Gaming on Ecs Boards what your opinion?

[eternalone]

I know Ecs boards have been in the past flaky at best trust me I know. But I have owned some pretty good Ecs boards in the past that actually didnt die, believe it or not. My question to you is realistically with these modern Ecs boards having some descent chip sets, do you think its worth building around one for a budget gaming rig, when you get one at frys with your cpu??

 

[nerp]

If you're not overclocking, yes, the ECS board should be more than adequate. The key thing to worry about would be stability. If your board is stable and reliable enough, there really isn't any major difference to other boards with the same chipset. You might have less features and less sophisticated chipset cooling, but if the board functions as it should, there's no reason to spend more, IMHO.

If you want to overclock, then you'd definatley want to make sure that you get a board designed for that.

 

[o1die]

The ecs fry's combos should work ok; and I've never had a problem returning one. Ecs makes about 3 million boards a year; another hardware forum did a tour of their facility and was impressed with their setup and quality controls. I don't overclock ecs boards; they aren't designed for it.

 

[taltamir]

the reason i don't touch ECS boards, is the various compatibility issues and bugs that inevitibly crop up, which means it takes me 10 hours to build an ECS based system rather then less then one. (for example, on one such board I found that IDE0 master would detect my samsung 160GB drive as 32GB, the IDE0 slave detected it as 160GB, but the bios could not boot from it.IDE1 master also detected it as only 32GB, but the IDE1 slave detected it as 160GB and the bios allowed me to boot from it. that was issue 1 out of 3 I had to resolve on that mobo, the other two being ram compability and some driver issue)

that was the last straw with ECS, but not my only example, every ECS board I owned was a pain... also, beware of abit, they are now rebranding ECS boards.

So yea, my time is worth more then the 10$ I'd save by buying an ECS board... but, once you have it working, there is no reason why it will be slower for gaming (well latency due to printed circuit shaping... but that is insignificant)

Nowadays I use boards from Asus, gigabyte, and MSI...

 

[eternalone]

Originally posted by: nerp
If you're not overclocking, yes, the ECS board should be more than adequate. The key thing to worry about would be stability. If your board is stable and reliable enough, there really isn't any major difference to other boards with the same chipset. You might have less features and less sophisticated chipset cooling, but if the board functions as it should, there's no reason to spend more, IMHO.

If you want to overclock, then you'd definatley want to make sure that you get a board designed for that.

Yeah very cool thanx I figured as much.

Originally posted by: taltamir


that was the last straw with ECS, but not my only example, every ECS board I owned was a pain... also, beware of abit, they are now rebranding ECS boards.



Nowadays I use boards from Asus, gigabyte, and MSI...

Really wow didnt know they could do that.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: taltamir
also, beware of abit, they are now rebranding ECS boards.

Abit has been rebranding ECS boards for six or seven years now...along with everyone else.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: eternalone
I know Ecs boards have been in the past flaky at best trust me I know. But I have owned some pretty good Ecs boards in the past that actually didnt die, believe it or not.

I've seen dead or flakey boards from EVERY brand. The Abit IP35-E in my main rig still locks on POST and I have to hit reset. My wife's computer's Gigabyte GA965S3 board will often stop POSTing after changing the FSB, and won't POST again until it has sat a while unpowered - no amount of clearing CMOS will revive it, only leaving it unhooked. My Asus P5K-VM board will sometimes lock on POST with a "chassis intrusion" message. Don't even get me started on playing around with various 680i boards and Wolfdales.

ECS is a CEM for many, many companies. There is nothing about an ECS product that precludes you from using it for a gaming rig, unless you're the type to die from shame for using a motherboard that doesn't cost at least $300. ECS boards can be as stable as any other board. ECS boards can also be overclockable, though this is their only true failing in that on average they don't clock as high as enthusiast level boards from [insert manufacturer's name here]. BITD I (along with many others here) had great luck overclocking the ECS NFORCE3-A motherboard to the limits of the CPU. Sure, it wouldn't hit super high HTT, but at default multiplier the CPU usually crapped out first before the HTT on those Sempron 3100+ deals of yesteryear. More recently I played around with an ECS P35T-A board. It did reasonably well. Sure, those 7x-8x multiplier chips wouldn't be pushed by this board, but with a cheap chip like the E5200 or E7200, the chip will crap out before the board.

A friend of mine has an ECS NFORCE7100 chipset board from Fry's. With included CPU he was able to easily overclock it to the next bus speed and it runs stable and plays any game he runs. He uses it for his dedicated LAN gaming rig in an Ultra MicroFly case.

 

[BTA]

I've never had a single problem with any ECS or PC Chips motherboard.

They're fine if their features match your requirements.

And I'll bet a lot of the people who "refuse to buy anything but *insert brand name here*" are running one made in their factory right this moment.

 

[pugh]

I toss them in friends and family builds with no probs at all. I have been building for almost a decade now and never took me numerous hours to get one up and running.

 

[azev]

I have a server with ecs mobo (frys combo) running win2k3 server os that is constantly pushing around 20mb ftp/web traffic at a colo location, and it has been very stable. The only downtime I had was a dead power supply.

 

[taltamir]

speaking of overclockability, I remember this one ECS board that actually WON as the most overclockable board of its time. It wasn't even too long ago. So ECS is not a gaurenteed non OC. Then again, most ECS boards I had wouldn't OC at all. (and that board was a very expensive OC minded one).

I don't know why you brought up 300$ boards. A similar chipset / features board would only be a few (10 or 20) dollars difference between different brands. The 300$ boards use more expensive chipsets and more expensive features (on board wifi, etc).

And yes, you WILL have flaky boards from ALL manufacturers... I am just saying that my experience I had MORE flakiness from abit and ECS, and the least flakiness from ASUS and Gigaybte and MSI. And as far as I am concerned, a single RMA, or a few extra hours of figuring out the exact WAY in which the board flakes and working around them is not worth 10 or 20$.
I would take an ECS board in a heartbeat if it was 50$ less, because for that much money it IS worth my time to mess with.
Ofcourse INDIVIDUAL boards matter too.. if you hear board X from ASUS is extremely flaky and board Y from ECS is rock solid, then board Y is the obvious choice. But if you haven't found much on a per item research, a safer choice would be a top tier manufacturer.

I also don't recommend potentially more difficult to work with boards to people because I don't know how comfortable they are with computers and with messing with things. Last thing I wanna do is give advice to someone that will end up with them unable to finish their build. (not EVERYONE can find workarounds like we can )

Lastly... I would rate ASUS as 2/5 stars, gigabyte and MSI as 1.5/5 stars (they loose half a point for their horrible engrish). And most other manufactureres between 0 and -3 out of 5 stars.
Don't EXPECT quality and stability from the computer world. Expect bugs, work arounds, and don't even bother trying to do ANYTHING before updating to the latest version (bios, OS, software, drivers, etc).

 

[will889]

The "flakiness" really isn't about brand as much as any given specific model of a motherboard - and it's subsequent bios releases and any possible inherent design flaws added to that mix.

 

[eternalone]

Im conflicted. LOL.

 

[edplayer]

Originally posted by: eternalone
My question to you is realistically with these modern Ecs boards having some descent chip sets, do you think its worth building around one for a budget gaming rig, when you get one at frys with your cpu??

Do you consider Intel P43, P45, P35 and X48 to be good chipsets? Those are some that ECS uses. You won't find those in the Fry's combo deals anytime soon though.

The one you usually find is the Nvidia 7050 based motherboard. They recently had one with Intel's G31/ E8400

If it is stable, you got pretty much all you can reasonably expect from a budget/"basically free" gaming motherboard

 

[edplayer]

and if you don't like it, you can always sell it for around $25 or so.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: taltamir
And yes, you WILL have flaky boards from ALL manufacturers...
...
Don't EXPECT quality and stability from the computer world. Expect bugs, work arounds, and don't even bother trying to do ANYTHING before updating to the latest version (bios, OS, software, drivers, etc).

:thumbsup: Well said!

Something else is... if you just want something that works... don't be an early adoptor.

 

[daveybrat]

My parents pc and my brother's pc both had ECS Socket A motherboards that ran flawless for years. I just upgraded both of their rigs only because of age, but they were always great running motherboards with no issues to speak of.

 

[Texun]

I bought my first ECS for media use about 2 years ago and the only problem I've had is an occasional hang in the POST on a cold start - maybe once every month or so. It's a lean setup without a lot of add-ons and I'm using an Antec 500 Earthwatts PS. I figure it's possibly a capacitor problem since it does fine once it's had a shot of juice. I don't regret my purchase but the features are limited and I would likely look for something else before buying another. That's not to say it's bad - I always look around before buying a new board.

For my other rigs I use Abit, Gigabyte and ASUS. I know that probably doesn't help but the bottom line from my experience is that I would score my ECS a respectable 8/10 because of the limited features and occasional cold boot thing.

 

[jacc1234]

The last ECS build I did has given me LESS problems then my ASUS, ASRock and Gigabyte builds.

 

[bullbert]

Originally posted by: eternalone
Im conflicted. LOL.

Change your name to IRQ. Or is that too old-school?

 

[doubleOseven]

I heard (correct me if I'm wrong) that ECS actually manufactures AsRock's motherboards... (although Asus owns AsRock, AsRock only designs / specs the boards, while ECS makes them for AsRock. Anyone know if this is true?! Thanks!

 

[Kraeoss]

is this ecs board any good ? ECS P45T-A just asking cause i'm looking for a cheap solution that may last a year or 2 or 3


thx

 

[Texun]

I have owned only one ECS board. I forget the model but it's a S754 board that I bought to use as a stand alone box running Win2K for DL'ing newsgroups. I also use it to test video cards and hard drives, and I sometimes leave it on for weeks at a time and neglect it far more than the ASUS, Abit or Gigabyte boards I currently use. I don't like the BIOS at all, and once maybe every 3-4 months it will hang on the POST. I can hit the reset and it boots right up - but my ASUS AM2 M2N does the same thing.

My point is this: My ECS gets treated like an ugly dog. It sees more power on hours than any of my other boards and gets the least amount of attention or maintenance, but is still there waiting for me when I need it and it just won't die! Would I have one as my main PC? It's not out of the question but it is very unlikely. The BIOS is my biggest gripe. Otherwise, mine has been solid so I shouldn't complain.

I have to say this. Several years ago I stopped using bargain power supplies and haven't had an unstable board since. Even my ECS gets an Antec Earthwatts 500. It has been my experience that a good PS will go a long way to making any board so stable you may actually forget what model you have.

 

[colonel]

i own one with nforce chipset and overclock very good...

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Texun
It has been my experience that a good PS will go a long way to making any board so stable you may actually forget what model you have.

:thumbsup: I remember the hubbub BITD with the wildly popular (from cheap Fry's combos) ECS K7S5A board. They were stable for some and unstable for others. However, some of the unstable ones became stable with a better power supply.