[übermetroid]

Originally posted by mikhael
Because, at the same price point, an ATi card is really far better performance wise, ubermetroid. Also, these cards perform horribly for the generation of video card in which they were released. They're definately decent cards, but they're not on par with the hardware they compete with.

REALLY????  

Opps!

I only got the FX5600 because I got the Nvidia MB too...
I will have to shop around more the next time I buy.

[mikhael]

Now see, there's something I would never do: Nvidia chipset mother boards. That's kind of like buying an Intel graphics card. Dude, that's just wrong.

[Liberator]

Nevermind it's actually one of the best chipsets for an AMD based system.

[mikhael]

No, I don't think so, Lib. They're pretty much garbage in a serious server or high-availability environment. They have distinct and deep issues with some peripheral hardware that are sensitive to time, etc.

They're decent, but so were the Intel Starfire (IIR the name Correctly) video chipsets. They're not what you should use in serious hardware.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by mikhael
No, I don't think so, Lib. They're pretty much garbage in a serious server or high-availability environment. They have distinct and deep issues with some peripheral hardware that are sensitive to time, etc.

Yeah cause we all use servers to surf, word process and play Halo

[Admiral LSD]

Originally posted by Kazan
nvidia doesn't have a reference design...

Complete and utter crap. What do you think all these reviews of the GeForce 6800 (and practically every review of pre-release nVidia hardware) are being based on? That's right, reference cards provided by nVidia built to nVidia's reference design.

[übermetroid]

Originally posted by mikhael
Now see, there's something I would never do: Nvidia chipset mother boards. That's kind of like buying an Intel graphics card. Dude, that's just wrong.

Yea, well everything looked nice when I was putting building the PC on www.ibuypower.com .   And I am not complaining on how fast it runs...  

[Taristin]

My board is top of the line 32-bit from Asus. What's it got? nVidia Nforce 2 Ultra chipset.  Bad? I doubt it.

Heeh, my bottleneck is the processor and the ram.

[Grey Wolf]

Originally posted by Admiral LSD


Complete and utter crap. What do you think all these reviews of the GeForce 6800 (and practically every review of pre-release nVidia hardware) are being based on? That's right, reference cards provided by nVidia built to nVidia's reference design.

Most retail cards you find are built to nVidia's reference design, since most manufacturers are very, very, lazy. Especially once you get out of first tier.

[Setekh]

[totally brand-independent] I generally steer away from the integrated motherboards, if only for the driver issues they cause. Half my friends who have computer problems I fix have their problems with screwy drivers. The other half have their problems with Windows. [/totally brand-independent]

[ChronoReverse]

Originally posted by mikhael
No, I don't think so, Lib. They're pretty much garbage in a serious server or high-availability environment. They have distinct and deep issues with some peripheral hardware that are sensitive to time, etc.

They're decent, but so were the Intel Starfire (IIR the name Correctly) video chipsets. They're not what you should use in serious hardware.

So... which brand of chipsets should we go for then?  They've fixed the ide issues the nf2 had ages ago and I don't see what other major problems there are.


In any case, all of the problems that the nForce2 would have as an server chipset are completely moot since the nForce2 is for the AthlonXP's which are desktop chips.

And guess what, the nf2 has the best desktop performance.

[Grey Wolf]

So which brand do you actually like. mikhael? VIA, Ali, SiS? Everyone is integrating now.

And on NF2, they do have the best performance, even though that lead is very, very, small, but they're very picky about RAM and the like. My old KT333 cared much less about timings and let me push my RAM farther.

[mikhael]

Everyone is not integrated--unless you focus on consumer boards. They're pretty much all integrated, unfortunately.

As for the 'Yeah cause we all use servers to surf, word process and play Halo', I have to say that, as an argument, is bollocks. Some people watch movies on TVs and some watch them on digital projectors. Why? because we like better gear. You can use whatever gear you want to use. I stated my preference to avoid gear that I think, in my professional judgement, is wrong for the tasks to which I will put it.

[ChronoReverse]

So... I'll re-iterate, which chipset do you use then?


It's also interesting to note the server hardware isn't faster or better for the common day tasks since they designed to be reliable first.

[mikhael]

Reliable. That's a good thing.

It depends on the machine, Chrono. I think--and without opening cases I can't tell you for sure--that all my Intel hardware is on BX chipsets (its old stuff) and I know my AMD stuff is on stock AMD chipsets (though which specific ones I cannot recall). I've found that for my AMD stuff, stock AMD chipsets have been the most solid (less BSODs/lockups/crashes/kernel panics/etc than other 'sexier' chipsets in large heterogenous hosting/lab/server-room environments).

Pretty soon, all I'll even have in the house is the BX chipset server, since the desktops are all going away to be replaced by IBM laptops and there, I hate to say it, I'm not terribly concerned with the hardware details. They run FreeBSD stably and that's all I care about for the terminals they'll be.

[edit]
Appears I was wrong. In one machine, its a KT333. That was supposed to be gone long ago. The other two are 760MPX chipsets.
There's two other machines I can't check because they're physically in another city.
[/edit]

[ChronoReverse]

So, you have dualies.  Of course you wouldn't choose nforce2 then, it's not even for multiple processors.

Stability may be good, but a nforce2 or kt400 system with plain unbuffered ram is more than stable enough for almost any kind of work besides the heavy duty database, 24 hour, number crunching, mission critical stuff.

In any case, it certainly doesn't warrant your comment about never buying a nvidia chipset.

_You_ might never buy one because of what you need to do, but it's not good advice for everyone else since they don't have the same requirements as you.

And frankly, a properly setup nforce2 or kt400 system can handle number crunching just fine as long as you have decent parts to go with it and use conservative settings.  You'll want the uber-reliable ECC stuff for lab conditions though I admit (and of course nf2 isn't going to be able to use that).

[karajorma]

Originally posted by mikhael
As for the 'Yeah cause we all use servers to surf, word process and play Halo', I have to say that, as an argument, is bollocks. Some people watch movies on TVs and some watch them on digital projectors. Why? because we like better gear. You can use whatever gear you want to use. I stated my preference to avoid gear that I think, in my professional judgement, is wrong for the tasks to which I will put it.

If you want to use a projector instead of a TV that's fine but your earlier comment amounted to little more than saying buying a TV instead of a projector was just wrong and that anyone who bought a TV was an idiot. That's what I took issue to.

Of course there is better hardware than the NForce2 boards on the market but for the majority of people paying the extra for a non-integrated solution just isn't worth it.

[aldo_14]

I'm a consumer.  I have a 'consumer board'.  to be honest, I couldn't give a flying **** about the technology anymore - so long as it works, and I can get paid using it something else, I couldn;t care if it's the best or worst.  

There's more important things to argue about than this stuff......like footie.

[mikhael]

Chrono, I actually have NO dual processor machines, just uniprocessor machines with dual processor chipsets. We used them at Cisco for some of the *nix boxes. I was very well pleased with their stability (especially under certain flavors of *nix).

Originally posted by karajorma


If you want to use a projector instead of a TV that's fine but your earlier comment amounted to little more than saying buying a TV instead of a projector was just wrong and that anyone who bought a TV was an idiot. That's what I took issue to.

Of course there is better hardware than the NForce2 boards on the market but for the majority of people paying the extra for a non-integrated solution just isn't worth it.

I'm a professional. It would be rather stupid of me to ignore my professional experience and judgement when buying gear from my house.

At no point did I say someone was stupid for using Nvidia chipsets. Read what is written, not what you think was written.

[Liberator]

We keep forgetting that you're not really a "Gaming Geek" like the rest of us mik, sorry.