Good brands and qualified vendors lists

[anroin]

Hi.
I've got two questions,not really realted to eachother.
First one is,the motherboards have a "qualified vendors list" in their booklet,which has not just brands but certain models of a manufacturer.Should one match these models when building a computer? The rams I'm currently using do not match the lists model-wise,but they "seem" to run without problems.
Just wanted to make sure...

Second one,which manufacturers (brands) do you prefer when building a PC?


Thanks

 

[jaquith]

Best Practices - Certified or {QVL} Vendors are RAM/other Devices that are "guaranteed" to work together by MOBO Mfg. The next level down, are Tested RAM/other Devices that have been tested by the individual sub-manufacturer to "properly" work together. The example of RAM: if the RAM is XMP Certified then that RAM's CAS timing, and Voltage will be correctly set in the BIOS. However, the BIOS has to have XMP {Enabled}. Also, I generally recommend the RAM be fully set manually regardless.

Brands:
RAM: Corsair, G.SKILL, Mushkin, Kingston and Crucial for budget.
MOBO: EVGA, ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte
GPU: EVGA, ASUS, ZOTAC, SAPPHIRE, and MSI