dell mobo's with few caps?

[benjamit]

this has been bothering me for some time now
my work has dells that i open up now and then to add/remove h/w
i notice that dells mobos are clean, free of those usual (large)capacitors and h/s often found even on the better quality after market mobos
the dell mobo is labeled dell on it but i suspect dell doen't actually make it
the dell mobo has intel chipsets so does that mean that these mobo's are intel made?
there are lots of mobos with intel chipsets that are not intel made
why can't other mobo makers make their boards as clean as the ones found in dell machines?

 

[Ryan]

because dell takes away many options from it's boards. They also don't make their mobos - no computer maker does. They probably have an inside deal w/ another mobo maker to make modded/custom boards.

 

[Lore]

Dell spends plenty of time performing QA on the motherboards they spec'ed out for manufacturing. That also means they only put down what is absolutely needed on a board. And like rbloedow says, many of the features that we've come to expect from Abit, Asus, etc, are not offered.

Most of their boards are manufactured by major motherboard manufacturers like Intel or Acer.

 

[benjamit]

yes

given dell boards are limited they seem very stable

and in my current state of mind i no longer care about absolute speed and power from my machines (since affording the latest, fastest h/w is impossible for me now and for several years i'm predicting)

what i do care about is stability and reliability

my wife does graphics and there is no point in doing work on a machine if it cann't be trusted to work reliably

plus the dells clean boards seem easier to handle with less caps and h/s

[on a side note i broke off a small cap on the edge of my msi 694d board during install- i think the cap was involved in some feature that was not fully available on the board- as it worked out the board works fine without the cap and there is no noticeable problem- if there was i think it would have been immediate and clear]

the board itself is as stable as anyother component in my systems