Rolling the dice: Phenom 9500 and ECS motherboard

[Nessism]

Upgraded my system to do a bunch of video editing; going to convert a pile of VHS tapes to DVD after cutting out commercials and such. Couldn't resist the after Christmas sale at Fry's and picked up a retail 9500 with ECS A770M-A motherboard for $220. The board actually has overclock options but I don't expect to do a whole lot on that front.

I know lots of people wouldn't touch Phenom with a ten foot pole but AMD has treated me well for the last few years - no I'm not a fanboy. Mostly this is about bang for the buck. Could have gone overclocked Intel system but decided to try this instead. Read a little about the errata bug and just decided to gamble on that - seems like a relatively low risk...or maybe ignorance is bliss.

Wish me luck.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Yes thats a tempting deal, $220 for a quad combo is pretty great IMO. Please report your results here, I've seen very few personal reviews on these phenoms

 

[heyheybooboo]

Good find. The Egg combo deal is $255.

What software are you going to use?

 

[OdiN]

Forget the Phenom, I wouldn't touch an ECS motherboard with a 500 foot pole being held by someone else.

 

[Nessism]

Originally posted by: OdiN
Forget the Phenom, I wouldn't touch an ECS motherboard with a 500 foot pole being held by someone else.

Just curious, but what would you get for $220?

BTW, installed the board and just plugged in my old hard drive - win XP image from my old 939 socket A64 rig using NF 4 chipset. XP found everything and the system is running fine.

Just for giggles I clicked on a large video edit project that my old system couldn't render without crashing. New rig is raging through the editing. So far I'm tickled; very happy with the purchase. Going to break down and do a clean install but in the mean time everything is working fine.

 

[OdiN]

I'd get the current board I have. The Asus P5K Deluxe.

 

[Nessism]

Originally posted by: OdiN
I'd get the current board I have. The Asus P5K Deluxe.

P5K Deluxe is a $210 motherboard. Sounds great but not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: Nessism

Originally posted by: OdiN
I'd get the current board I have. The Asus P5K Deluxe.

P5K Deluxe is a $210 motherboard. Sounds great but not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

Who said anything about apples to apples? If you want do do apples to apples then you need to compare the ECS motherboard to a lump of coal.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: Nessism

Originally posted by: OdiN
I'd get the current board I have. The Asus P5K Deluxe.

P5K Deluxe is a $210 motherboard. Sounds great but not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

Who said anything about apples to apples? If you want do do apples to apples then you need to compare the ECS motherboard to a lump of coal.

Gosh, OdiN ... don't hold back. Tell us how yah really feel -

A great big steaming lump ... of coal ???


@ OP

Are you running the 'patch' ???

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: Nessism

Originally posted by: OdiN
I'd get the current board I have. The Asus P5K Deluxe.

P5K Deluxe is a $210 motherboard. Sounds great but not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

Who said anything about apples to apples? If you want do do apples to apples then you need to compare the ECS motherboard to a lump of coal.

You can burn the coal for heat...

I dont think the ECS board will give you that much.


I have to agree with him on the ECS board. Its absolute CRAP. My dog poo has more uses for it then the board does..

 

[Nessism]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
Gosh, OdiN ... don't hold back. Tell us how yah really feel -

A great big steaming lump ... of coal ???


@ OP

Are you running the 'patch' ???

What "patch" would that be? Related to the famous errata?

Honestly, I don't like ECS boards either but the combo was only $220. Can't expect the world for that much money. As long as it's stable, and doesn't crap out, I'm happy.

So far it crunched through about 3 hours worth of video editing without breaking a sweat. And that's with a mucked up operating system image that's on its THIRD motherboard. Gotta love XP for lazy hacks like me.

 

[OdiN]

Honestly if I had only $220 and wanted to upgrade my computer's mobo/CPU.....I would wait until I had enough money to buy something I wanted.

 

[Nessism]

Originally posted by: OdiN
Honestly if I had only $220 and wanted to upgrade my computer's mobo/CPU.....I would wait until I had enough money to buy something I wanted.

And your point is?

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Nessism

Originally posted by: OdiN
Honestly if I had only $220 and wanted to upgrade my computer's mobo/CPU.....I would wait until I had enough money to buy something I wanted.

And your point is?

He feels it's better to wait & save up to buy something better.

I agree somewhat in some cases, but in this thread, it's more threadcrapping than anything.

That ECS + Phenom quad is a killer deal for a video work machine, something a C2Q can't get anywhere close to in bang for buck terms

 

[GuitarDaddy]

He doesn't have a point. His panties are all bunched up because someone exercised free will, instead of getting in line with the rest of the Intel fanboi lemmings.

I see no problem with the ECS motherboards, they generally make solid non overclocking boards. I've used several in builds over the years with little problems, my best buddy is still using a box I built for him 6yrs ago with the ECS K7S5A

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
He doesn't have a point. His panties are all bunched up because someone exercised free will, instead of getting in line with the rest of the Intel fanboi lemmings.

I see no problem with the ECS motherboards, they generally make solid non overclocking boards. I've used several in builds over the years with little problems, my best buddy is still using a box I built for him 6yrs ago with the ECS K7S5A

Wow...how wrong you are.

Anyway...I'm just saying I'd rather put quality components in a box that I build. Whether it be AMD or Intel. I'd never use an ECS motherboard in anything and always recommend people stay away from them.

It's cheap junk - you get what you pay for. That's my point.

 

[n7]

ECS is cheaper perhaps, but cheaper does not equate to cheap junk.

There are usually still tons of issues with your $400 motherboards as well from the "better brands" like Asus & Gigabyte & MSI, & etc.

You're biased against ECS, yay.
That doesn't mean they don't work very well for some people.

Obviously, they wouldn't be my first choice either, but you're over generalizing due to some hatred of them...

 

[Rottie]

I am sorry about YOU guys who hate ECS so much but ECS served me very well Remember ECS K7S5A mobo? I had one and it was good motherboard now I am currently using ECS KV! Extreme for 3 years now...NO MAJOR ISSUES!

 

[soccerballtux]

Ya I don't see a reason to hate ECS. I picked up the Sempron 3100+ and Nforce3-a ECS mobo deal from Frys/Outpost for $40 a year or two ago. Overclocked immediately to 9*256mhz; a 500Mhz boost. It hits a wall at about 260-275; and 256 is as close as I can get to it and being stable, but it's been running fine since; and it's quite snappy. Paired with my 6800GT it's a great combo.

This Quad Phenom and ECS is a really hot deal imo.

How good would this be for gaming do you guys think? No overclocking and not a lot of horsepower, but it's a quad and when 4-core optimized games like Crysis get rolling, I wonder if this would be better to have than a e21x0.

Actually, that would be a nice comparison, this $200 deal with an overclocked 2160/80 (b/c it's a similar pricerange). I'm thinking that the games not taking advantage of 4 cores are not going to be requiring the 3+ghz we're pushing the 21x0 to, wheras in the games that can make use of 4 cores (Crysis), these might fair better than a higher clocked dual core. But, I guess that's what our Penryn upgrade path is for.

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: n7
ECS is cheaper perhaps, but cheaper does not equate to cheap junk.

There are usually still tons of issues with your $400 motherboards as well from the "better brands" like Asus & Gigabyte & MSI, & etc.

You're biased against ECS, yay.
That doesn't mean they don't work very well for some people.

Obviously, they wouldn't be my first choice either, but you're over generalizing due to some hatred of them...

I'm not biased. It's the freakin truth. I've had plenty of experience with ECS boards. I'd have customers that had them all the time and they suck. Most of them are crap. Some of them work but that's just about it.

I remember when people were raving about that K7S5A board, and I saw quite a few come through my shop which were all screwed up. Doesn't exactly inspire any trust.

Sure there were issues with other brands, but by far ECS was one of the worst, along with PC-Chips and other similar quality boards.

 

[Neurodog]

I haven't bough an ECS board since the early days of the K7, and they were ok boards. I asumed they were better now.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: Nessism

Originally posted by: OdiN
I'd get the current board I have. The Asus P5K Deluxe.

P5K Deluxe is a $210 motherboard. Sounds great but not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

Who said anything about apples to apples? If you want do do apples to apples then you need to compare the ECS motherboard to a lump of coal.

an upgrade is better than no upgrade at all hardware snob!

assuming it isn't doa ecs can run a decent working pc just fine.

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: Nessism

Originally posted by: OdiN
I'd get the current board I have. The Asus P5K Deluxe.

P5K Deluxe is a $210 motherboard. Sounds great but not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

Who said anything about apples to apples? If you want do do apples to apples then you need to compare the ECS motherboard to a lump of coal.

an upgrade is better than no upgrade at all hardware snob!

assuming it isn't doa ecs can run a decent working pc just fine.

No....an upgrade is better left until a proper upgrade can be afforded.

Maybe it's just me, but that's how I am. If I can't afford something, then I obviously don't need it and I certainly don't need an off brand version of it. If I'm going to buy something then I will get something of quality or I won't get anything at all.

 

[lxskllr]

Looks to me like the MB was $20. Who cares how good it is at that price? That's a disposable mb. You can use it while it lasts, then get something better if it burns up. I Pretty much use Intel only, but that looks like a sweet deal to me. I'd have bought it too if I was in the market for a cheap upgrade.

 

[justly]

Doesn't sound like you could go wrong with a deal like that. Just out of curiosity what did you upgrade from?