Intel versus other-company motherboard

I have planned to purchase an Intel-954G-based motherboard, which can
support a 1 Ghz P4 and up to 667 Mhz DDR2. Since Intel boards are more
costly, I wish to ask a question: How important or beneficial is it to
buy a motherboard manufactured by Intel vis-a-vis one having the same
chipset but manufactured by any other company, such as Gigabyte?

Thanks,
Gyan

In news:1135023388.130082.62310@g43g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com,
Gyan <letterzone@yahoo.com> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

> I have planned to purchase an Intel-954G-based motherboard, which can
> support a 1 Ghz P4 and up to 667 Mhz DDR2. Since Intel boards are more
> costly, I wish to ask a question: How important or beneficial is it to
> buy a motherboard manufactured by Intel vis-a-vis one having the same
> chipset but manufactured by any other company, such as Gigabyte?
>
> Thanks,
> Gyan

I personally ONLY recommend an Intel to any client under very specific
circumstances.

When you're running a giant corporation there's nothing better than being
able to use a single image and a single vendor for your point of contact. As
Intel makes it's own boards and it's own chips then, and only then, is where
I recommend such a purchase. Then, and only then, is the added price a
value. I see no difference in quality between them and a number of other
vendors and I see their chips as being slower, hotter, and more expensive.
Their chipset feature set is no different in quality or features than that
of any other vendor in my experience and the fail rate is pretty much the
same from the dead boxes that I see.

For my own personal use I use GigaByte boards almost exclusively these days.
I am fond of the nVidia chipset, the price, and though I hate the out-of-box
RMA process the warranty is long enough to satisfy me - now if they'd
(GigaByte) just send the replacement board and a return shipping label
instead of making me tear it out of the box first I'd be a lot happier.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/

"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of
existence." - Sherlock Holmes

Gyan wrote:

> I have planned to purchase an Intel-954G-based motherboard, which can
> support a 1 Ghz P4 and up to 667 Mhz DDR2. Since Intel boards are more
> costly, I wish to ask a question: How important or beneficial is it to
> buy a motherboard manufactured by Intel vis-a-vis one having the same
> chipset but manufactured by any other company, such as Gigabyte?
>
> Thanks,
> Gyan
>


Nothing wrong with Intel motherboards. There are several good
competing brands. What are important is the chipset as well as
the features being offered, e.g., onboard sound, video, NIC,
etc. The chipset of preference is normally Intel, however. Once
we choose a specific brand, we will test the board. If it passes
our requirements, we do our development around it.

In article <1135023388.130082.62310@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups. com>, "Gyan"
<letterzone@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I have planned to purchase an Intel-954G-based motherboard, which can
> support a 1 Ghz P4 and up to 667 Mhz DDR2. Since Intel boards are more
> costly, I wish to ask a question: How important or beneficial is it to
> buy a motherboard manufactured by Intel vis-a-vis one having the same
> chipset but manufactured by any other company, such as Gigabyte?
>
> Thanks,
> Gyan

Intel contracts the manufacturing of its boards, to other major
suppliers. If you use a search engine, you may find announcements
of who got the latest contract for manufacturing. The schematic design
might be by Intel themselves, but the manufacturing step is done
elsewhere. A domestically produced motherboard, would cost a fortune
from a labor perspective, and Taiwan or China is the best place for
Intel to get the motherboard.

"Asus and Intel Split?"
http://www.ap0calypse.com/showthread.php?t=716

Intel usually doesn't have any overclock settings. Other manufacturers
will allow you to do that.

The other motherboard manufacturers will use the recommended "reference
design" for the chipset section of the motherboard. Each manufacturer
has their own unique way of doing some parts of the design, consistent
with increasing the volume of certain kinds of components, or in
cutting costs compared to the Intel reference design. As an end user,
it is up to you, to spot reports of motherboard failures, to discover
which brand cut too many corners.

One place to look, is on the newegg.com web site. There are reviews
by customers next to many items for sale, and if you see reports
of failures on purchased motherboards, that may guide you on which
brands to avoid.

Documentation quality and website support, a web page showing CPU
types supported, BIOS upgrades and drivers for download, are also
important considerations when you purchase. I recommend downloading
the user manual for a motherboard, before you buy it. All the major
manufacturers have manuals for download.

Paul

On 19 Dec 2005 12:16:28 -0800, "Gyan" <letterzone@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>I have planned to purchase an Intel-954G-based motherboard, which can
>support a 1 Ghz P4 and up to 667 Mhz DDR2. Since Intel boards are more
>costly, I wish to ask a question: How important or beneficial is it to
>buy a motherboard manufactured by Intel vis-a-vis one having the same
>chipset but manufactured by any other company, such as Gigabyte?
>
>Thanks,
>Gyan

Galen already mentioned what is likely the most important
issue- whether you need to build same or very similar
duplicate systems for ease of system maintenance or setup.

For a single system, there's no real gain from Intel
manufacturered boards, though Intel is better thought of as
the branding from being designer, they don't actually "make"
them.

Gigabyte makes many good boards, and also some lower-end
products that are a bit lower quality than the typical
boards from Asus, MSI, or Abit. Your best bet is one of
these 4 manufacturers, not an off-brand or budgetized
manufacturer like PC Chips.

Asus is the largest manufacturer of motherboards in the world. I highly
recommend them after many years of use of different models.

--
DaveW

----------------
"Gyan" <letterzone@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1135023388.130082.62310@g43g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com...
>I have planned to purchase an Intel-954G-based motherboard, which can
> support a 1 Ghz P4 and up to 667 Mhz DDR2. Since Intel boards are more
> costly, I wish to ask a question: How important or beneficial is it to
> buy a motherboard manufactured by Intel vis-a-vis one having the same
> chipset but manufactured by any other company, such as Gigabyte?
>
> Thanks,
> Gyan
>

I have to agree about Asus. I have used Asus boards exclusively for about 8
years and never had a problem with the boards. The are very well made robust
and highly configurable from many different aspects. They are very well
specked but you do pay a slight price premium. My only grumble with Asus
were a number of years ago bought a board that had the RDRAM chip but had
another chip to allow SDRAM to be used instead of RDRAM. Intel blundered
when they made this conversion chip and it had a timing issue. Intel took
back all their own brand boards giving people a replacement board and a
stick of RDRAM but Asus didn't want to know.

Glen


"DaveW" <somewhere@zero.org> wrote in message
news:BtGdnVWbSvU_1zreRVn-jg@comcast.com...
> Asus is the largest manufacturer of motherboards in the world. I highly
> recommend them after many years of use of different models.
>
> --
> DaveW
>
> ----------------
> "Gyan" <letterzone@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1135023388.130082.62310@g43g2000cwa.googlegro ups.com...
>>I have planned to purchase an Intel-954G-based motherboard, which can
>> support a 1 Ghz P4 and up to 667 Mhz DDR2. Since Intel boards are more
>> costly, I wish to ask a question: How important or beneficial is it to
>> buy a motherboard manufactured by Intel vis-a-vis one having the same
>> chipset but manufactured by any other company, such as Gigabyte?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Gyan
>>
>
>

I also agree about ASUS, been using a number of their Dual Xeon boards
for close to 4 years, never had one fail, always performs well, have
about 30 of them in the field right now.

--

spam999free@rrohio.com
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One thing I heard on tech tv, back when it was worth watching, is Intel
boards can not be overclocked.

-g

In article <SaLpf.448$R84.120@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.ne t>,
spam@spam.org says...
> One thing I heard on tech tv, back when it was worth watching, is Intel
> boards can not be overclocked.

Over clocking is for Amatures and people that don't need stable systems.
While you MAY be able to over-clock and get some benefit without
instability, most of the time it's not worth the head-aches that you end
up with.

Do you really need 398FPS in Counter-Strike or Far-Cry?

--

spam999free@rrohio.com
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