Please suggest a MoBo for new office PC's

[Stacey]

Ancra wrote:

...As for the rest, Stacey, who (I belive ) is Intel, if biased at
all, not as I am 'AMD', has made IMO a pretty good job of educating
people of the different characteristics of the P4 and Athlon.

God forbid sugesting either one it seems! One day the AMD zealots are after
me, the next I'm called an "AMD salesman"???

 

[Gene Puhl]

For that budget forget Intel processors, this board if rock solid and
with an XP2000 or so should do anything you need it to do. No oclocking
but it would be stupid to oclock an office machine. I've built a bunch
of systems using this board and NONE have given any problems.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduct.asp?description=13-131-433&depa=1

Yes, a good budget board, I put one together for my daughter. I had grief
with the FSB as it came set up with a 133 mhz FSB, and Durons run @ 100.
The manual was in error with the jumpers, so everything looked OK but it
wouldn't boot. Anyway, after fixing that, it has run as sweet as a nut.

 

[Ancra]

You know what I'm not going to spend all night thinking of quick comebacks for all your outlandish rantings and exaggerations of
what I said. I never said don't post or moderate your OPINIONS, I said don't introduce them as fact then post an obscure
'benchmark' to back it up. L8tr

(hmm, this is somewhat better I suppose... I'll settle for that, while
we get some distance. And you're absolutely right about "quick
comebacks". That's often not a good thing.)

Well, as hopefully civilized again:
You think Winstone is an "obscure 'benchmark'"?
That's a refreshingly new and interestingly controversial opinion.
Why do you think it's obscure?


ancra

 

[JAD]

its not the whet or drystones that I'm referring to...its the person, company, bias or not, what was their motivation for doing the
benchmark? to prove AMD was faster Intel was slower or vice versa. I would rather see a benchmark that as intended to prove INTEL
faster and came out the other way. Benchmarks are not what I look at when determining the usefulness of something, as the
differences are so miniscule that the human brain,eyes etc aren't going to tell the difference anyway....

 

[Stacey]

Stacey <[email protected]> astounded us with:

Yes, a good budget board, I put one together for my daughter. I had grief
with the FSB as it came set up with a 133 mhz FSB, and Durons run @ 100.
The manual was in error with the jumpers, so everything looked OK but it
wouldn't boot. Anyway, after fixing that, it has run as sweet as a nut.

Yea my manual had a added "correction" page inserted showing the original
was wrong. I bet that was frustrating! The only other "trick" is you have
to manually set the HD to use DMA in win98SE to get good HD peformance.

 

[Stacey]

Benchmarks are not what I look at when determining the usefulness of
something, as the differences are so miniscule that the human brain,eyes
etc aren't going to tell the difference anyway....

So if this is the case, why should this guy spend 2X for a slower rated
chip? Just to avoid using an AMD? I can see no logical reason given a $300
budget to choose a P4 1.8 over an XP2400+ no matter what this one benchmark
says..

 

[JAD]

<snip>from my earlier post
AMD is cheaper thats all. I have had them in desktop machines I owned and a......

Must you?

Is that yet another sales pitch i hear?

 

[Stacey]

<snip>from my earlier post
AMD is cheaper thats all. I have had them in desktop machines I owned and
a......

Must you?

Is that yet another sales pitch i hear?

So answering a person's question is now considered a sales pitch? He stated
a budget, the use and IMHO a P4 is a bad choice.

Now, instead of throwing back smart ass coments, explain why a P4 1.8 would
be a better choice than an XP2400? You seem to think recomending an AMD for
this use is so bad, why is it?

 

[JAD]

tell me something do you always have a habit of putting words in peoples mouths. I never said anything remotely like that......


So answering a person's question is now considered a sales pitch?

Keep the convo with me out of the op's, you answered no questions, I asked none. As I read over the thread nearly everything YOU
claimed I said I never did....what group are you posting from?....this started by the infamous AMD benchmarking claims, with no
chipset info, what boards were used etc...but this is all stupid cause you already know this shit....

I would think you would by now know all the things to take into consideration when building your own machine. be it mobo features,
and those features that are available with certain CPU's/chipsets, hyperthreading(lota bull if ya ask me), dual processors,
chipsets themselves(my most biggest consideration these days) reliability of the PSU and peripherals(in an office environment
especially) Nothing too demanding on the power system, that would/could cause premature failure of the system.

HTH you out?

He stated

a budget, the use and IMHO a P4 is a bad choice.

And I never once disagreed with you nor said a thing to the contrary.....are you OK?

Its all about preference and experience when it comes to chip manufactures decisions. if you want to talk cheap budget why not
Cyrix? hmmm? no need to answer..its obvious..but then what's too cheap consider?

 

[Gene Puhl]

Yea my manual had a added "correction" page inserted showing the
original
was wrong. I bet that was frustrating! The only other "trick" is you
have to manually set the HD to use DMA in win98SE to get good HD
peformance.

It's got a 40 gig Seagate Barracuda IV running XP Pro, I couldn't find any
DMA settings in the drive properties thru Device Manager

 

[Strontium]

Gene Puhl stood up at show-n-tell, in
[email protected], and said:

It's got a 40 gig Seagate Barracuda IV running XP Pro, I couldn't
find any DMA settings in the drive properties thru Device Manager

They are located in the properties sheet for the IDE controller(s).

 

[Stacey]

Its all about preference and experience when it comes to chip manufactures
decisions.

"Preference" is not really a good way to choose them. I use AMD when it will
do a better job and an Intel when it will. "Preference" is a pretty lame
way to decide..

 

[Stacey]

It's got a 40 gig Seagate Barracuda IV running XP Pro, I couldn't find any
DMA settings in the drive properties thru Device Manager

In win98 (at least with the sis chipset box I have with win98 installed
handy..) it's with the drive itself. Might look with the ide controller
section for other flavors of windows, seems win2K puts it there. It =IS=
there and without enabling it (ignore the warning box that pops up!) the
drive performance is pretty sad. XP may enable it by default but win2K and
win98 didn't.

 

[JAD]

come on if your going to have the last word make it worth while you used one word out of 100 I typed, A whole paragraph on the
decision making process...and yet again You play like a Newb, like you have never done this before......whatever your
motivation,,,,, your out of charactor..

 

[Ancra]

its not the whet or drystones that I'm referring to...its the person, company, bias or not, what was their motivation for doing the
benchmark? to prove AMD was faster Intel was slower or vice versa. I would rather see a benchmark that as intended to prove INTEL
faster and came out the other way.

Bla, bla...
That benchmark is good and valid. It's just one little piece of the
whole, of course. But that's what we said from the beginning. And it
also happens to be a very important benchmark, ...by the way.

Benchmarks are not what I look at when determining the usefulness of something, as the
differences are so miniscule that the human brain,eyes etc aren't going to tell the difference anyway....

With proper qualifications, that could be a serious observation, that
I could agree with. It may be true for some, some of the time.

Looked at in wider perspectives, it's bullshit. There's few things as
stressful as having some work to do, putting in 14 hour workdays and
having to wait on the computers all the time. Even between mousclicks.

Ultimately, I suppose that's a thorn that is never going to be
removed. And yet there most of us are, ("us" certainly since I'm one
of them) looking at GHz/ratings and prices. Why does the 3.2GHz sell
for $700, 3.0 for $500 and 2.8 for $280?

And for different applications, there's much greater differences in
performances between the P4 and the Athlon than between high end and
medium cpu's (or even lowend!) from the same range. Because they are
wildly different.
So "AMD is cheaper thats all." - is only ignorant.
(and I myself, have certainly been just as ignorant...)

The P4's strengths are well marketed by most currently published
benchmark suits. But the difference is actually greater on the other
end, the things the P4 does badly. So if a PC is going to be worked
hard for a special task, it's more important to figure out wether it
should be a P4 or Athlon, that deciding on a 3.2GHz or 2.4GHz.


ancra

 

[JAD]

so sitting in front of a generic case you could tell the difference between a AMD and P4(of the same speed) just by using it....no
benchmarks, no peeks at system info? Sorry as good as you are, I doubt it.....Its cheaper, Thats all that counts in the real
world......never fell for statistics or benchmarks done by whomever. sort of like listening to election polls......I have used both,
I prefer P4's if that bothers you oh well....used then in every circumstance, never had a single complaint about how fast it
opened/used applications of ANY kind.....now chipsets and motherboard support for AMD may not be there yet, but thats not my
problem. Cheaper its the only thing the average person knows about AMD. If you have chosen the career of educating the masses,
on information they barely will understand, go for it....

 

[Ancra]

so sitting in front of a generic case you could tell the difference between a AMD and P4(of the same speed) just by using it....no
benchmarks, no peeks at system info? Sorry as good as you are, I doubt it

Well, that question is completely irrelevant to me. And I can't see
why it would be unreasonable to expect you to see this too? I still
wan't faster.

.....Its cheaper, Thats all that counts in the real
world......

I would think that is true, as for the how the market sees it. And
it's completely irrelevant too. Assumptions of the general public is
not my guide in anything.

never fell for statistics or benchmarks done by whomever. sort of like listening to election polls......I have used both,
I prefer P4's if that bothers you oh well....

No it doesn't bother me. I have two P4.
Look, I don't want to sound hostile now, but the thing that bothered
me was the "shut up!"-"phew! - obscure benchmark"-"who cares anyway"
-routine.
That is why we have this exchange. It's not an AMD vs Intel thing.
I've noticed you answer a lot of posts, but don't like to type much.
Maybe you sometimes don't come across exactly as you intended.

used then in every circumstance, never had a single complaint about how fast it
opened/used applications of ANY kind.

I think you're overestimating the universal value of a single
experience.
I'm typing this on an old 700MHz that I have in my bedroom. I've never
had a single complaint about how fast it opens/uses applications of
ANY kind, either. Still, it doesn't look like a good idea for me to
use it for work instead of the XP3000+ and the 2.4GHz...

....now chipsets and motherboard support for AMD may not be there yet, but thats not my
problem. Cheaper its the only thing the average person knows about AMD.

I have no complaints about mobos or chipsets. It's not the reason the
P4 shuffles data faster.

If you have chosen the career of educating the masses,
on information they barely will understand, go for it....

- Thankyou! ;-)
That's very gracious of you. And it does indeed seem as if that is the
mission I have taken upon me. But maybe I'd look less foolish if I
leaned back a little.


ancra