[H]ardOCP Trying to be too Hard?

Is the chipset I would say. Joe, perhaps we could all download an old version of Navigator and you could use blink tags

 

Ooooh, we should approach Dave about including that functionality!

 

gah, meant to say SHOULD say as in I was trying to correct my inital typing/grammatical catastrophe and I was laughing about the REALLY BIG TEXT above and managed to screw it up again

 

A week of them saying what? Did they say it was the chipset? Or did they suspect the motherboard?

The conclusion of the people who made the product? The people who offered to resend it with the problem solved?

Um, I the very point was that they could not get the problem solved with different memory timing changes...which indicates exactly that memory timings were not the issue, but something else. And furthermore, I thought memory timings on Athlon boards wouldn't indicate a problem with the chipset anyway, given the memory controller is on the CPU...

 

They suspected the motherboard because they have had problems with this particular motherboard and when people say that they often are referring to problems with the chipset. Or are you suggesting that when they mentioned past problems with this motherboard that they meant they kept shipping that exact board around? That was a joke

The people who made the product (ATi/MSI) have been carefully backing away from any claims that its a stable enthusiast chipset for a while now. Or to answer your question in one word, 'Yes'. The point being that without our hands on the hardware, what do we know about this situation? Only what the parties involved tell us.

 

If a flaky BIOS is involved in setting these timings, then do we blame the CPU or the BIOS?

 

Just some little point of mine... if you can say one buy $3,200 system and don't expect the defect system.... why else one buy more than $300 VID part won't expect undefect in the product? To be fair... don't just talk about just only single part that may cause instability but it would be great to give enough evidents on parts that may related to this instability in equally level if we cannot prove what it the main suspect! Just ask yourself... do you expect to get a VID that cause instability on paying more than $300?
Regards,

 

Good gawd, would someone just call someone-else a nazi so this discussion can be ended?

 

BRiT has a point. I'll agree to disagree and go back to lurking. Plus I'm afraid Joe will come back with a jscript that makes 64pt blinky text

 

I have had 2 pcs that never gave me grief.

1st was a BH6 with tnt2ultra
2nd NF7-S with 9800

Those two systems were perfect...(I swear it is true )

 

I remember my BH-6 fondly, but the first board I ever LOVED was an it5h

 

Got any data to backup what you said about the ATi chipset besides your pathetic excuse of "I have used them but never bothered to review them because they suck"?

Opps that's right you don't

 

Well TechReport seems to agree with Kyle's assertion which is that it shouldn't be in an enthusiast box.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/radeon-xpress200/index.x?pg=18

In terms of performance and features, the real weak link in the Radeon Xpress 200 is the south bridge. USB performance isn't what it should be, and the Radeon Xpress 200 may find it tough going in the consumer motherboard market without support for High Definition Audio, SATA Native Command Queuing, and more advanced RAID features. I expect NCQ to be a practical requirement for retail motherboards once the word gets out about free SCSI-like performance.

Enthusiasts might be willing to overlook some of these shortcomings in the right board, but I'm also a little worried about whether or not we'll see a really solid enthusiast-oriented mobo based on the Radeon Xpress 200P. Maybe MSI will cook up something good, but I'm not holding my breath. The competition looks mighty tough, and I'm afraid the other guys will dominate the attention of the A and B design teams at most motherboard companies.

Of course, NCQ, RAID 0+1, and a slightly gimpy USB implementation don't matter a whit for corporate desktops and media center PCs, but integrated graphics does. ATI seems to have the right product for its intended markets, and they could sell a bundle of these things.

 

Well, now that this thread has resulted in 4-5 pages worth of bantering back and forth...

How about a topic shift back to the element in focus- the ATI Xpress 200 chipset motherboard. It seems the discussion has been poking at subjective opinions on this chipset rather than a focus on the findings...

I'm very interested in the real gist of the matter here- ARE there still stability problems with lower latency memories? It seems to me the [H]ardOCP data is a bit confusing since it jumps back and forth with little resolution on key points:
1) There was a problem with running lower latency memory + high performance gaming.
2) CAS latency timings were shipped higher to compensate for this.
3) The overall stability issue from the article is assumed to be the videocard.

It still doesn't obfuscate the latency-stability problem. If you have to cripple installed memory latency to get stability, I'd say the overall hypothesis made over at [H]ardOCP is indeed a correct one- not the best choice for hardcore gamers. MOST hardcore gamers want lower latency and killer memory performance. If a particular mainboard or chipset has issues with pushing better memory latency, then this is indeed a poor choice for high-end gaming rigs.

I'm more interested in what ATI or Falcon have to say about the memory latency issue, future BIOS corrections or mainboard revisions. This would seem to be more important if we're going to put these systems under a microscope to determine their eligibility into the high-end gaming consumer market. If there are stability blockades or other issues concerning performance memory/settings/stability, I'd say the overall impressions left by the article may indeed be justified.

 

I said agrees that it has no business being in an enthusiast system, though I always appreciate people trying to put words in my mouth. Reading comprehension is awesome!

 

it says "Enthusiasts might be willing to overlook some of these shortcomings in the right board"! But still, that review is a year old now, based on the first version - since then they have had different revisions and removed the integrated graphics. funny that this chipset that "shouldn't be in an enthusiast product" has ended up in a dfi lanparty board - something that has targeted right at enthusiasts. do you think dfi are prone to making lanparty boards on chipsets that aren't suited? they've not done that before, or is this just some pay off from ati to make them do it? if thats the case, thats hardly ati backing away from this being an enthusiast chipset. odd how others reach different conclusions about this.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2572&p=12

 

Kyle will tell you Anand got a "cherry picked" board. That is the excuse he now uses for anything questionable.

 

The score stands because they had a $3,200 that they paid out of their own pockets for that didn't work correctly. Whether Bad video, bad mobo, or bad mojo I wasn't stable and at that price it should have been the most reliable machine in the world. They don't retract a score just because they thought one part was bad and it turned out to be another. Kyles side note was just that a side note that, he doubted that a mobo with that chipset should have been in there and stated afterward that even though this time it wasn't the mobos fault it was still a poor choice. They don't need to tell you it was a bad choice putting a BFG 7800GTX OC in the system becuase that wasn't a mistake, Both BFG and the 7800GTX are high end parts suppliers / highend performers.

I don't really know where your problems come from but here.

Comments about poor use of chipset stand. It would be the same if someone said why use a PD 840 instead of a X2 4800 no matter if the their was problems with that particular PD.

Poor Score due to system Stability stands. It wasn't stable why should they take back a machine that they bought (not sent to) that wasn't stable and has now been ironed out now that FNW knows its being used for reviewing. Now if cost wasn't an issue I am sure they could do a second review after another anonomous purchase, but fixing the review after based on a part that no-longer is covered under the cloak of animitiy is kind of useless. What good is buying it instead of having them send you a review part if your going to just have them take it and send it back to you later.

As for thinking it was the mothrboard at first, why would anyone see an issue with this if the problem seems mobo related and FNW says they think it is mobo related then what wrong with saying its mobo related. For HARDOCP since they weren't going to review it again anyways once it came back that was pretty much end of story. The fact that they put up the second part was nice of them since we found out they had a graphics problem instead, Kyle could have saved face by not putting it up but he didn't.

As for Opinions who are you guys to say you shouldn't include them. I believe that I shouldn't have to go back 3 years in reviews to figure out if this next part might have some type of issue. Kyle said he has horrible luck with the x200, I like that because I can scoure the Forums figuring out if their is an issue or not, but I can, (and this is the hard part for you guys since you won't understand), if I trust the reviewer and believe his views are close to mine, aviod that heartship and FUD (from ******s and Antis) and take his words at face value.

For me Kyle is my kind of guy and alot of times he hits the nail right in middle of the forehead, and for me he has gained my trust.

 

Actually if you look into some of the Reviews that were posted and actuall user success you find they differ by alot. It is pretty much been understood that for the longest time review sites have always gotten cherry picked parts. This is also why they Purchased the FNW fragbox instead of having it sent as a review package.