Is Intel D815EPEA2 Motherboard any good?

[koolman_]

can anyone tell me about the performance and reliability of that board?

Never share your secrets with a friend,you never know when he becomes your enemy.

 

[Crashman]

All the D815E boards are good quality and stable. Most people in here would prefer the similar Asus CUSL2 because it is more tweakable and allows for overclocking.

Cast not thine pearls before the swine

 

[Guest]

I agree with Crashman that they are of good quality and that they are stable.

However, They are relitivly low-grade in preformance. As ECC in RAM in set to on, even if you don't have ECC RAM, which lowers RAM speed. Also, Any clock/voltage adjustments are disabled, as it is an intel board, and intel doesn't liking you overclocking their products. The integrated graphics on it are a joke, and you can't run anything game-like on it. The BIOS lacks too many features. Such as any RAM adjustment, other than CAS latency. So whether or not to use a four way interleave, or setting the RAM timings, or adding host clock plus PCI clock, or Any sort of options in error checking, is all unpresent. Any Graphic options, (AGP mode, Side band addressing, anything pertaining to AGP options) are not present, except for Video cache mode (UC or USWC, which changes preformance by roughly 1% in most occasions). You can't limit HDD transfer rate if its giving you problems (ATA 33/66/100), its all auto-selected.

What I do like about the board is the fact that Integrated graphics is present (even though its a joke), which gives you the ability to use a temporary solution if your graphics card dies. Or to use if you have no need for a graphics card with large 3D capabilities. I also like its integrated LAN card, and that it is 100Mbits/s. SO you don't need to buy one. If I'm not mistaken, the board you mention is fitted with a Creative 1382(?) sound processor on it, which, I think, is the equivaltent to a sound blaster PCI 128, which eleminates the need for a sound card.

This is a very good board for an office computer. As it is inexpensive for what it contains. All you'd need is the motherboard, RAM, HDD, CD-rom, processor, and floppy for a decent office computer. However, this is not a choice for gamers or people wanting top-notch preformance.

 

[koolman_]

Thanks for the advice but does CUSL2-C has all those bios features you mentioned and what about its performance in games

Never share your secrets with a friend,you never know when he becomes your enemy.

 

[tartarhus]

Low performance? Intel boards parallel asus performance. Though they have no real tweaking abilities, they run flawlessly. Asus boards, while feature loaded, are plagued with fundamental issues -- like no native support for large hard drives. They are simply impossible without a bios update, and are problematic until at least their 4th bios update. Asus boards are great overclocking boards, but if you don't plan on overclocking, go intel.

-- Chaos is the better order.

 

[tartarhus]

You will never notice the difference in gaming performance between these two boards, unless you are tweaking/overclocking.

-- Chaos is the better order.

 

[Guest]

i disagree with tartarhus. i had the intel an intel 815E and ditched it for the asus cusl2-c. the performance gain was noticeable.

 

[koolman_]

You people are confusing me please give your clear cut recommendations which board to buy?

Never share your secrets with a friend,you never know when he becomes your enemy.

 

[Guest]

From what I am reading, it seems like your choice should hinge on ONE thing: what do you plan to do with the new computer?

1) If you plan to do gaming AT ALL with your new computer, the Intel D815EPEA2 board is NOT the way to go. But for an office "functionality computer"(WORD, EXCEL, internet surfing), the Intel D815EPEA2 would be PERFECT.

2) If your system would be used for gaming, the CUSL2-C seems, from what others have said, to be a good choice.

Disclaimer: the opinions above are based on the posts above. I do not have any personal experience with either motherboard.

 

[Arrow]

If they're both at or about the same price, why not go for the better/more functionality one?

Rob
Please visit <b><A HREF="http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048" target="_new">http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048</A></b>

 

[tartarhus]

It all comes down to stability or performance. I use both boards. Both have their advantages. Sometimes my cusl2-c board pisses me off to the point i want to burn it, but i do use it as my main pc board at home. Like I said, IF YOU DON'T OVERCLOCK OR TWEAK, then there is no advantage to the asus board. I have tested the performance of both with quake 3, and their was no damn difference in performance between the two, though i think the intel board delivered better sound with my sb live 5.1 Hard to measure though. The asus did have very nice IRQ management, but like i said before performance was the same at default values as the intel board.

-- Chaos is the better order.

 

[koolman_]

hankyoy for your advice it really helped me to make the right choice(ASUS) .

Never share your secrets with a friend,you never know when he becomes your enemy.