Fine for work, but not for play
Feb 26 '01
The Bottom Line Intel-brand motherboards are OK for novices and corporate PC's, but definitely not for tweakers.
A lot of big-name-brand computer systems (such as Dell and Gateway) come with Intel-brand motherboards. They secretly put that brand of motherboards in their Intel-powered computer systems without telling you about it. The combination of an Intel processor and an Intel-brand motherboard is sensible - if you know the limitations of all Intel-brand motherboards.
The Good
Time and time again one word springs to mind every time I test any Intel-brand motherboard. Stability. If it weren't for the inherent bugginess of Microsoft Windows, the user would literally have to run a PC based on an Intel-brand motherboard into the ground just to get it to lock up. That could be very important for mission-critical corporate desktops; even a few minutes of down time due to a flaky motherboard can result in lost business.
The Bad
The biggest sacrifice that the PC builder has to make if he chooses an Intel-brand motherboard: Most items either have no manual settings at all - or a very limited number of settings. With Intel-brand motherboards and their "single-jumper" processor configuration, the user has to move the jumper to one setting when upgrading to a new processor, and then boot up the system until the BIOS Setup screen is displayed. He then saves the auto-detected processor speed settings, exits BIOS setup, and then turns off the system. With the system still off, he moves the single jumper back to its "normal" setting, and then boots up the system. PRESTO! The auto-detected processor speed setting is now locked. And if that isn't enough, the memory speed and memory timings are always auto-detected, with no way of manually overriding it! The AGP Aperture setting on most Intel-brand motherboards has only two settings: 64MB and 256MB. (Other brands of motherboards have an array of AGP Aperture settings ranging from 4MB to 256MB.)
The one good thing about the Intel BIOS: If you bought a retail-boxed Intel-brand motherboard, which almost always have an embedded audio chip, the user can disable the embedded audio through the BIOS if he wants to install a better sound card in his system.
The Mediocre
Another sacrifice that Intel has to make in achieving a very high level of stability is performance. Based on Ziff-Davis Media/eTestingLabs' benchmarks, Intel-brand motherboards generally score slightly lower on most benchmarks than motherboards from many other brands - particularly Asus, whose motherboards generally deliver top-notch performance while being only slightly less stable than Intel-brand motherboards.
Conclusion
If you are a first-time PC builder or if you're building a corporate PC, Intel-brand motherboards can be a decent choice. But for the PC hardware enthusiast, there are better choices.
UPDATE 2-27-01: This above opinion really compares Intel versus other brands of motherboards using Intel's nearly-three-year-old 440BX chipset. The company has really missed the mark on its newer chipsets - the 820 chipset suffers from serious MTH problems (and even with PC800 RDRAM, its performance is still mediocre); the 840 chipset performs decently but is way too expensive for most desktops; the 815(E) chipset has integrated graphics that you pay extra for even if you don't want it.
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LetItRut
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Location: Melrose Park, IL, USA
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An audio enthusiast and a computer geek who loves bike riding.
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