Topic: Nice new or upgrade bundle

[Tony]

What price does it come to with that mobo and cpu Tony ?

What price does what come to Sandra, the Mobo, CPU, Memory, Heatsink and fan in relation to the £147 Novatech bundle ? £139

  I feel a, when I was in Emit.....coming on  

PS: I had to get the plumber in to unblock my .co.uk email address, that file you sent, was still trying to download, even though I had dumped it through Mailwasher.  

[Sandra]

Weeellll I was wondering why you dont have a look over

[Tony]

Yes it would have been ideal really, as the only brief I had regards a replacement for the Tiny lump of crap, was 'Cheap' so no hard and fast spec to adhere too.

I might even just pop over for the fun of it, and to meet your lovely self.  

[Sandra]

Well I will see if I can find the lovely version of myself if you let me know far enough in advance to let the pollyfilla set  

[Tony]

Sandra,

the inside is more important than the outside, that goes for people as well as PC's  

Anyway, Dabs standard 1 to 3 day delivery service, came up trumps again, got it next day at 9.11am today, and all well packed and in good condition.

The ASRock board was easy to follow and install, happen as well because the 'manual' was all of 6 pages, those written in English that is, but enough to get bye on. No Bios settings or info on same. But once up and running you can load the supplied CD, which has a very good colour manual read via Acrobat reader,so good for those with iffy eyesight "cough"

And then there's the treat of the lovely young Taiwanese  lady, resplendant in a skimpy metallic silver top, and matching  mini skirt and thigh length boots, and showing her bare navel   She was explaining and pointing out all the important parts of the ASRock boards, I was all eyes......er... I ment ears   of course by the time your watching it, you have been succesfull, and if your not watching it...you have'nt.... a bit pointless really if you aint got a another PC to watch it on prior to build the one the boards intended for.

Anyway,for the AMD XP2000+ I tried out the Thermaltake heatsink and fan it's copper based and rated for AMDXP CPU's up to 3200+... £9.99....is that all it is !!!!! It is a lot smaller fan and heatsink than on my present board, or the one on the Matsonic Mobo bundle, but it does the job allright.

http://www.thermaltake.com/products/heatsink/v10plus.htm

Easy install and no movement on the CPU once fitted, unlike the one on the Matsonic Mobo. And unlike the CPU on the Matsonic Mobo bundle running at 66 C. this one runs at 44 C. with the Mobo registering [system temp] 35 C [ambient room temp 27 C.]

Now my existing PC and the new one are under the same desk, both with XP2000+ CPU's and the one with the extra 8cm intake and 8cm exhaust fans was running at CPU 42 C. and 35 C. so all in all I'm happy with the ASRock set up.

Verdict: you cannot beat putting your own Mainboard together, then you know it's done right, and where the heatsink and memory come from, the later being Crucial brand.

So the score is:

Matsonic Motherboard Bundle [mainland China} ZERO
ASRock home assembled  Motherboard [Taiwan] a resounding TEN  




Mind you when you consider a XP2400+ @ £60, 512MB 333Mhz memory @ £65, and a HS/Fan  ball park £10 = £135 it did not leave much left for a Mobo. The Matsonic board run out @ £12 against the ASRock at £29 when you consider the Matsonic bundle was £147, and you usually pay a premium for pre assembly. The premium paid with my Matsonic Bundle was 'it was crap' two seperate faults is not on, it speaks volumes regards quality control.

Tea Time

[Tony]

Two things I did notice that where missing in the ASRock Bios setup, no S.M.A.R.T. Hard Drive monitoring, nor was there a CPU  Critical Temperature Cut-Off,shame really. The Matsonic board had both of these, but unfortunatley the board was faulty [trying to report fairly]

Having said that, ASRock look a good budget board choice when considering components where the budget is restricted. Though I personally would rather pay that bit more when you consider every component in your PC connects into the Motherboard. And as an overall percentage of the cost of the PC, upping your Mobo budget allocation, wont as a rule break the bank.

 

[Simon]

If it's not a silly question, Tony, where did you get the heatsink / fan from for £9.99?

[Tony]

If it's not a silly question, Tony, where did you get the heatsink / fan from for £9.99?

Come on Simon, pay attention    Dabs.com here is the link I'll certainly buy that fan again [if it don't fall over  ]

The one I have in my PC came from Novatech rated for up to XP 2.0 Ghz chips, cost me £11.75 last September linksorry no name or piccy [Novatech own brand]

[Simon]

Thanks Tony.    I've just ordered one, which might give me the inclination to look for something to stick it on!  

I have to say, I don't find Dabs the easiest site to navigate, or find stuff on, which is probably why I've not dealt with them before.  This will be a little test.

[Tony]

Simon,

considering the choice of stock they carry, I find their site reasonably easy to follow   I use this page as my start page. Take Motherboards for instance, there are 208 choices under that heading, just wish you could split the search to say AMD/Intel.

And their more information link regards individual products is more comprehensive than say Novatechs. Plus via that information box you get a direct link to the makers website, hence that Thermaltake spec sheet I posted.

One thing I have found after hitting the buy button at the check out, your order page stays on screen, with the message 'confirm changes' Hit it again and you will had bought the bugger twice   Of course if you read the screen it does say at the top Order Conformation But you know what it's like when your shopping for goodies, you can turn into a 'yes yes that's it, send it send it, button hitter instead of a page reader'  

[Tony]

Two things I did notice that where missing in the ASRock Bios setup, no S.M.A.R.T. Hard Drive monitoring, nor was there a CPU  Critical Temperature Cut-Off,shame really.

Well here I am quoting myself  ... No I felt I should put the record straight. ASRock motherboards DO have CPU overheating protection built into their Mobo's its something called U-COP Universale CPU Overheating Protection, because I could not see it in the Bios, I thought funny that, no CPU protection......wrong.....again  

http://www.asrock.com/index_whybuyasrock.htm