The Systems that Sell

[Mercutio]

This is too interesting a thread to just watch it die...

I'm asked all the time about upgrading PCs, rather than buying new ones I've developed a sort of philosophy about it.

Basically, for a non-technophile, upgrades make just about no sense at all.
I'm sure just about everyone has heard "I just got a new computer... it's only two years old!" or "what can we do to make my 486 run Windows XP?" from a clueless friend or relative at some point, and that's reason upgrading isn't really useful to those people.

Basically, most people don't even think of changing hardware (other than maybe RAM) until their computer is so far out of date at upgrading is no longer economically practical.

I tell people that, and it rankles them, but it's the truth.

Just an interesting aside to Santilli's comments, above.

CougTek, Tannin, how much are you paying for Windows licenses? I lost a pretty decent order of equipment this morning from a business I've worked for in the past for quoting my price for XP Pro licenses ($500 for four full-install licenses and one copy of the media).

 

[CougTek]

I have no special discount for Win9X OS, but I'll get Win2K Pro for free for the next 15X systems I build. I got the remains from the licence a company bought for several Win2K installations. They bought a lot too many for their need (they used about 15 but they bought a license for ~250 computers). Because I have a contact there and they know they won't use it, I can sell their remaining copies for free, 0, niet $. I charge slightly less than the regular OEM price for Win2K, but it all goes in my pockets

 

[Tannin]

AU$193 ex-tax for Win 98E, ME or XP Home. 2K or XP pro, about $300-odd. Far too much, in other words.

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

We like Asus TUSI-Ms with Celeron 1100 for the low end, (scalable video ram sharing, up to 64 MB if my memory serves me well, and Asus A7N266s for the higher end with Athlon XPs. We have found that cheap £40-£60 AMD integrated Mobos can still be a little troublesome when compered to the TUSI-M.

Higher up, the Supermicro dual Xeon board is king. We sell quite a few of those. I am itching to try a dualie AMD, but have yet to find a buyer. This last one is our own 'paper system'.

 

[CougTek]

Vlad,

Did you compared the MSI K7N420 Pro to the Asus A7N266? They are supposed to perform almost as well one to each other. Why don't you sell the Microstar instead? Here, it's ~40$CDN cheaper than the Asus (~26U$).

We have found that cheap £40-£60 AMD integrated Mobos can still be a little troublesome when compered to the TUSI-M.

Have you tried the ECS K7SEM? It's based on the SiS730 chipset. I never used it, but I've been tempted. No blazing performances for sure, but it's certainly cheap. Reliability is the big "?". However, my experience with recent ECS motherboards have been very positive so I tend to think that most of their motherboards, although rarely speed demons, are typically above average in term of stability/compatibility.

 

[NRG = mc²]

I'm quite certain that Philips has an East-Asian connection...

Actually they are originally Dutch (Holland)

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

Hi there Coug,

We have tried some MSI KT266A Mobos, but found them to a little less stable than our standards required. I might just give an Nforce one a go though. I will let you know how I get on.

ECS=PC Chips, or close to it. I have seen some pretty awful ECS attempts in the past, so that would be a no no. However the Asus A7S seems to have the same SIS chipset. Hmmmm.

 

[Tea]

I also tried the MSI KT-266As, Vlad. Found that they were very fussy about RAM, particularly with two 256k DDRs in them. Didn't have to RMA them but had to fiddle around too much for my taste. (In fact, this, my home machine has one in it, together with an XP 1700. Couldn't make it go with 512MB, went with a single 256 as a temporary measure, discovered that it was still heaps faster than the old KT-133A with an Athlon 1200C and 512MB SDRAM, shrugged and just left it alone.)

The Epox and Soltek KT-266As, however, have both been completely fuss-free. Sold maybe 20 of each now.

 

[Santilli]

Cheap business machine????

HI
The computer at the law office just took a bit of a dump.

I was wondering what the consensus is, on a cheap, business computer, made out of quality components.

It's only for pretty much word processing, it has to be silent, so no active chip cooling. On board sound, or no sound, either is fine.

A silent, cheap case, with decent cooling, and I've pretty much got all the other components laying around...

gs

 

[Mercutio]

I'd suggest a Celeron 900 on an Aopen AX3S + 256MB high-grade SDRAM + a 40GB Maxtor 740X + Dlink or Linksys NIC + Matrox Gx00 + Aopen 52X CD-ROM + Compucase mid-tower

Total without a Windows license should be around $350. $400 if you want building it to be someone else's problem.

 

[CougTek]

I'd suggest a Celeron 900 on an Aopen AX3S + 256MB high-grade SDRAM + a 40GB Maxtor 740X + Dlink or Linksys NIC + Matrox Gx00 + Aopen 52X CD-ROM + Compucase mid-tower

I was about to propose the same kind of system, but with this motherboard instead. You save the cost of a separated NIC and graphic card. I built a system using this mobo recently. Very cheap and worked like a charm. I don't know how good is the 2D quality (less than the Matrox card for sure), but it was it was still very readable at 1600x1200 on my Sony G400 19".

 

[Mercutio]

I never even heard of MSI until last year. Still never seen an MSI board.
AOpen, on the other hand, makes stuff that I know is universally first rate.

Personally, I'm not fond of integrated parts, either. Screwdriver shops that push all-in-one boards are just not to be trusted.

 

[CougTek]

http://www.abuckaday.com

Click on the TV ads button. Half hilarious, half pathetic.

 

[CougTek]

Microstar is the third or fourth biggest motherboard manufacturer in the world (they exchange rank with GigaByte from quarter to quarter).

I'm not fond of integrated board either, but for browsing the Net and light Office applications, an all-integrated mobo is enough.

 

[Mercutio]

Microstar is the third or fourth biggest motherboard manufacturer in the world (they exchange rank with GigaByte from quarter to quarter).

Doesn't mean a thing to me if I've never seen one. It's one of those mystery brands, like Soltek. People on SR talk about them. That's all I know.

As far as size of companies - I'm guessing PC Chips and FIC are bigger?

 

[time]

ECS and Asus are supposedly about equal size.

Gigabyte and MSI are roughly equal size but significantly smaller than the first two. MSI had some OEM wins that moved it ahead of Gigabyte last year.

After that we're talking second tier. This includes FIC, Epox (remarkable growth), Shuttle and one or two others I can't remember and couldn't be bothered looking up.

Then comes the third tier, consisting of companies like Soltek (but they are growing incredibly fast), Iwill, Tyan, etc.

I think AOpen has slid from second to third tier, but I'm probably wrong.

Feel free to correct these loose recollections.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm under the impression that PC Chips (is that ECS?) is biggest. Maybe because you can't go to a computer shop without stepping on one.
And I got some literature from FIC a few years ago indicating they were the largest motherboard vendor.

Where are these figures coming from?

 

[NRG = mc²]

No active cooling? Celeron 1000 Tualatin would probably be your best bet. But what heatsink would do the job? If you want low noise you can get the Molex Radial Fin coolers (I have two (dual cpu) and they cannot be heard over my three fans at 7v and my Enermax PSU with a couple of D740Xs. They keep my overclocked p3-667s (@735) at just under 40C full load, celeron should be cooler than that still.

 

[Tannin]

FIC used to be the biggest, but then PC-Chips (about #5) and Elite (#2)merged. I think FIC have lost some market share this last year or two.

Dunno where ASUS get their size from, or their market share come to that. Their cheap boards are crap, and their half-decent boards are far too dear. Soltek make better boards than ASUS these days, and Solteks are 2/3rds the price. Ditto Epox. And MSI. Only ASUS product I really like these days is their video cards.

 

[Mercutio]

I can say with authority that Asus boards aren't used in any tier-1 or -2 named brand PCs. I remember seeing them in Zeos machines ages ago, and in ComTrade machines many times (ComTrade makes everything, EVERYTHING look good in comparison), but that's about it.

Maybe Asus gets all its size from screwdriver shops. That would be odd. Most of the shops I know of stick with PC Chips or FIC or Gigabyte. Observation here leads me to think that's probably true everywhere.

 

[CougTek]

After that we're talking second tier. This includes FIC, Epox (remarkable growth), Shuttle and one or two others I can't remember and couldn't be bothered looking up.

Chaintech is also in this group, don't remember any other that is comparable.

 

[Mercutio]

No active cooling? Celeron 1000 Tualatin would probably be your best bet.

From what I've seen, the best bet for no active cooling would probably be a Via Samuel chip. I think they top out at 700MHz, but they work just fine in BX motherboards and they run so cool my distributor says they don't really even need heatsinks.

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

Tea,

The same scenario was applicable with us. The MSI kit was not RMA'ed, it just made us a little nervous!

 

[Tea]

Just so, Vlad.

And naturally, when it came around to time to order another box of motherboards, I ordered Epox. They have been utterly trouble-free for me. The Solteks too. My seat of the pants nerve, for some reason, tells me to use the epox boards for more mission-critical jobs, but I have not the slightest shred of evidence to support that judgement. I've had a 100% success rate with both brands so far. Plug in, work. I like plug in, work!

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

I am so glad that others operate in the same way as I do when it comes to selecting hardware. I always thought that 'gut feeling' was a little bit lacking in professional credibility!

Any board maker who crosses me had better watch out, cos I don't forget easily...... :evil:

 

[Santilli]

hmmmm

Ok. If I use a cooler, what are the quietest ones on the market?

By the way, turned out to be a dead monitor.

Still, I have a feeling I'll be building the rest of the box soon...

gs

 

[Santilli]

What is a VIA sammuel?

Never heard of that chip.

I was hoping to stay with a mainstream, maybe BX chipset, and Intel cpu...

gs

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

The chip is more commonly known as the VIA C3. It is Socket 370 compatible running at 1.7/1.8V. It has a crappy floating point unit but it is very cheap.

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

Santilli,

If you want cheap Intel kit, IMO you should try an SIS chipset with a Celeron. The Asus TUSI-M is one of the best. I have sold 100 or so these recently with a 4% failure rate. It also supports the latest 0.13 Micron Celerons and is about £50 trade in the UK. In the US it will be half that I have no doubt......

 

[NRG = mc²]

If you're going for a cool running chip you can try the Zalman Flower with a 92mm slow fan or without one at all, depending on the CPU and case you will use.

I use the Molex Radial Fin coolers ( www.quietpc.com ) and they are very very quiet - and they keep my overclocked P3-667s@735 at 40C full load (thats about 18C above case temperature)

They should work very well with Tualatin CPUs.

 

[NRG = mc²]

[/quote]From what I've seen, the best bet for no active cooling would probably be a Via Samuel chip. I think they top out at 700MHz, but they work just fine in BX motherboards and they run so cool my distributor says they don't really even need heatsinks.

Sure, but the performance is absolutely terrible. (though it might not be an issue)

 

[Mercutio]

So? Business Computer. If Word runs fast and Outlook runs fast...
A Celeron 400 will run Word and Outlook fast. Particularly paired with a decent amount of RAM.

 

[CougTek]

So? Business Computer. If Word runs fast and Outlook runs fast...
A Celeron 400 will run Word and Outlook fast. Particularly paired with a decent amount of RAM.

Be aware that you'll be flamed by Tony to have dared to write that a Celeron can run business applications fast. He'll tell you at lenght how much a Celeron is puny compared to his dear K6-III.

I can already fell your pain. Quick Mercutio, run, RUN! before Tony sees this. ;-)

 

[time]

Sorry, I am not the Teaminator.

But a C400/66 running Outlook fast? Isn't that poetic license, Mercutio? 8)

 

[Corvair]

Be aware that you'll be flamed by Tony to have dared to write that a Celeron can run business applications fast. He'll tell you at lenght how much a Celeron is puny compared to his dear K6-III.

I've witnessed sluggish Celeron-based systems with adequate RAM get a noticeable overall boost just by having their "economy" model 5400 RPM ATA hard drive replaced by a top-performing 7200 RPM ATA drive.

 

[time]

I agree. It's one of the reasons I have trouble with any benchmark that shows little difference betweem 5400 and 7200rpm drives. But that raises the whole question of what benchmarks are actually measuring, and I'm too tired to go into that right now :-?

 

[Tannin]

Confession time. I have never liked Celerons. Come to that, the only chip in the whole damn P6 family I have ever remotely enjoyed using is the P-III. The real P-III, I mean, not that slug-like P-II dressed up with 512k external cache they started the P-III name with. The EBs, though, give that "instant snap" feel to the desktop that is the one thing I crave above all others - and something that no Celeron has ever been able to deliver.

I vividly remember putting a P-II 300 into my burner box at the office one time. OK, it was only a 300, but it had all the right goodies: Intel chipset, plenty of RAM, nice little Quantum hard drive. I ran it side by side with another machine, a K6-2/300 - a chip that it should have blown into the weeds if even half the PR bullshit spouted by the Intel supporters was true. Yet, despite twice as much RAM and a far superior hard drive to the elderly 1GB unit in the K6 box, despite numerous clean installs and as many tweaks as I could think of, the P-II was a slug.

Not the only time I've tinkered with the dark side. Those P-III 600EBs and P-III 1000s I've built this last year or two were very nice, almost in Athlon territory. But there are no two ways about it. For desktop apps, AMD chips rule. They have done since ... well ... since Cyrix's glory days of the 6x86-200 - and that was a long time ago indeed.

 

[Tannin]

Confession time. I have never liked Celerons. Come to that, the only chip in the whole damn P6 family I have ever remotely enjoyed using is the P-III. The real P-III, I mean, not that slug-like P-II dressed up with 512k external cache they started the P-III name with. The EBs, though, give that "instant snap" feel to the desktop that is the one thing I crave above all others - and something that no Celeron has ever been able to deliver.

I vividly remember putting a P-II 300 into my burner box at the office one time. OK, it was only a 300, but it had all the right goodies: Intel chipset, plenty of RAM, nice little Quantum hard drive. I ran it side by side with another machine, a K6-2/300 - a chip that it should have blown into the weeds if even half the PR bullshit spouted by the Intel supporters was true. Yet, despite twice as much RAM and a far superior hard drive to the elderly 1GB unit in the K6 box, despite numerous clean installs and as many tweaks as I could think of, the P-II was a slug.

Not the only time I've tinkered with the dark side. Those P-III 600EBs and P-III 1000s I've built this last year or two were very nice, almost in Athlon territory. But there are no two ways about it. For desktop apps, AMD chips rule. They have done since ... well ... since Cyrix's glory days of the 6x86-200 - and that was a long time ago indeed.

 

[Tannin]

Confession time. I have never liked Celerons. Come to that, the only chip in the whole damn P6 family I have ever remotely enjoyed using is the P-III. The real P-III, I mean, not that slug-like P-II dressed up with 512k external cache they started the P-III name with. The EBs, though, give that "instant snap" feel to the desktop that is the one thing I crave above all others - and something that no Celeron has ever been able to deliver.

I vividly remember putting a P-II 300 into my burner box at the office one time. OK, it was only a 300, but it had all the right goodies: Intel chipset, plenty of RAM, nice little Quantum hard drive. I ran it side by side with another machine, a K6-2/300 - a chip that it should have blown into the weeds if even half the PR bullshit spouted by the Intel supporters was true. Yet, despite twice as much RAM and a far superior hard drive to the elderly 1GB unit in the K6 box, despite numerous clean installs and as many tweaks as I could think of, the P-II was a slug.

Not the only time I've tinkered with the dark side. Those P-III 600EBs and P-III 1000s I've built this last year or two were very nice, almost in Athlon territory. But there are no two ways about it. For desktop apps, AMD chips rule. They have done since ... well ... since Cyrix's glory days of the 6x86-200 - and that was a long time ago indeed.

 

[Tannin]

Well, that's one way to get my post count up!

Every time I hit "Submit" I got a nasty-looking error message:

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare server_parse() in /home2/handruin/public_html/phpBB2/includes/smtp.php on line 36

Had no idea that it was registering. Still, I guess you all have a complete understanding of my lack of love for Sluggerons by now.