750, in spite of 75% less L2 cache. Then I bought a cheap $99 quad core, an AMD Athlon II X4 "Propus". No Black Edition here, so you have to do it the hard way and play with the fSB, and memory multipliers to OC! LOL!! I had a Phenom II x4 955BE in it for a couple of months. Then I had a friend who needed a 955BE, yesterday, and there were none to be had at the time, so he bought my 1090T and I gave him the 955BE for it, his offer. Good deal all around.

I bought this motherboard because I kept having some sort of hardware compatibility issue with the sound on the 790X, and I got tired of the frustration, and bought the 990XA-UD3. End of problem! The first surprise was that it was about 10-15% faster at stock 3.2GHz speed, in the new 990XA-UD3 AM3+ motherboard, than it ran in the 790X, with DDR2. There were also a few new items in the bios, but I haven't really looked at them yet. As far as what it doesn't do well, I'm not a big gamer, so I really don't need more speed, and I've still got 400MHz in reserve to 4.2GHz, if I need it. Nothing slow about this AMD!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Would have to agree. Gigabyte basically paved the way for affordable boards that didn't suck. Many fond memories of my 965P-DS3 v1.3. Had a failed component on a v1.0 board and Gigabyte promptly set me up with a v1.3. Good boards.

 

Estuansis,

I'll tell you what, as good as the 965P-DS3R V 1.3 was, the 990XA-UD3 of today is even better! One of my easiest builds ever! It's fast, quiet, runs cool, and games well, all good attributes to have in a new computer! I didn't buy it to complain about what it won't do, but to praise it for what it does do well!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Likewise why I chose my current motherboard. Fast, reliable, and a platform I am already very familiar with. Don't actually have a thing to complain about on the board. In contrast my CPU has been less than wonderful. While a good chip, it has given me some grief.

Still waiting on a six-core to see what the chip support is like for this board.

 

Yeah I know someone who didn't even overclock an MSI board, but put a 140W CPU (as per spec) in it, ran some burn tests on it overnight and the board started billowing smoke. Presumably a faulty unit, but a google revealed plenty of other cases of this.
The uber-cheap bottom end MSI boards, however, have always proven successful in the past for me and my friends.

 

MSI is a mixed bag. Every mfg seems to be that way though TBH. Will still probably ignore everything but Gigabyte when I go to purchase.

 

That's been my methodology for the most part since binning the last Asus board back in 2009. Hasn't led me astray yet, although I am always wary about being too reliant on one manufacturer. I was very nearly going to buy a Biostar board for my i5, but they were difficult to find in the UK as it was.

 

Gigabyte is currently the only company I see as having a "good" reputation. ASUS products continue to fail regularly and Biostar boards usually seem to go the way of MSI boards. Good design, good chips, horrible electrical/cooling setup. MSI boards only being the biggest offender because, as you mentioned, labeling boards as supporting wattage well beyond their design.

 

ddp,

No I sure don't. For a S.W.A.G., I would guess it was probably you! LOL!!

Russ

 

That's a name I've not heard in a long old time, he still about? I assume if so he sticks to the optical media areas?

Actually doing some work (be it the last year of university or now having a full time job) has really cut down on my forum activity. Still, I can't complain, my excessive post count I chose to include on my CV, and it actually helped me get the position over 100 other applicants!

 

Estuansis,

Your motherboard is compatible with the 1090T according to the Motherboard page on Newegg. BTW, I've never seen or even heard of a lag when installing win 7. Mine installs right on through. In about 12 minutes, everything is installed, and I can start re-installing programs. I'm super happy with it!

Russ

 

Support / general admin for a company that deploys Citrix based desktops to SMEs around London. I manage migrations (data export, on-site support & guidance) and remote support etc.

 

Sam,

Since I don't use the splash screen, and I don't get anymore than a 10 second delay, while the direct connect architecture is tested. Try turning off the splash screen!

Russ

 

In the installer? How do you do that, surely you'd have to edit the iso of the disc and burn another?

 

Ehhhh could be worse. I spent a time as tech support for a local ISP, and even less time working as an on-site technician for another ISP.

Seems refusing make up fake, illegal invoices is not an employable skill. Damn shame, as I love working on-site and having a driving route, but did not love the petty theft and highway robbery of less than tech-savvy consumers.

 

Yeah being honest and having a sense of morals can cause problems occasionally with what I do, but normally I'm able to work around the issue. Fortunately my manager is of the same mindset (same is true of a lot of things thankfully, which is probably why I was hired), it's just company management that might direct us otherwise.

 

Well there's shady business when dealing with a small company, and then there's billing individual homes for time I actually spent at another call... Yeah not hard for one of the higher-ups to look into that and find the issue. Rather than cause ripples or risk the small rep I do have, I gave them my two weeks.

And gahhhh, phone support sucks hard.

- Get to work
- Sit and do nothing all day
- Occasionally walk elderly people through basic Windows tasks while being called stupid
- Make minimum wage and go home depressed.

If it makes any difference they were a horrible ISP.

As of currently it's back to night shifts at another seasonal job making decidedly more than minimum wage