WinTel/PC Hardware Resources

Various Manufacturers, Vendors, and On-Line Reviews and information that I find useful when building and maintaining Intel-Based WNT computers. I do not "vouch" for any of these vendors.

[Reviews and Info] [Manufacturers] [Vendors] [Dis-recommendations] [Partners]

Reviews

Tom's Hardware Guide: One of the best sites for chosing your next motherboard, rating CPU's and finding information about overclocking CPU's. A must read.
Spumador's Hardware Information: Lots of stuff. A complete list of HW vendors. Testing your PC. Shopping links. Et cetera.
MotherBoard Homeworld: Lots of links, some good information, great jump point.
Intel Secrets: What Intel doesn't want you to know...
Expert's Exchange: Got a question? Get an answer...
System Optimization: Great info for getting that tweaking your system! Go here for great reviews of mail-order houses. Make sure to read the comments! Submit a review. The top vendor list is fabulous. Check your vendor out before ordering.
Chip List: List of CPU chips and their properties. Not for techno-light.
The unofficial AMD homepage.: A great resource for AMD K6 information. From here you can get latest information about AMD K6 and the most complete K6 motherboard compatibility list I have seen.

Manufacturers

[Motherboards] [CPUs] [Video Cards] [Disk Drives] [Modems] [Top]

You don't want to buy a cheap motherboard. Buy a board from a well known firm that is going to be around a while. You probably do not want to have a board that is brand new -- hardware bugs are rather hard to fix. I have compiled a brief list of MB comparisons for my own purchase decisions. The following manufacturers have an excellent reputation.

ASUS: Taiwanese. ASUSTeK Computer Inc.: founded on April 1st, 1989. ASUS is one of the most respected names in the industry. They are willing to support 83mhz bus speeds. Excellent reputation. Their dual motherboards have a unique CPU daughtercard design.
Tyan: American. Tyan is a Silicon Valley firm founded in 1989. Their conservative designs are rock solid. They do not want customers to have to call them for support. One of the longest warantees in the business. One of the first to offer dual processor motherboards.
Supermicro: American. Founded in 1993, located in San Jose CA, manufacturer of high-end state-of-the-art motherboards. Usually one of the earliest adopters of hot technology. The first with dual Pentium-II motherboard offerings. Also offer their own cases. Again, they are one of the best in the business.
Other Manufacturers: The following manufacturers I do not have personal experience with. Where known, I list them first by country of origin, if known, I will list their year of incorporation.; Tiawanese: Abit(89), AOpen, FIC(80), Gigabyte(86), Shuttle(83); American: American Megatrends (AMI)(85), M Technology,

Processors

Intel: The reference hardware platform. Maker of the Pentium, Pentium with MMX, Pentium Pro, and Pentium II processors.
AMD: K5 and K6 processors. Intel "work alike's". No floating point bug. Their K6 is as fast or faster as the Intel PentiumPro (and it includes MMX technology). AMD has an incomplete list of verified compatible motherboards for their K6.
Cyrix and IBM: The 6x86 and 6x86MX which in IBM lingo are called M1 and M2 respectively. The M2 will give Intel strong competition when it ships in quantity. Cyrix publishes a list of compatible motherboards with the 6x86MX. It is likely that this list is not complete.
Digital: Alpha RISC processors. Superior performance, with the use of FX!32 technology can run "most" WNT applications.

Graphics Adapters

These following manufacturers actually have video boards that support 1600x1200 resolution or better. There are a lot of vendors who make video boards, but only a few make good boards.

Matrox: Matrox Millenium II. Anything more needed?
Diamond Multimedia: Well, they are probably the most "pervasive" board available. Not quite state-of-the-art and dependant on S3 Virge -- meaning they are limited to 16k.
Number Nine: Their Imagine 128 Series 2 boards look hot.

Vendors

Before making any order, check out the vendor, and/or contact the Better Business Bureau.

TC Computers: They have excellent prices, a great WWW site, and co-workers think positive thoughts about them. Wish they had the latest-and-greatest offerings from all the vendors but... I want the world.
Aberdeen Inc: One of the oldest names in the business. Usually a bit pricey but this vendor will likely stay around for a while.
The Memory Broker: Monthly contests for memory. One of the least expensive vendors for memory and hard drives.
PC Nut: A small firm now in New Jersey (formerly in CT but moved due to CT taxes and family). Very responsive to questions and quotes. They don't seem to discount for systems or small quantities but their original prices are rather good. BBB of CT gives them an "unknown" rating.
Computer Discount Warehouse: CDW! What can I say! One of the largest and best known mail-order firms. Great for software and accessories. MB and chips are not their forte.
Inspector Gadget's: A co-worker likes this vendor of computers and... flutes. The return policy is one of the better ones I have seen for a vendor of his size!
Disk Drives Vendors: Dirt Cheap Drives, APS, Bason
Other Vendors: Kevin mentions the following vendors: ComputerNerd and ComputerCraft

Dis-Recommended Vendors

Basically, I haven't found a vendor that operates in Cleveland Ohio that BBB or anyone else recommends. These are my opinions and not some words from gawd -- deal with these folks them at your own risk.

MicroExperts: Experts? NOT! Incompetant boobs is the experience I have with these idiots. I reported them to the BBB and the response I receives was "take them to small claims court". Luckily, I used a VISA card and resolved my dispute through VISA.
MPI or Magic PC: Great prices -- BUT! BBB of Cleveland does not have "nice" words about them.

Partners

I don't hack hardware alone in the basement all by myself for no appearant reason. Usually, I am fixing some of my family's systems. Lately, I am assisted in this obsession by my cousin Laird. He lives close enough that we can hack together but far enough away that our families don't send us to professionals about this obsession.

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Last modified: Fri Aug 22 14:33:39 EDT 1997