Computer assistance

[Roland]

How does ECS compare to Bioware as companies? I know you said earlier "ECS is low-end quality, but not terrible." so what is Bioware in comparison? Since the current board in the computer with the problems is an ECS it makes me a little hesitant about them, thats probably not a good basis though.

I do like that the ECS board isn't a micro board. The graphics card I'll probably use has a fan on it that on a micro board pretty much gets covered by the nearest PCI card. Always kind of disliked that. With a non-micro board there should be more space between them and so more room to breathe. Some people in the comments for the ECS board complained that the USb wasn't inherently 2.0, but that they had to d/l some driver from a site to make it so. I don't know how I feel about that. I mean..if its 2.0 then its 2.0 right? Even if it does require a driver d/l to function as such. I also like that the ECS board uses an Intel chipset while the Bioware one uses a VIA chipset. I've seen VIA chipsets alot and so a change might be good, but that doesn't mean Intel will be any better or any worse.

I don't know. I feel like the ECS board is the better board, but that I'm leaning against it because its ECS and the processor is a tiny bit slower. I'll have to give things more thought.

That tiny bit slower won't be noticeable. As for how ECS compares to Biostar (not Bioware), I'd say they're about equal. I've had ECS before. I don't like them, but I'm a stickler for quality. They're not BAD boards, just inexpensive. You get what you pay for, IMHO. As for VIA vs. Intel, ever since 865 and on, Intel has been dominating. I wouldn't use anything but Intel NB chips, save for Nvidia for an SLI setup, which you won't be doing.

ECS is great for a budget board. For something with a lot of features, added goodies, and software, look elsewhere. Their components seem fine (for reference, I have an Abit board that the onboard audio 50% bit the dust after only a year - and they are a name I've heard good things about), but I wouldn't put much faith in being able to do anything serious with the system. Overclocking more than a little would probably stress the system too much, but some minor OCing should be fine, which would also take care of your CPU speed issue.

Pros:
Budget-oriented
Basic functionality for a low price

Cons:
Inexpensive components
Lack of additional components (extra cables, add-on cards, etc. - this is the stuff you look for in the high-end)
Lack of additional / useful software (just the bare minimum here; again, higher-end boards have more to offer)
Minimal BIOS settings (don't expect to be able to fine-tune your system's settings, including OCing)

Overall, I'd go with the ECS. I never had any actual problems with my old ECS board, and I beat the HELL out of it OCing everything I could. This here Abit board, OTOH, lost the front- and center-channel speaker outputs after a year (hardware failure), and I haven't even really OCed it at all, except for testing purposes (it runs a little too hot when OCed, so I merely tweaked the RAM timings). For me, I value quality over price any day (to an extent), but if I was on a strict budget, I'd recommend an ECS, since I have experience with them. I can't comment on Biostar, overall, since I've never used them and never heard much of anything about them.