PC motherboard, which brand?

[rnln]

Hi guys, between MSI, ECS, Asus, Gigabyte, and Jetway, which one to choose? And which one to stay away?
I used to have MSI and ECS, both gave me bad experience but that was 10+ years ago. Are they the same now?

When talking about expantion slot, what is PCIE x 16 and PCIE x 1?

Thanks.

[Mr.Puff]

eVGA or Asus. The PCI-E x16 is for video cards. x1, x4, and x8 PCI-E slots are often expansion slots like normal PCI. PCI-E is just faster than PCI. Like how PCI is faster than ISA.

[Skytrooper]

I have used Asus, ECS, MSI, Gigabyte, DFI, and others that I have now forgotten. I am definitely sold on Asus. The last 3 have been fantastic boards with no hiccups.
PCI-E is PCI Express. The version you want will depend upon your video card. If you have a PCI-E x16 video card then that is the type PCI-E slot you want on your MB. Of course they are backwards compatible, so if you have a PCI-E x16 video card it will run in a PCI-E x1 -x8 slot but will operate at a much slower speed thus not giving you the graphics you had hoped for with a PCI-E x16 video card.
PCI-E x2.0 is newer than PCI-E x 16 BTW

[gr8fl4porsche]

I have bought 3 gigabyte boards in the last few months, all have been perfect so far. I went with Intel processors but you can save a little cash and go AMD.

The boards I bought have huge heat sinks with connecting tubes between the bridges to dissipate heat.

[dw1]

Asus

I've used these m/b's in my pc's and those I've built for others. Very "tweakable" for overclocking or other reasons. Very reliable, and feature-rich.

[rnln]

thanks all. One more question on Raid. I always like the idea to save data to both places so I do not have to worry about backing up. does anyone see any disadvantage or inconvenience?

[HardDrive]

Originally Posted by rnln

thanks all. One more question on Raid. I always like the idea to save data to both places so I do not have to worry about backing up. does anyone see any disadvantage or inconvenience?

There is a difference between 'redundancy' and 'backup'.

Using RAID saves you from down time by giving you instant or very quick access to your data if you should experience disk (or other component) failure. But thats not a replacement for backing up regularly.

RAID doesn't matter when the house burns down and you don't have an off site back up.

I have a 500GB external drive in a safe deposit box at my bank. I bring it home every 6-8 weeks and back up all of our family photos/importants docs. I'm a bit lazy about it, but if we every lose the house, we don't lose the important stuff. This is a cheap and very easy way to have peace of mind.

[TibetanT]

RAID is a good thing. However, software RAID is very slow compared to hardware RAID. And, are we talking about a PC or a server? If it's a PC you probably are using RAID0. If you have more than three hard drives then you can use RAID5 which is safer.

You must have a backup solution too. Why? Because you are only as good as your last backup! Period.

Just buy a DVD burner and burn DVD's of your data. If you have the original installation disks, then you have your OS there along with drivers.

[rnln]

thanks, again.
I am lazy enough to think about raid 1 with motherboard raid, and 2 hard drives so I don't have to backup things daily. If one HD goes down, I still have another identical one running with all the data. Is it the way it works or I don't understand it right?

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131229

Also, I have a question on cases and power supplies, what kind of wattges do I need on the PS? Is 350w ok or do I need more than 350w?
Thanks.

[rnln]

1 more question hope you gguys don't mind, regarding raid. I know that I have to have 2 identical drive for raid 1. The question is when saying identical, do they have to be the same brand/model or only size and speed, or even size is enough? Let say I have 1 Seagate and 1 Samsung, both are 500GB. Are they ok to be raided?
Thanks

[rnln]

anyone know?

[Mr.Puff]

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Use this to calculate the power supply.

[Vipergrün]

Ideally the drives being mirrored (RAID1) will be the same size AND speed. If one drive is slower, your RAID controller may complain, or both drives may run at the slower speed. You can mirror a smaller drive to a larger drive, but you may have wasted space on the larger drive. I am talking about hardware raid here where no partitions are involved. Oh, and don't forget, RAID does not protect against date errors, data deletion, etc.. Finally, if you have 2 channels on your RAID controller, you should put a drive on each for best performance. You should implement a backup solution too

[rnln]

Brad,
sigh... if I still have to back up, I probably forget the whole idea about raid to save $$. The reason why I want raid 1 is because I can avoid backing up frequently. If one drive goes down, I just stick another one in and all the data is still there.
Please tell me in which case that might happen which I still need to implement backing up.
Thanks Brad

[Vipergrün]

Don't get me wrong, RAID1 is still a good idea and will reduce the risk of data loss due to a drive failure. However, many people overlook the fact that RAID will not protect against human error, such as deletions, bad data, etc. In the corporate world we do risk analysis to determine our data recovery plan and to what level we backup/protect that data. If you not working with "important" data, or it can be easily reconstructed, RAID may be fine. If you would lose years of data and hard work, or risk losing your company due to data loss, you'd probably want to backup as well. Oh yeah, if you do backup the data, PLEASE to not leave the tape/CD/DVD containing that data sitting next to your computer. If your house burns down.....well, you can figure that out

[rnln]

Got you. Thanks.
In fact, I just lost all of my years of data because the back up drive fail

[slodave]

If you want your data back, you can always drop me a PM.

[rnln]

Hi Dave,
At first, I thought I can try it myself to save some bucks. But I gave up. Then I got the second HD and start searching/saving piece by piece, the second one is bad too within several months. Then, the third one and the fourth one. Now, I am into a big mess so I try to forget all about it. But I will keep your information in case I ever need it in the future.
Thanks Dave.

[slodave]

Ok. Just trying to help you out. Wasn't going to charge you. Shh!

Cool, first post from my iphone.

[rnln]

oh no Dave, I was saying that regarding those local places around here. I know you would just do me a favor but I just didn't feel comfortable.
Thanks for the nice offer Dave.