[KLUG Members] Re: New mob

[Bryan J. Smith]

[ Please remove the CC:Members from all follow-ups on this
hardware-related post ]

On Mon, 2002-05-20 at 10:09, W Guy Finley wrote:
> I'm very partial to recommendations from Tom's Hardware
> www.tomshardware.com and then I do a bit of comparison
> shopping on my own.

"Enthusiasts" sites are _good_, but you should _always_ refer to more
than one.

When it comes mainboards, CPUs and video cards, 50% of the time, Tom's
Hardware and AnandTech ( http://www.anandtech.com ) will review the same
stuff within the same week or two.  Ace's hardware ( 
http://www.aceshardware.com ) is good, although more for the
"engineering/technologist" than the "end-consumer."

And there are a few other, major enthusiast sites.
More Linux-centric, good compatibility/review sites include:

http://lhd.zdnet.com/ -- Ziff-Davis Linux Hardware Database (community)

http://www.linuxhardware.org/ -- general Linux-focused reviews of PC HW 

http://www.evil3d.net/ -- good video focus, lots of Linux info/reviews 

When it comes to hard drives, I hit StorageReview.COM (
http://www.storagereview.com ).  Although some of their info and thermal
testing is adequate, I feel their benchmarks are a not deep enough --
especially when it comes to RAID.  They seem to use far too many
utilities designed for single disks -- whereas RAID cards should be
slammed with lots of I/O and, more importantly, just I/O requests (to
see where they "crack" under the load).

> The mobo market is very competitive so I would never get stuck with 
> allegiance to one brand or another.  Even the best brands produce some 
> clunkers every now and then.

As with _anything_ hardware, do *NOT* buy on "brand name"**.  Buy based
on the _exact_model_ of the product.  Why?  Because many manufacturer's
outsource to other companies, even competitors, so you just can't tell. 
And some designs are just better than others.

[ **NOTE:  About the only reason to buy "Brand Name" is if you are
worried about failure, and you trust the company's (and/or resellers)
replacement service more than most others.  Hence why it's good for
larger organizations to find two OEMs to purchase everything through --
it just makes servicing (let alone billing) easier.  But you want to
stick with _no_less_ than two OEMs/resellers, so you can "pit them
against each other" when it comes to options/services as well as
pricing. ]

-- Bryan

-- 
The US government could be 100x more effective, and 1/100th the
Constitutional worry, if it dictated its policy to Microsoft as
THE MAJOR CUSTOMER it is, and not THE REGULATOR it fails to be.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Bryan J. Smith, SmithConcepts, Inc.   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
Engineers and IT Professionals     http://www.SmithConcepts.com