[geeks] Interesting low-end MB found for current Intel CPUs

[Doug McLaren]

On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 12:06:59AM +0000, Mark wrote:

| Hold it there sir, look who makes it - ECS. Don't you remember the  
| K7S5A? I'd never use another one of their motherboards if my life  
| depended on it after that screw-up-on-silicon...

I've had a few K7S5A motherboards, and haven't found them to be any
better or worse than the rest of the ECS boards.

However, I've never found the ECS boards to be particularly good, any
of them.  I've had a much larger failure rate on ECS boards than on
boards by any other motherboard manufacturer.  And worse, in many
cases, the ECS board works `most of the time' -- but craps out
occasionally.  Get a better board, problems all go away.

Personally, the only reason I'd get a ECS board would be that I'm
getting a cpu from Frys and it comes bundled with an ECS board for
less than the price of the CPU itself somewhere else.  And in that
case, if the application wasn't particularly critical, I'd give the
motherboard a try -- but I'd not expect much from it.

In any event, I've never found motherboards to be a good place to save
money.  You don't have to buy the most expensive ones, but avoid the
rock bottom -- where you'll find ECS.

And if you do want an ECS motherboard, and there's a Frys nearby,
check the local craigslist -- lots of people will buy the cpu+mb
bundles and immediately turn around and try to get *something* for the
motherboard.

-- 
Doug McLaren, dougmc at frenzied.us
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him go off the high dive.