AMD Boards....

[urbantechie]

Actually, the Athlon is not the most expensive processor out there if you haven't noticed that yet.

But why would I have to get good RAM? If it is the best processor out there and everyone loves it I would think I can skimp on the RAM if I wanted to. (because its a good CPU, whats a good CPU? Compatibility?) Say, I have a PII and cheap ass tawainese RAM. But I have say, 512MB. I upgrade to a K7. Oh shucks, I have alot of RAM but its too cheap for a Athlon.

 

[urbantechie]

<< Athlons were high end systems and you do not put crap ram in high end systems. >>



I have yet to see a majority of servers (if thats what you call &quot;high end&quot with Athlons in them.

 

[Rent]

Why would you put 512mb of low quality ram into a server? Or any PC for that matter? Appearently you have not had the BSOD attacks from bad ram.

I never said the Athlon was the most expensive processor. I said look at the timeframe. Do you have a problem reading my posts? I would not put lower quality ram in any system due to the fact that I have seen systems go down and crash systematically. If you want to skimp on the ram, go ahead. I've had too much bad experience with it to buy generic 10ns crap again.

Are you even thinking about performance? If you want to have you system more succeptable to BSODs and crashes, then put bad memory in it. Be my guest.

 

[Rent]

You really don't read the posts. This forumn, what we are attempting to communicate on, is running and Athlons. Researchers in Kentucky are using pods of K7s running linux to conduct their research. I've seen plenty of servers running AMD chips.

 

[urbantechie]

<< I never said the Athlon was the most expensive processor. >>


I was responding to Noriaki post.





<< Researchers in Kentucky are using pods of K7s running linux to conduct their research. I've seen plenty of servers running AMD chips. >>


I'v had never been requested or seen someone request for a Athlon server. Thats just me.


Bottom line is, why is this Processor so picky about components?

 

[Rent]

Have you not seen the multitude of people saying it isn't? The only problem people had was pairing a GeForce with the Athlon because of power consumption. I only saw a handful of cases where RAM was the problem.

 

[DioCassius]

You'd save $400 right now going with a tbird 1ghz over a p3 1ghz($664 v. $267 on pricewatch). I think that's enough savings to justify higher quality ram.

 

[urbantechie]

<< You'd save $400 right now going with a tbird 1ghz over a p3 1ghz($664 v. $267 on pricewatch). I think that's enough savings to justify higher quality ram. >>



Were talking about the classic Athlon. But I think the T-Bird is great. I have no rants about it.

 

[Noriaki]

Forgive me, I meant high-end desktop PC CPU.

And if you didn't notice the post already there are Athlons in server use...you seem to be pretty good at selectively not noticing things huh? Here maybe this will help...

THERE ARE ATHLONS IN USE IN SERVER ENVIRONMENTS

Did you see that?

THE ATHLON USED TO BE VERY PICKY ABOUT COMPONENTS, BUT MOST OF THOSE ISSUES HAVE BEEN SORTED OUT, YOU HAVE HAD MANY REPLIES THAT PEOPLE DO IN FACT USE CHEAP RAM IN ATHLONS

Catch that one?

Why are they so picky about components? If you put sugar in the gas tank of a car it royally fuks up the engine..does that make the car picky about what goes in it? No...don't put crap in your car, don't put crap in your computer.


Ok...I'm willing to bet he pops up with the &quot;why should I have to spend so much on RAM argument again&quot; anyone willing to bet against me?

I can understand you not wanting to waste money you don't have to. Like for example, my motherboard won't run ram at 133Mhz so I don't want to buy PC133 CAS2, I just want to buy high quality PC100 CAS2. So I can understand your desire not to waste money...but where are you getting this RAM that is so picky? Lots of people use generic RAM and are OK...are you getting this RAM from the rejects pile at Mushkin?

 

[Rent]

ROFL!! If you don't want BSODs, get high quality ram. End of stroy.

 

[urbantechie]

<< And if you didn't notice the post already there are Athlons in server use...you seem to be pretty good at selectively not noticing things huh? Here maybe this will help... >>


May I ask you how many people said that. Two or maybe even three? I don't think thats many.



<< THE ATHLON USED TO BE VERY PICKY ABOUT COMPONENTS, BUT MOST OF THOSE ISSUES HAVE BEEN SORTED OUT, YOU HAVE HAD MANY REPLIES THAT PEOPLE DO IN FACT USE CHEAP RAM IN ATHLONS >>


Again, how many said that?

 

[urbantechie]

<< I think the P3 is a whore when it comes to accepting components >>


I think not.

 

[Noriaki]

<< May I ask you how many people said that. >>


Well your 15, you're a big boy now I'm sure you can count.

I feel that I've posted more than enough, you asked why the Athlon is so picky about RAM, you've recived many posts from people saying they are personally fine with whatever RAM they have and have also built other systems with whatever RAM, but you continue to ask the same question over and over again. You are obviously not going to be convinced by our answers, so why do you ask?

Anyways, I've posted enough, I hoped you gained something out of this thread.

 

[Instigator]

Radeon,
Let's start with your first quote:

&quot;Thats why we let the chip manufacturers make the chipsets and the companys make the boards...&quot;

Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't Intel make motherboards. I believe they do and they tend to be the most stable motherboards out there. So, you missed his point. At this point Urbantechie I don't think AMD will get into make motherboards. Also, the newer AMD motherboards do not have nearly the problems the first 750 Irongate motherboards did.

Next quote, which has to be the funniest statement I've ever read on a message board:

&quot;The first gen MSI and Gigabyte boards were basically stock Fester reference boards from AMD with the companys name on them. They were rock stable.&quot;

What were you saying about blanket statements? Rock stable, I don't know of any first generation motherboards that were rock stable and the 750 Irongate motherboards were no exception. Everybody forgets the trouble Intel had with the first generation BX chipset motherboards.

Next quote:

&quot;3) Dead Gigabyte GA-71x. After a bios update this board was MUCH better. Out of the box, it sucked. &quot;

Wait, I thought you said the first generation Gigabyte boards, which were basically stock Fester reference boards were rock stable. You just contradicted yourself.

Next quote:

&quot;I suggest you think before you flame me Instigator. I've been building computers since I was 10, now I'm 19. Age does not matter here. Your ability to comprehend the situation of other people, however, does.&quot;

This is too easy. First, the business I own builds and repairs PCs. I can guarantee you I've built a h@ll of alot more PCs than you ever will. My first computer was an Atari XL1200. I'm not sure but I don't think you were born yet. No wait, you were 4 years old. As far as, my ability to comprehend the situation of other people, I think I figured out Urbantechie's question easy enough without flaming him. I believe you are the one who has problems comprehending the questions people ask, which is apparent by your response to Urbantechie. So, if you flame, you get flamed. His point is that AMD could make their own motherboard to help resolve some of the compatiblity issues, which is a good point. But, the Athlon classic and the Athlon thunderbird/duron have been out long enough that there aren't nearly the compatiblity issues there were at first. Like I said in my first message, the KT133 chipset is an excellent chipset and MSI, ASUS, and Abit make awesome motherboards. I would take a KT133 motherboard ANY day over the first generation 750 Irongate motherboard.

Next quote:

&quot;From all my experience working with Athlons, I've yet to see a classic AMD system crash SOLELY due to bad ram. I think the P3 is a whore when it comes to accepting components.&quot;

Boy, this statement shows your age. You obviously didn't work on alot of first generation 750 Irongate motherboards, because they were know to have issues with cheap memory and power supplies. THAT IS A FACT! Gee, why do you think AMD published recommended power supplies and memory on their web site? Hello, because they were having so many problems with stablity with the first generation motherboards. Would you like a link to their web site? &quot;I think the P3 is a whore.&quot; Wow, this is exactly like a Nvidia vs 3dfx issue. You just don't get it. The P3 is a very good cpu. The AMD Athlon is a very good cpu. It depends on what you want.

Next quote:

&quot;Why would you put 512mb of low quality ram into a server? Or any PC for that matter?&quot;

Funny I don't think Urbantechie said he wanted to put low quality ram into a server.
Why would anybody put cheap ram into there pc? Hmm, because they can. Not everybody can afford Muskin CAS 2 memory. Using high quality ram becomes a bigger issue when you want to overclock. You definitely don't have to buy expensive ram to get a system to run stable.

Xerox Man,

Hey, I'm happy your system is stable. My statement about the first generation 750 Irongate motherboard was dead on. Some people got lucky not using AMD recommended power supplies and memory, but there is a reason AMD published the recommended list.
And I never said ALL AMD motherboards are flaky about power supplies and memory. We are talking about the first generation AMD motherboards. As far as this quote:

&quot;IMHO, don't b!tch about system instability if you're going to use crappy components&quot;

Funny, I'm not using crappy components. Unless you consider Micron memory crappy.

Factor 5,

Umm, there was no typo. The Abit KG7 is the next generation DDR motherboard which uses the AMD 760 chipset. Thanks tho.

Modus,

&quot;Absolutely false. You are taking your own personal negative experience with one (1) single Irongate motherboard to be indicative of the entire range of Irongate motherboards ever made. Right from the beginning, the Athlon platforms have been exceptionally stable. Read some of Anand's reviews of early production boards to refresh your memory. The few problems with nVidia cards were quickly addressed by BIOS and driver updates.

A blanket statement like the one you just made only confirms the sentiment behind your screen name.&quot;

No, I'm not taking my own personal negative experience with one single Irongate motherboard. I'm taking my experience with 25+ first generation 750 Irongate motherboards that I personally built. I never said all AMD motherboards. And your trying to tell me there weren't alot of compatiblity and stability issues with the first generation motherboards. Come on, give me a break. I'm not sure what review your talking about, but for every one that you find that says they were exceptionally stable, I'll find 10 more that say they weren't. I believe HardwareCentral had an article about this topic. Sorry, no way will you ever convince me the first generation AMD motherboards were exceptionally stable. Very few first generation motherboards were exceptionally stable. As far as my name, if you don't like it, don't read my comments.



Noriaki,

I'm also happy you have a stable system. But try using your 250 watt power supply and cheap memory on a first generation AMD 750 chipset and you will be seeing BSOD on 50% of them. You might get lucky and not see BSOD, but 50% of the time a cheap power supply and memory will not fly on the older AMD motherboards. And again we are talking about first generation AMD motherboards, I'm NOT talk about motherboards that had 4 or 5 revisions.

Nesud,

Personally I don't consider Micron cheap memory, but thats me. Also I have the same problem with my USB mouse. If you did build 60+ systems on the first generation AMD 750 chipset and had that kind of success rate then consider yourself lucky, because that was not the case when I was building them. I also tried to buy my motherboards from several different places (i.e. MWAVE, TC Computers, PCNut, etc) to get a wide sample of the motherboards and it still didn't matter. I can't tell you how many web sites, discussion forums, and news groups I went into that were having problems with the older AMD motherboards back in August - October of 1999.

I think that takes care of it. Urbantechie, I wouldn't worry too much about some of the responses from these guys. You make a great point that I agree with (i.e. AMD should consider making their own motherboards). In my experience, motherboards that use the Intel chipset are definitely less flaky when it comes to power supplies and memory. You can use generic memory on most Intel motherboards. I definitely like both the P3 and the Athlon cpus. But I prefer AMD cpus, because they tend to be faster clock for clock in Windows and that in part has to do with the 128k L1 cache. As far as games, the AMD is equal clock for clock to the P3, except for games like Quake 3 which does a excellent job of using SSE instructions. The AMD Thunderbird is just an excellent CPU. The next generation AMD cpus (Mustang - Palomino) will be fast.....very very fast. I also heard they will have SSE instructions, but I can't confirm this. If you plan on building a system in the future I would try the next generation AMD cpus with the AMD 760 DDR chipset. But in any AMD system, I only use AMD recommended power supplies and very good memory. Why mess with it. Later.

 

[NesuD]

I don't consider micron cheap memory either but if you read what I wrote I said it was of generic construction meaning micron chips on non micron pcb's. I wouldn't say I've been lucky I have seen a few quirks but no more than I see with several bx based boards. Maybe I had the good luck because I actually took the time to find out what made a good p.s. for the classic athlon systems. Believe it or not I actually do a little checking on component compatibility before I try slapping it together. Only one board that i saw i didn't like the Asus k7m which was actually a hybrid amd/via board and was never approved by amd in the first place. As to your comment to noriaki about cheap 250 watt power supply's, i would classify the 250 watt deer supply's as pretty cheap yet they work fine in standard Athlon pc configurations with a wide range of motherboards. you need to actually read the power spec for each rail to get a handle on whether the supply is capable of running a 750 fester reference design board My revision 1 ga-7IX ran fine on a cheap no brand 250 until i put the 800 in it. But in a nonfester 4 layer board that supply would also run the 800. Sounds to me like you have a learning disability. You are absolutely unable to learn from other peoples experiences. You have done 25 or so of these systems yourself yet from the sounds of it you continued to use problematic components ie, p.s./memory which again would demonstrate your learning disability. Sounds to me like you did what every other amateur does when they don't do their homework. Blame the board when the actual problem was you used some crap parts. What kind of real business that builds pc's gets all their parts from retailers like mwave, pcnut, and Tc computers? We get all our parts from wholesalers like Techdata, Ingram Micro and a half a dozen other suppliers and actually work out of our shop rather than a spare bedroom.

 

[urbantechie]

Thanks for your support Instigator .

 

[Remnant2]

I still get annoyed when I see people picking on the first-gen Athlon boards. For a first generation they were quite exceptional actually!

about 80% of all problems stemmed from that funked ASUS K7M that did NOT follow AMD specs and was NOT AMD Approved! It was probably the most picky about power issues of all of the 1st gen MBs.

Another 12% were about the FIC boards. The first ones sucked, I'll admit that. By version 1.8 though, they were rock solid.

Of the first gen boards, Microstar and Gigabyte were by far the best. Hell, they're what AMD used when they sent out demo systems to resellers and whatnot.

I bought an original GA-7iX. Using to this day, and love it. Its running off the standard powerman 300w PS that came with my Inwin case.

I threw in pc100 cas3 generic that I had bought at least 1-2 years prior, and it worked like a charm! In fact, I could up the memory timings to cas2, something that was unstable in the FIC VA503+ the stick was in prior.

Bottom line. Don't lump all 1st gen boards together. And don't generalize your bad experience to everyone.

 

[Instigator]

Nesud,
Funny where in my message did I say I had problems with all of the 25+ Athlons systems I build. Let me help you out....no where. So you need to read more carefully. Also, all systems that left my shop were running stable. As far as my ability to learn, you said you build 60+ Athlon systems with the 750 chipset. At least I recommended my customers to stay way from them until further revisions were out. You keep right on building them. Hmm, I would hate to get any recommendations from you. I'll make sure to avoid any of your advice.
Also as stated in my 2nd message I ONLY USE AMD RECOMMENDED POWER SUPPLIES AND MEMORY! There, is that clear enough for you. I bet you are the type of person who doesn't read the manual when you are trying to put something together, then scratch your head and can't figure out what you did wrong. Also I'll gladly put my customers satisfaction up against yours any day of the week. Let me know when you want a lesson on putting a stable system together.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Geez!! you people that complain about the amd 750 problems are so stupid!! Do any of you actually do research before building a machine??? Every one knows that in a decent gaming machine that contains prob. a cdrw a dvd drive a power hungry video and sound card, that you should have at least a 300 watt powersupply. and also, were u completely oblivious to all the information about using only good memory (ie pc133) with the 750 chipsets. Cmon, do your homework and then build your machines.

 

[Stark]

<< I'v had never been requested or seen someone request for a Athlon server. Thats just me. >>

If I remember right, you're posting on an Athlon server. Just because there aren't as many in existence doesn't mean there aren't any.

 

[NesuD]

Instigator you implied your experience with the 25 systems you built was the basis for your opinion. The recommendation statement was a bit moronic. I never said all of the systems I did were first generation irongates. You only specified AMD 750 based systems of the 60+ amd 750 based systems that I have done I can honestly say that there has not been a single motherboard related problem. A considerable number of people in my area seem to respect my opinion since I am constantly asked for it so your low regard of me i don't find particularly troublesome.

<< alot of first generation 750 Irongate motherboards, because they were know to have issues with cheap memory and power supplies. >>

They were also known to function very well when good p.s. and memory were used. Did you experience this first hand? You shouldn't make a generalized statement like that if you have no first hand knowledge of what you are talking about and since you only ever used only amd approved parts that couldn't be the case could it. I personally never used anything off the recommended list I tested a few things first and found that the majority of cheap non approved parts still worked fine with the 750 boards. I stayed with what i knew worked so it was never a problem for me. I am still curious as to why your business has to buy it's parts from retail dealers. That is a curiosity if you are the type of business that you are implying. Actually I've reached the point that I don't really need to read the manuals anymore except for the first time I use the part. I still do generally just for the entertainment value though. By the way that rip on the young fellow that you said was only 4 when you were playing with your atari had no meaning since you know that is an apples an oranges comparison. I certainly don't need your help with putting a stable system together. It is obvious from you posts that your knowledge in that regard appears to be very limited.

 

[PCResources]

<< I've always asked my self this question, why doesn't AMD make their own boards? That would eliminate a whole bunch on incompatibility problems. Same with Intel, their boards are the best stuff, but no bios tweaking/options. So why not AMD? >>



Yeah, the Irongate never had any probs with Nvidia cards??

And the original i820 was a big hit, wonder why they realled that great board??

Check your facts before you make a statement like that.

Patrick Palm

Am speaking for PC Resources

 

[PCResources]

<< Well, why can I get cheapo parts with a Intel system and it'll work. But with Athlons, you are told and recomended to get good RAM. But why should you? It might be the right thing to do but what if you can't afford it? >>



If you buy an Athlon instead of a PIII you can surely afford it, the price difference from the CPU is enough to get better RAM.

Why can't you get cheapo RAM to work with the Athlon?? Sometimes you can, but the thing is, the Athlon is a much more advanced CPU than the PIII, therefore it needs better RAM.

Patrick Palm

Am speaking for PC Resources

 

[PCResources]

<< If you did build 60+ systems on the first generation AMD 750 chipset and had that kind of success rate then consider yourself lucky, because that was not the case when I was building them. I also tried to buy my motherboards from several different places (i.e. MWAVE, TC Computers, PCNut, etc) to get a wide sample of the motherboards and it still didn't matter >>



Well well, i do not know how you were able to get all of those boards to crash, but you cannot be very good at what you do.

I have personally been in this business more than 15 years, and i have had very few probs with the AMD750 Fester board, this was a VERY high quality board, six layer PCB (i sometimes design mobos myself so i have got a pretty good idea about the importance of shielding), high end all the way. It was known for it's problems with AGP2x and Nvidia cards, but that's a minor matter, don't you think?

I actually have 35 servers running this board config today, and i wouldn't have ONE if stability would be less than perfect.

Patrick Palm

Am speaking for PC Resources

 

[urbantechie]

<< Why can't you get cheapo RAM to work with the Athlon?? Sometimes you can, but the thing is, the Athlon is a much more advanced CPU than the PIII, therefore it needs better RAM. >>



Then this goes back to the P3 VS Classic Athlon issue. Is the Athlon a much much more advanced and better CPU than the P3. This make the P3 look like crap. Whenever comparing Classic Athlons with the P3, I always tell customers to go with a P3 system. Its always the little problems that piss people off, and thats what we have been getting alot with the classic CPU. AMD CPUs tend to run hotter versus the P3. When building Socket7 systems, alot of times we get little errors and things here and there, replace with a Pentium MMX, works fine.