The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Given the price after rebate, it works out better value performance/price than the HD5670, but that's as long as it's powerful enough for you. The HD4670 is still a relatively low end card in the grand scheme of things. The HD5670 is about equivalent to the popular 8800GT mid-highend card of 2007, and is a bit better than the GT240 and GT430 low-end cards of more recent times (moreso with the latter, which is a weaker card).

The HD4670 is roughly equivalent to the 9600GT midrange card of early 2008, and is about on par with the GT240 and GT430 low-end cards of today.

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I'm thinking the difference between the 2 seems worth $30, especially for the future-proof factor.

 

Happy Thanksgiving guys.

 

im assuming that merry thanksgiving is not a phrase used then?

PS i would still advocate to wait for sandybridge. It should launch at CES, so only about 6 weeks away.

if you are going to not wait, then x58 i would say. i7 950, ripjaw 6GB 1600Mhz DDR3, and ASUS sabertooth x58 mobo.

 

A Sabertooth? Really? Has got to be one of the poorest specified boards on the X58 platform. The X58A-UD3R from Gigabyte is, in the UK at least, £15 cheaper, and has a far better spec, even before you consider the potential problems with using an Asus board. In much the same way, I liked the hugely increased number of ports on the X48-DS4 I got for £105 after the Maximus II you paid £160 for, that only has a 16x lane chipset, versus the 32x of the X48 board. The spec of Asus boards makes no sense sometimes.
The i7 950 is the CPU of choice for LGA1366 with the new pricedrop, so I'd agree there.
Sandy Bridge, ugh, I don't know, it doesn't seem like it will provide any major performance boosts, and being new tech it's going to be expensive as anything faster than the i5/i7 would have no competition from AMD yet, so there is absolutely no reason for it to induce price-drops Intel-side.

 

One of my goals with this build is to dual boot Win7 and osx10.6 snow leopard. I nearly changed my mind from 5670 up to 5770 because 56xx series it is not on any supported Hackintosh hardware list.

Further research shows that with a bunch of terminal settings, patches, and more flashing than I've ever seen in Windows, the 5670 has full 10.6 functionality. Perhaps if i setup as a Win7 machine now, in a few months when I get anxious to try dual boot there will be a nicer installer and I wont have to do all that hardware hacking.

 

Happy thanksgiving everyone!

 

The HD5770 is a fair bit more powerful than the HD5670, it's up there with the HD4850/HD4870 and 192-core GTX260 cards.

 

its my opinion sam, surely i am allowed to give it without it being put down, just because its an asus.

he is clearly american, seeing as he has given newegg links, and its $30 cheaper there. Secondly, negating you bias, all the reviews i have seen for it, have it as, for the price, on of the best x58 boards out.

 

I took the price comparisons as an aside since I was doing others in the UK. Typically price differentials between two products are reasonably similar in the UK and the US so situations like that are rare.
Taking that aside for the moment, if the price was equal, let alone higher in the UK, the feature set of the Sabertooth is pretty poor, completely disregarding the concerns of owning an Asus board.

Taking a lower-end North American spec board, the X58-USB3, that is priced at $180 + $3 shipping, almost identical to the Sabertooth's $180 with free shipping.
The only difference between the X58-USB3 and the Sabertooth apart from brand, is that the Sabertooth has two SATA III ports that the X58-USB3 doesn't have. On the reverse side, the X58-USB3 has an additional PCI Express 1x slot. Which is better is a matter of utility, but given the opportunity to buy from Gigabyte at the same price, for me it's a no brainer.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZdJRDpLHbw

 

LOL America, f*** yeah.

Would almost have to agree with Sam. Apart from QC issues, ASUS has idiotic board design, varying designs for boards in the same series, weird OEMs for 3rd party components, etc. Whereas Gigabyte board follow a modular design philosophy.

Don't get me wrong I'm not directly putting ASUS down. But considering the few basic tenets of engineering, ASUS is epic fail in every way.

 

jeff, all and well but thats very vague. Could you elaborate on those points.

 

Ha fair enough.

Basically Gigabyte boards all follow a central design and add or subtract to meet the feature-set and pricepoint. ASUS boards, even those within the same series, all have wildly varying designs and layouts. While this isn't necessarily bad it does mean that every single new board introduces it's own shortcomings and glitches. Gigabyte is basically working from a tried and true design while ASUS is making a blind shot in the dark with every board.

And as far as idiotic board design how about the 24 pin mobo connector directly in middle of the board? Or better yet as far back on the board as possible. Suddenly tower coolers don't fit

And as far as weird 3rd party stuff how about onboard audio by VIA that detects as a different OEM until you manually install the drivers on a board that has the mobo connector smack dab in the middle?

Also what about the glaringly obvious fail record for ASUS boards? Sam isn't the only one seeing the pattern you know. 650i in and of itself was a bad chipset, but is it just coincidence that the ASUS P5N series is famous as the single most failed board ever released? Or the Striker series coming in a close second? Personally replaced more ASUS boards than any other brand by FAR.

Not to be totally unfair here but the only board I've ever truly NOT enjoyed using has been an ASUS. Design so poor it makes the board difficult to work with vs other boards is not a matter of personal preference. Their only redeeming factor is the excellent little Q-connector thing for the front panel. Only wish front panel connections were standardized in some way so I could use them on my Gigabyte boards

I will add that ASUS boards have wonderfully open BIOS, but they assume you're sitting with another webpage open staring at all the stock specs for every voltage on the board and tracking every setting individually. While the 2 month lifespan and overly-assuming settings are fine for "Teh 133tz0rz L1qu1d N1tr0 OCrz" it is, however, NOT fine for the other 95% of average joes trying to actually use the board without a bachelors in computer circuitry.

 

Actually I believe the Striker series far surpassed the failure rate of the P5Ns. Most people went through at least 6 Striker boards. The P5Ns I don't think failed quite so often, mine lasted a full 8 months, much longer than Striker boards ever lasted, and almost as long as normal Asus boards last.
I'll give Asus Qconnect, it's a nice feature. However the labelling on Gigabyte boards is so good it almost negates the need for it entirely.

 

So hey sam, how are those WD20EARS drives working out for ya? How many of them did you purchase? Mine seems ok so far. In fact it's tempting to get a couple more. I'm quickly running out of space
Of course with my luck, I buy a couple more and I'll likely have trouble with one of them

 

8, 7 of which I'm currently using on a regular basis (though the 8th is installed in the system and powered up). So far no problems to report with any of them.

 

That's good news I just worry that I'd be pushing my luck. Surely WD has the bugs worked out by now though...

 

Sam,
You are probably right about the Striker on a percentage basis, but in sheer total numbers, the P5N series wins hands down! What get's me is that Asus could have solved all of those problems years ago, except they chose not to do so! They probably spent more money doing it the wrong way than if they had just gone back to better quality board level components when the P5N-E flopped so bad! They spent thousands of dollars for a problem a few cents worth of crappy parts caused, and then didn't replace the crappy parts with better ones! Now there's a solution that solves nothing! LOL!! No more Asus in this house!

 

I'm not necessarily an anti-ASUS person, they are capable of releasing good products. But those good products are far and few between. Their design philosophy could use a refresher. They used to make lots of good boards. A8N-5X(NF4), A8N-SE(NF4), and an M2N32-SLI Deluxe(NF590SLI) and loved them for features and quality. I also have a very base model M2N(NF430MCP)that, while very basic and having a somewhat weird layout, is hardcore solid and AFAIK still working perfectly. Sitting here with my 5000+ BE in it right now with no RAM. May build that into something as I have an XFX 8800GS Alpha Dog sitting here too. I'm not averted to using the boards if they work. Because when they work they work very well. It's just that the chance of failure mixed with hit and miss board design makes them less desirable. I would assume most users want hardware they can trust to just work. Gigabyte has this reputation absolutely 100%, ASUS absolutely do not.