What brands do you use and why

[setishock]

Please just post what you currently have in your rigs and why you choose that brand.

CPU: Intel > Reliable rock steady service with a long (If properly maintained) life span. Built in thermal protection.

RAM: Hundia(SP?) or Samsung based ram cards. Reliable.

Motherboard: MSI and Intel. MSI for my P4 rig. Going on 5 years old and still kicking. Intel for my media rig, Phoenix. Both are solid performers.

Networking: Foxden has a 10/100 lan connection built in. Phoenix sports a 10/100/1000 LAN connection built in.

Video: In both rigs is an Nvidia based card. 8400gs in Phoenix, while in Foxden my P4, is a 6200. I have only had one nvidia based vid card fail on me and I think that was due to a PSU malfunction in another rig. I have used a couple of ATI cards but found the drivers and the user interface to be somewhat unstable and lacking in control features.

Sound: For me the best bang for the buck card ( low to mid range) is the C-Media based 5.1 surround sound card in my P4. In the Intel rig I use the onboard 8.1 surround sound system.

Hard drives: Samsung Spin Point series. Rock solid, long life span performers. I have four of those in my P4 rig. In my Intel rig I have a WD and a Seagate. The Seagate came out of the Dell I gutted to build Phoenix. The WD is the primary drive using the Seagate for non critical storage.

Optical drives: TSST That's the consortium name Samsung and Toshiba took to manufacture some products. The drive for Phoenix came out of the Dell system and is SATA. My P4 rig has a Samsung DVD combo drive.

PSU: In the P4 rig is an Antec He550. In the Intel rig is a Aerocool Zerodba 620W. Both are modular and have the amps to be able to add to the rigs as the need arises.

Case: For my P4 rig it's a down and dirty POS that I scarfed up in a hurry when I need to streamline DoubleWide Project for traveling. For my Intel I spared no expense. Antec P182SE. Mirror finish stainless steel. Amazingly enough though the case for the P4 only needed some minor tweaking to keep FoxDen cool running. For my Antec case I just replaced the fans with some super performing high cfm, low noise ones and been happy ever since.

Add ons: On Phoenix it was the disappointing AeroCool Power Watch. What a waste of good money. Also on Phoenix is the 15 in one card reader from the old Dell rig. It reads xD chips so I kept it.
On Foxden it's a no name temp monitor. Also on Foxden I have an PCI ATA-133 hard drive add on card. Allows me to add 4 more hard drives to the system with 0 fuss or muss. They make another version of the card that will handle optical drives as well as hard drives. Didn't see the need so I got the hard drive only card.

Speaker system: Foxden has fallen silent since she is used as a server now and there is no need for a sound system. For Phoenix I got her a Logitech G51 speaker system. Rocks the house! Makes the movies I watch really come to life.

Monitor: For Phoenix is the Toshiba 32" flat screen. Psst, It's also one hell of a tv. On Foxden it the Acer P201w. I gave Acer another go as the other one failing in the end was not their fault. It got the stuffing knocked out of it in the POD when I moved down here. Still intend to get the old one fixed one of these days. The Toshiba was bought to watch my movies on. But it gets used as the monitor as well. The Acer is a great bang for the buck monitor. Clear, crisp picture across many resolutions.

 

[pspmodandcfw]

Intel because they are leading the future so to speak. Got an intel quad core processor with my desktop and it's great.

 

[worshipme]

No preference, whatever suits me at the price I want to pay. I'm a bit of a wheeler dealer so and I like to buy and sell a lot of stuff. If I see something at a good price I'll pounce on it no matter what the brand.

Actually, that's not quite true. I have a small soft spot for the under dog. For example, the HD 4850 and the 9800GTX+ (GTS 250) are the same price (Or at least they should be), and offer the same performance. I would probably go with the HD 4850 simply as AMD need the support right now.

 

[Tommy Boy]

HP pc's because I haven't had many problems with them compared to other brands I hear a lot of problems with. Currently I have 2 HP laptops and an HP desktop and all are working very well. I've used them for a while now and I prefer them.

Another brand I prefer is Samsung, I've had multiple samsung hard drives, a samsung dvd burner, a samsung syncmaster lcd monitor on my last custom pc and a samsung television that is awesome.

Also, Logitech. I only buy Logitech mice and keyboards. I've had multiple ones and never had a problem and I like the accessory buttons and extra features they offer. I also have a logitech headset for my ps3 and a set of Z-2300 speakers which are awesome.

 

[Ronspc]

INTEL and EVGA and Antec and Corsair

 

[muz]

Please just post what you currently have in your rigs and why you choose that brand.

Well here goes for being the first person to actually do what is asked


CPU: AMD - at the time i was buying it offered the best bang for buck plus this cpu was on a special offer so it was cheaper than it was meant to be and i had never really had any problems with amds before and so i figured right price decent ammount of power for my needs i could have have just built a new monocore system but for a small ammount extra i could go dual core to a single core so why not my general pc history has been
foxconn AMD duron 1.1Ghz
foxconn Amd Athlong 1.2Ghz
pc chips /some other random japanese make AMD athlon XP 2000+ 1.6Ghz
asus Intel P4 2.8Ghz northwood suffered a motherboard problem even though the processor still lives on to this day
foxconnAmd Athlon X2 4000+ 2.1Ghz

RAM:Elixer branded ram - the guy at the store reccomended it as i was about to go get 1gb corsair set which was not in stock at the time and he was like tbh for what you want this system for i wouldnt even bother buying ram with especially low latency or tight timings because it wont make a big perfromance differnce plus for the same price i could get 2gb set of this ram. Plus he offered his gurantee that if i didnt like it i could come back and he would sort out a return

Motherboard: Foxconn see above pc history but i had 2 perfectly fine foxconns then the pc chips from hell then i decided to go asus , well the asus failed on me so i decided to go back to foxconn , its only a budget board though and i think im going to upgrade soon to get more sata ports and a few other extras

Networking: TP link wireless g card ,Friends recomendation , i was dubious at first because they where the cheapest make in the shop i went too but its done me well i get a decent signal and never had a problem with it and the price really sold it i thought well at this price if its crap i will just go get another decent make card
Router is a linksys simply no brainer here i have seen them in use everywhere and I had set a few up for other people and i found them easy to use and set up and they are quite secure if set up corectly and the price was also a selling point

Video: ATI X1550 , it was on offer at the shop and it met thre requirements to play the little games i do play with my computer , everything else was fine with it . Need a replacement now as after 2 years use the fan has dropped off even though it still functions fine i was always dubious as to how much cooling the fan really did

Sound: built in sound for me , im no audiophile and i was on a tight budget when building the system

Hard drives: Seagate , the 2 for data storage came from another rig i had them in previously for like 6 months seeing as they werent too old i figured why not plus i was on a budget here , then i bought the 80gb seagate sata drive as a boot drive seeing as i like segae never had a drive fail on me unlike other manufacturers . My hard drive is the only part of my computer that i will never sacrifice for budget , if i can only afford an 80gb seagate but for the same price i could get 160gb from another manufacturer i would still go with the 80gb seagate
Dont get me wrong we hav wea samsung at home in the dell and its never failed once either but IMO its louder than my seagates

Optical drives: Phillips , cheapest dvd burner in the shop no brainer for me here

PSU:Unfortunatly a generic case supplied psu from many years ago , my thoughts are if it aint broke dont fix it and so far its done me proud i dont fully load it though with loads of componeents and game playing

Case:I cute case , this cost me nothing as ebuyer made a mistake and then another one and ended up giving me money back for the case and not retaking it long story though . I pciked itbeause it has room for 4 120mm fans and a load of disk drives and i liked the look , even bonus that it has a removeable motherboard tray and a few other cool features
Add ons:fans i have some akasa ones and a few nexus fans just because they move air and are pretty quiet


Speaker system:Heres its hooked up to my kenwood stero system with 2 kenwood ls29 speakers and one center speaker , do have the surrounds to complete it but one of them fell of the wall when it was in our living room so it rattles a bit

Monitor:Took a gamble here when i was getting a monitor and went for acer even though the only products i had tried where there laptops but it paid off and its a pretty decent monitor no dead/stick or other pixel problems touch wood .

Laptop: went dell because i liked the design and features when looking at it , pretty decent spec for price and never had problems with dell before knew they could deliver it quickly and knew that it would last a good few years

 

[Atomic Rooster]

CPU - AMD. I haven't touched an Intel since the Pentium 133MHz. They're inexpensive, reliable, and perform well.

Memory - OCZ, Geil, G.Skill, Corsair, Micron. It's all good.

Video card - Nvidia. EVGA, XFX, MSI, Asus.

Motherboard - Asus, Abit, Gigabyte. They are all reliable, quality boards.

HDD - Western Digital, Seagate. Good performers, great customer service in case something goes wrong.

PSU - Antec. Good stuff right there.

Case - Antec, Cooler Master. Excellent build quality.

Optical drive - LG, LITE-ON, Plextor. None have ever failed me.

Sound - On-board, Turtle beach. Creative is teh devil.

Speakers - Logitech. Great sound, low price.

Keyboard/mouse - Microsoft.

Monitor - Acer LCD. Great image, low cost.

 

[GibsonSGKing]

For the most part, I just get the best parts within my budget. I do however, try to stay with Nvidia cards, and EVGA is my hands down favorite. I try to go with EVGA due to their awesome warranties and reliability, fantastic products, and step-up program. If I go with ATI though, I tend to stick to Saphire or HIS. Other then that though, I just go with whatever. Being a fanboy doesn't really pay off in the end IMO. Now there are certain brands I try to avoid, but that list is too long for this page

 

[Kage]

CPU: At the moment, I have an Intel Q6600, but to be honest, whichever platform offers the best performance, I'll go for. The I7's to me look promising also.

Motherboard: I love Abit boards. They seem to simplify the process of overclocking, which suits me well. Theres talk of them being a dying breed though

RAM: In my build I've used Geil, and I haven't had one fail on me. Have had a few issues with voltage, but its because the motherboard doesn't choose the correct voltage for them, causing all sorts of hiccups, when I first built this PC.

Hard drives: I now have 2x 500GB Seagate Barracudas, but I had 1 of my 2x Seagates (both being 320GB running in RAID 1) fail a couple of days ago, with no warning, which is worrying.
If I get any more problems, I may move to Samsung Spinpoints, since they seem like a great company for reliability.

Graphics: I have a Nvidia GTS 640 in my rig at the minute, but I wouldn't question for a second, getting a 4870 or 4890 as my next pick, as ATI cards seem to prefer 3D work applications (least in my experience).
I don't mind on the reseller, but EVGA is a nice pick for me.

Sound: I have only ever used Creative Sound Cards, but I don't game often. My next pick however may be more audio based, but I'd never ever pick onboard as an option to use long term.

Power Supply: Have only used Antecs in my build (Had one go on me. This is my second. If this one goes, I won't trust Antec for power half as much.

Case: My case is an Antec Nine Hundred. Its amazing I think, and offers great cooling potential. Maybe a tad bit expensive though, but the large fan at the top really gives it a kick.

DVD drive: LG DVD writer. Cheapest option to be honest, but it offered some good features, but its only an IDE, and my computer supports SATA II... So I believe its probably bottlenecking slightly when reading.

Speakers: I love my Logitech Z-5500 speaker set They wouldn't be great for a set of living room speakers to fill a large space, but when you are sat down at them, and in close proximetry, they are very powerful and space filling indeed.

Monitor: I'm using a Samsung SyncMaster, and think its a very solid monitor. It hasn't given me any issues.
I trust Samsung to be honest.

Mouse/Keyboard: Standard Microsoft Optical affair, but offers some media functionality which has proven useful. May switch to a Logitech set at some point though.

 

[Grantofhell]

CPU: Intel Q9550 - Strictly because i'm a name-brand person. And I used to have bad experiences with AMD - Overheating and such. I'm sure they've changed from the olden days.

Motherboard: Evga 680i - Evga, like everyone else says, is just plain reliable. If it EVER fails, they replace no questions asked. And their customer service is like talking with the wise old man across the street; They know everything about their products.

RAM: OCZ - I use this brand because i've never had a failed stick by them and they have really aggressive timings and operating speeds. Plus they are one of the few brands to be SLI-ready with SPD/EPP RAM profiles.

Graphics - Again, Evga for the aforementioned reasons. Just plain reliable.

Sound - Carver Audio. Which doesn't exist anymore. It's home audio, but with the right cables, you can split the 3.5mm jack to RCA right into the pre-amp and amp. Not as pretty or streamlined as Logitech, but it'll certainly show them what's up.

LAN - Onboard; Dual Gigabit Ethernet.

Harddrive - SeaGate. I loved their 7200.11 series drive, but it was a bit unstable. I absolutely love the new 7200.12 though! 500Gb/16Mb.

Optical - Lite-On. Cheap~! I picked up a "Super-AllWrite" w/ LightScribe OEM, no software, for 30 dollars! Does everything except for blu-ray.

Case - I actually have no preference at the moment. Whoever makes a sexy case with good reviews that doesn't cost over 130 dollars.

PowerSupply - Corsair, PowerUP, PCPower&Cooling. All very reliable makes. Corsair especially for their notably high amperage on single rails and independent rail-transformer system they use for high-er end PSU's.

ETC Cooling Needs - AeroCool, CoolerMaster, ThermalTake, FoxxCon, Vantec (sort of expensive, but good thermal designs!), MassCool, Ultra, Zalman, Xigmatech, ZEROTherm.

There are plenty of other good product manufacturers that make good and quality stuff. I just happened to prefer other manufacturers that suited my needs better