94 replies to this topic

[Vulpesveritas]

acheronlv426, on 29 March 2012 - 11:25 AM, said:

Hmmmmm... so if I hold off buying until July.....

Then you may get $50-100 off a Radeon HD 7970, AM3+ motherboards may have a new 1xxx series chipset available, and ivy bridge on the intel side will be out probably.

[Beaker]

Vulpesveritas, on 29 March 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

Few things I have to say about that...
1. I would suggest an AsRock motherboard, for a couple reasons. A: you get a better value / $$$ and faster USB and ethernet. and B: AsRock is a fab's namebrand, Pegatron, which also makes all Asustek boards, wheras Gigabyte motherboards are made at Foxconn.

I love the way this works.

Asustek(Asus) owns Pegatron, Pegraon in Turn owns AsRock,

probably they have others under the brand too!

[Vulpesveritas]

Beaker, on 30 March 2012 - 09:58 AM, said:

I love the way this works.

Asustek(Asus) owns Pegatron, Pegraon in Turn owns AsRock,

probably they have others under the brand too!

Actually, Asus has not owned Pegatron since 2010. And now they're releasing the majority of their stock in it; http://www.techpower...ad.php?t=163250
And AsRock is Pegatron's brand name. So yeah.

[Catamount]

It was a good move for consumers by Asus. Asrock stuff was always cheap junk under them, because that's what Asrock was: the cheap, lesser brand that didn't really carry full Asus quality.

Now they're on their own, so they're free to make better, higher end stuff, but at the same time, as the relative new company on the market that now has to compete with Asus, rather than just sitting in a niche in their product lineup, Asrock has to undercut to draw customers, and so is still cheap.

[Beaker]

Vulpesveritas, on 30 March 2012 - 10:45 AM, said:

Actually, Asus has not owned Pegatron since 2010. And now they're releasing the majority of their stock in it; http://www.techpower...ad.php?t=163250
And AsRock is Pegatron's brand name. So yeah.

Pegatron was 'sold' to "Pegatron International", which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Asustek. Eventually they'll roll the Asus brand under the Pegatron family no doubt. It'll be a tax dodge of some kind.

[Vulpesveritas]

Beaker, on 30 March 2012 - 01:33 PM, said:

Pegatron was 'sold' to "Pegatron International", which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Asustek. Eventually they'll roll the Asus brand under the Pegatron family no doubt. It'll be a tax dodge of some kind.

Since which time however, asustek no longer owns and is giving up all holdings in pegatron and therefore does not own it. Period. Unless you have something recent claiming otherwise.

[Beaker]

Vulpesveritas, on 30 March 2012 - 01:43 PM, said:

Since which time however, asustek no longer owns and is giving up all holdings in pegatron and therefore does not own it. Period. Unless you have something recent claiming otherwise.

Pegatron at the moment is 24.5% owned by Asustek (the rest of the shares mostly being owned by Asustek shareholders), How exactly was my statement incorrect?

Yes they are giving up their stake in increments, but they are AT THIS TIME owners of Pegatron. So please be right when you're yelling at other people for being wrong.

Edit :: I see where you take exception. Pegatron was a wholly owned subsidiary, as was Pegatron International. However they did a stock exchange when they spun Pegatron in to Pegatron International. At present they own 24.5% of PI. So only a partial owner with the rest being owned by Asustek shareholders. Pegatron However is chaired by one of the founders of Asus.

Basically the key players on the Asus board will likely still have their PI shares, and they'll enjoy them. However the main driver for the spin-off isn't to give Asrock a better place in the market, it's so they can manufacture iFail products without any claims of unfair bias towards their own brand. Asus have been making Apple gear since the days of the powerbook 200 series, my old Powerbook Duo had a techincal errata note in it with Asustek branding!

Edited by Beaker, 30 March 2012 - 02:21 PM.

[Wyzak]

It makes me a little sad to find out the Gigabyte boards are manufactured by Foxconn only because of the worker strikes they had at their factories where people were committing suicide. I hope none of the people who made my boards felt forced to do so under undue pressure.

[Catamount]

I actually never knew Gigabyte boards were made by Foxconn either, but it makes perfect sense. I just never thought about it.

[Wyzak]

It doesn't appear that they do it anymore. I just read an article from 2007 where it says Gigabyte was forced to drop Foxconn as a supplier in order to make some deal with Asustek. Of course that may have changed again in the past 5 years.

[acheronlv426]

All right, I haven't been able to purchase anything yet and may not have the time to build, so I may need an assembled machine. I've seen ads for alienware, are those any good? Good spot to buy an assembled tower?

[Vulpesveritas]

acheronlv426, on 19 April 2012 - 05:30 PM, said:

All right, I haven't been able to purchase anything yet and may not have the time to build, so I may need an assembled machine. I've seen ads for alienware, are those any good? Good spot to buy an assembled tower?

gods no. If you're getting one assembled, go with Cyberpower PC, AVA direct, or Puget Systems.

[Vincent Vascaul]

Or you can find a builder you trust locally or in another area and have them build you something. I do this for several people who are too busy to build their own system and I find it to be the best solution for Quality vs time.

[guardiandashi]

alienware is now a dell computer subsidery (IE dell owns them) they always had sime interesting computers but frankly I wouldn't buy one

if you don't feel you have time to "build" a computer I would also look at whats available either in your local stores, local chains EG frys etc, or look at bundles at places like newegg.

plus last I heard MWO wasn't going to really be out until ~june or july, so you still have a month or 2 to decide what you want, and realistically it shouldn't take more than a few hours to a day or 2 to put togather a system.

[Cochise]

Here are a couple of builds recommened by sharkyextreme, a budget build and an extreme one. I'm sure we would all help you sort out any problems you might run into while building it. It's just like tinkertoys really.

Budget
http://www.sharkyext...-April-2012.htm

Midlevel
http://www.sharkyext...-March-2012.htm


I've built just over 25 systems for friends and family over the years and two things I always use based on experience are:

Asus Motherboards - I've tried them all. Tried Gigabyte, Epox and MSI, but Asus wins on stability and since they offer boards with no capacitors now, they will last basically forever.

PC Power and Cooling Power Supplies - they have very clean DC and extremely low ripple which means a more stable system and stable overclocking (if you want to). Yes, they cost more, but they are worth it.

My favorite memory after having experience with all kinds of others is Mushkin. Rock solid. I keep trying Corsair, but have had too many failures. OCZ has some good memory. I'm sure there are plenty of others. I just have had very good no worry success with Mushkin.

Fave CPU coolers - Zalman.

Fave GPU's, Nvidia by EVGA - great warranty.

Harddrives - Western Digital, Caviar Blacks. The most reliable.

CPU - doesn't really matter, amd or intel

just my .02 based on my experience. Have fun.

Edited by Cochise, 19 April 2012 - 08:31 PM.