Good and Bad Brand Names, share your experiences

korrupt

korrupt

Posts: 666   +2
Hi everyone.

Ive noticed a lot of questions where people ask "is this a good brand" so I figured I'd seperate good from evil:p

CPU
Amd and intel are the only brands available and both are good.

Motherboard
Good: Asus, Intel, Gigabyte, DFI, Foxconn, MSI and Abit.
Bad: Need suggestions, Ive never had a bad Mobo

Ram
Good: Legend, Kingston, Corsair, Geil, OCZ, G.Skill, Crucial
Bad: Any generic brand, Centon, JetRam,

Hard Drive
Good: Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, Samsung
Bad: Quantum, Maxtor, Fujitsu, IBM

Video Card
Good: Asus, Gigabyte, EVGA, Sapphire, Innovision, ATI, nVidia
Bad: Point of view, legend

PSU
Good: Antec, Coolermaster, Thermaltake
Bad: Achieve
Aerocool, Allied, Apex, Aspire, Austin, Codegen, Colorsit, Coolmax, Demon, Deer, Duro, Dynapower, Eagle, EagleTech, Foxlink, InWin, JustPC, Kingwin,
L&C, Logic, Linkworld, MGE, Mustang, Power-Man, Powmax, Power-Up, Powerstar, q-tec, Raidmax, Robanton, Rosewill, Turbo, Turbolink, Ultra

I realise there are many more good and bad brands and many more components. Most of these are based on personal experience. This is basically a foundation to start this thread on. Anyone have any additions, I'd be happy to add them and give you credit for it.

Regards,

Korrupt

Credits: Additions courtesy of rik and Didou
 
In the graphics card section you missed the 2 biggest names out, ati and nvidia.
 
CPU
Amd and intel are the only brands available and both are good.
Click to expand...
The Epia series from Via are quite populare & work well in certain areas.
Motherboard
Good: Asus, Intel, Gigabyte, DFI, Foxconn, MSI and Abit.
Bad: Via
Click to expand...
Via is not a motherboard brand.
Ram
Good: Legend, Kingston, Corsair, Geil, OCZ, G.Skill, Ballistics, Crucial
Bad: Any generic brand, Centon, JetRam,
Click to expand...
Ballistix belongs to Crucial & I myself have never heard about Legend Ram.
Hard Drive
Good: Western Digital, Seagate, IBM, Toshiba, Samsung
Bad: Quantum, Maxtor, Fujutsu
Click to expand...
Quantum was bought by Maxtor which itself has been bought by Seagate. IBM no longer does HDDs, they've sold that unit to Hitachi but before the sale IBM was the brand with the most HDD failures (the DeskStar even got renamed DeathStar). & it's written Fujitsu.
 
Thanks for your replies.

Via is not a motherboard brand, you are quite correct. One of my mates told me it was bad but I assume he was talking about the chipset or something else then:p

Legend Ram and graphics cards are Australian.

Rik, I was under the distinct impression that ATI and NVIDIA are the chipsets?

I wasnt aware ballistix was by crucial but will change that

yes it it written fujitsu, typo.

I got IBM mixed up, yes it is a SHOCKING brand and even though they may not make hdd's anymore, you can still get them secondhand.

This also goes for Quantum and Maxtor.

Once again, thanks for your additions.

Regards,

Korrupt
 
korrupt said:
Rik, I was under the distinct impression that ATI and NVIDIA are the chipsets?
Click to expand...

Well they make the chipsets because they make graphics cards too, if you check my profile im using an ATI Radeon, its called ATI radeon because ATI make it.
 
Are you absolutely sure?

I'm not saying you are wrong but have never heard of ATI and NVIDIA being an actual brand name...

I could be wrong, but just wanna make sure.

Regards,

Korrupt
 
Er yes, im absolutely sure, i have the box my card came in in front of me and there are no other manufacturers names on it that i can see. I also used to use an old nvidia Geforce 2 mx440 and i still have the box for that, and again, it has no other manufacturers names on it.
 
Ok, if you say so I will add this in. I really feel stupid for not knowing this...

Regards,

Korrupt
 
excuse me but ...

this is all very subjective and is without evidence or objective means of
evaluation. I seriously doubt that anyone individual can possibly have
first hand experience with so many vendors products.

at the very least, these might be framed as "I recommend" or "I don't like" xyz because ...

to quote a line from Porgy & Bess, ... it anit necessarily so
 
jobeard said:
this is all very subjective and is without evidence or objective means of
evaluation. I seriously doubt that anyone individual can possibly have
first hand experience with so many vendors products.

at the very least, these might be framed as "I recommend" or "I don't like" xyz because ...

to quote a line from Porgy & Bess, ... it anit necessarily so
Click to expand...

You are quite correct, I worried about this too. What I was thinking of doing is making individual polls on each piece of hardware and then posting the results back in this thread...

Sound good? This would make it more accurate...

Regards,

Korrupt
 
You might want to add a section about OEM builders. Dell and Alienware get some bad rep from people who don't know how to upkeep their computers but are both high quality brands in my experience, especially the servers. Emachines makes crap desktops and HP laptops tend to be pretty nice in my experience.
 
Maxtor drives suck, I had 3 of them die within the 4 months after I bought them. What about Hitachi drives? I personally don't know but what category whould you put them in? You should include some bad DVD drives too.
 
I've had two Hitachi and Matox hard drivers for 2 years and both are still running great. Also Raidmax makes good power supplies. Once more I've had 2 of them running strong 2 years. I've had 3 Apevia (Aspire) PSUs for 3 years so they are also good. I would like to add that "Turbo-Link" is a sub brand of Apevia and the three PSUs I've had from them are Turbo-Link. MSI makes a bad motherboard; 2 and a half years ago I bough one... A whopping four months later the DIMM slots go dead.
 
I have a Point of View 8800 GTS and in the other computer in my house is a Legend 6600 GT. I am sadened that they are considered bad.

On a side note the 6600 GT has failed twice and had to be replaced, So i will agree that that is a bad brand. as of PoV no problems with it yet.
 
Legend ram is cheap, I dont think its that great compared to corsair and such (mine which just died, got RMA # though) Never have my legend ram sticks die.

I also have a maxtor hard drive, one of the original sata models which is still going quite strong, especially all the crap i've put my pc through.
 
Hitachi drives are good imo, they do seem a little slower than a seagate or Western Digital. Seagate drives are really quiet most of the time and they last forever, my mom's Compaq 5440 had an 8 gb Seagate in it and it's still running. Everything else went before the drive; fan, onboard sound, onboard video, cd-drive.
 
post is kind'a old ,but keep them coming
some of the brands are getting better some worse
a few memory chip makers where sued for price fixing with generic names
so even the cheap'o brand sticks are just as good
I just updated an old gateway with an IBM drive in it from 1999
very quiet drive no errors with testing
 
An old thread but awesome. If korrupt is still around, I have these additions:
Motherboards:
Good:
ASRock, XFX, Tyan, Shuttle(some)
Bad:
ePoX, Biostar(certain models), eVGA, ECS, PCChips, Soyo, Magic-Pro, Supermicro,

Graphics Cards:
Good:
XFX, BFG, Diamond, PNY, Zotac, Gainward, Gigabyte, Leadtek, HIS, MSI, PowerColor,
Bad:
Jetway (higher-end cards only), Chaintech (6600 and FX series), Colorful, ePoX, AOpen(certain models)

Hard Drives:
Good:
Hitachi

RAM:
Good:
pQi, Mushkin, Buffalo, A-Data(some kits), TwinMOS

PSU:
Good:
Corsair, Enermax, PC Power & Cooling, OCZ, Fortron FSP, Seasonic, Akasa, Zippy\Emacs, Silverstone, Seventeam, Tagan, Mushkin, Sparkle
Bad:
Athena Power, A-TOP, ATADC, Broadway, CompUSA, Diablotek, I-Star, Logisys, MGE, Norwood Micro, NorthQ, NMEDIAPC NZXT, Shuttle, Skyhawk, Spire Coolers, Star Micro, STARTECH, XCLIO, XION, Youngyear

FYI, Maxtor is owned by Seagate and is meant to be a lower-priced alternative to the Seagate products. It's not completely bad but not recommended for a higher-end system that will be on 24x7.
 
I have noticed that. My card has the Geforce FX 5200 chipset and has 128MB. When you go to look for the specs it pulls you up to it on Gateways site, yet the card itself is marked nVidia on the board. It's a good card :)

Also, add Deer to the list of bad PSUs, every one that I have looked at has taken out the motherboard similar to Bestec PSUs

What would you consider Sunbeam/CaseGears PSUs? They're really cheap and light, but the one in my system seems to be really good for the price. It is a CaseGears Black Steel 580w PSU.
 
The MGE vigor 400 wat PSU in my friends system has seemed to be rock-solid in his computer and his customers systems as well, and he paid $9 for each.

Another thing is that each brand whether good or bad has +'s and -'s. The CoolMax V-400 PSU which has good and bad ratings on newegg has been rock solid in my parents emachine. The Antec PSU in my spare PC cant even put out a solid 12v when the cheap Sunbeam PSU in my system and the cheap CoolMax PSU in my parents system puts out around 12-12.3 volts solid. This goes for all of the other rails as well. The antec would probably last longer though.
 
Nah, korrupt hasn't been round in a while as far as I'm aware. Also, maxtor is not bad. I know because I've had one for about 7 years (on about 50% day) and it's still going strong. ECS is kinda in the middle as I've had one for about 4-5 yrs and it's fine except a ram slot has failed. Also, even though Seagate has bought Maxtor it is still a good idea to put Maxtor in good or bad (good I say) as a few of their products are still about.
 
Rage_3K_Moiz said:
An old thread but awesome. If korrupt is still around, I have these additions:
Motherboards:
Good:
ASRock, XFX, Tyan, Shuttle(some)
Bad:
ePoX, Biostar(certain models), eVGA, ECS, PCChips, Soyo, Magic-Pro, Supermicro.
Click to expand...

Most incorrect post I have ever seen.
 
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