Asrock or Biostar?

[pabeader]

Just wondering if the group has opinions about which one is better? The price is almost exactly the same. Is there something that makes one board stand out form the other?

 

[Vette73]

Biostar has always done me well. Of course I say that as I type on my Asrock Via PT880pro board

 

[will889]

If you think you will use onboard sound i would get the AsRock with ALC850 with a fully array of audio jacks instead of the Biostar with ALC655 (though the T-Force version does come with RCA out backplate).

 

[jonnythan]

I went with the Biostar TForce 6100. I've read lots of positive comments about it, and it's overclocking features and ability are apparently pretty impressive. It seems like a very nice solid board for a ridiculously low price... I'm getting mine on Tuesday! I can't wait!

 

[Zap]

Most people seem to like the Biostar for the overclocking features in BIOS. Can't fault them.

 

[jjmIII]

Antec ARIA A64 3000+ SFF-box

The Biostar has GREAT features for a mATX (or any board really). The included fan utility really keeps my SFF box quiet. No complaints, but never tried the Asrock.

 

[pabeader]

Well folks, I went with the AsRock. I was able to save a buck and it seems to have a slight performance advantage. Will try to OC a little (just for fun)

Will post my experience once I get the parts installed.

 

[will889]

Originally posted by: pabeader
Well folks, I went with the AsRock. I was able to save a buck and it seems to have a slight performance advantage. Will try to OC a little (just for fun)

Will post my experience once I get the parts installed.

Please do, i may use a few in builds

 

[pabeader]

Well here comes the drama...

Since my budget was small I elected to reuse a case that I had laying around. Have you ever tried to work with a Compaq case?? Boy is that fun! NOT! The front panel switch connector needed to be moved around to match what is needed for the new 'standard' motherboard. The front panel USB cabling is too short and the pinout is different also. Still haven't gotten that right.
Got everything installed and turned on the power for the first time. Or I tried to anyway. Pressing the button many times and feeling that ugly sinking feeling. After moving the wires around on the connector plug, guess who forgot to attach it to the motherboard???
Got it fired up and pressed DEL while it boots up... Nope, not Del on this one it's F2. Guess I should have read the manual beyond the connector info.
Got into the bios and noticed there are a LOT of pages of info. Will have to dig into them and see what all is there.

I have a question at this point. I noticed that the Bios reports the memory as 333MHz and I paid for and apparently received 400MHz Is there a setting I need to look for?

Thanks for reading this and I will continue to update it as I do more. Only have 15 mins each day to work on this. How am I going to install XP 64-bit in 15 mins? NO WAY!

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: pabeader
Got everything installed and turned on the power for the first time. Or I tried to anyway. Pressing the button many times and feeling that ugly sinking feeling. After moving the wires around on the connector plug, guess who forgot to attach it to the motherboard???

No sweat dude, happened to me yesterday with a swapped reset/power switch connectors.

As for your RAM running DDR333, is your board socket 754 and your RAM two sticks? If so, you should have gotten a single 1GB stick.

 

[pabeader]

Why?

ps I was able to make a change in the Bios and now the memory is reporting 400

 

[Zap]

Well, socket 754 is not dual channel and though most boards work fine with two sticks of RAM there is no benefit from doing so, and if you need more RAM in the future the board may not be able to run 3 sticks of double sided RAM even if it has three physical slots, hence a single stick of 1GB would be better than two 512MB sticks.

 

[pabeader]

Here is what's new:
I tweaked the bios settings a little, I'm at 250MHz CPU which means almost 2000MHz!!
I have not changed the voltages and the processor is running around 97° so not bad at all.

Tweaked the memory to CL 2.5 so a little boost there.

Installed both XP and XP 64 Not to much visible difference. Am having trouble installing non-64bit programs in XP64 though.

That's about all for now.

Maybe more later today.

 

[maddoxdy]

I'm trying to decide between the TForce and the GeForce.

Will the TForce run a Sempron? That's all the money I've got to put into this at the moment.

Or, should I just settle for 512 MB of RAM?

I should be able to get more money into this thing in the spring, maybe then I can get more memory or a Athlon 64.

The last time I built a PC, it was the era of the 1 GHz Athlons.

Doug