yay or nay - ASUS COMMANDO

[KHAN]

One thing I remembered about my Commando mobo is the fact that whilst the SATA ports are numberous and great, there is only one IDE port, with my 2 CD/DVD drives It's difficult to get an IDE drive as well as the SATA ones.

 

[RKF]

Its always good to have an appreciation for the finer details of a product. but there comes a point where you have to step back and see the bigger picture, its a motherboard, by the time you made up your mind there will be a new chipset out

Too true sometimes you can spend forever deciding which bit of kit to get,and motherboards are a minefield at the moment so many to choose from Asus alone seem to have about 500 varieties, glad they don’t make cars. I couldn’t imagine not getting info on something I was going to buy, and reading from what people have to say on here helps you to get nearer to getting what you want, and to understand some of the finer details.

It’s good and sometimes not that someone’s says how about this product and someone else says nope get this, so you take a look and another person goes get this one instead, you end up going round in circles. Doesn’t bother me I like to get peoples input and opinions and unless you are a Muppet I don’t think anyone is going to recommend something that is a dogs dinner on here.

But you do have to get to that moment where you stop getting info and just buy whatever it is that you have been agonizing over or as Big Wayne says by the time you make up your mind the next best thing will be out and you’ll be back to square one.

 

[WJA96]

One thing I remembered about my Commando mobo is the fact that whilst the SATA ports are numberous and great, there is only one IDE port, with my 2 CD/DVD drives It's difficult to get an IDE drive as well as the SATA ones.

It's a problem common to almost all the Core2Duo boards. The new Intel specification says no PATA disks, so even the PATA ports that are there are basically bodged on.

What does the Commando clock like?

 

[WJA96]

Too true sometimes you can spend forever deciding which bit of kit to get,and motherboards are a minefield at the moment so many to choose from Asus alone seem to have about 500 varieties, glad they don’t make cars. I couldn’t imagine not getting info on something I was going to buy, and reading from what people have to say on here helps you to get nearer to getting what you want, and to understand some of the finer details.

It’s good and sometimes not that someone’s says how about this product and someone else says nope get this, so you take a look and another person goes get this one instead, you end up going round in circles. Doesn’t bother me I like to get peoples input and opinions and unless you are a Muppet I don’t think anyone is going to recommend something that is a dogs dinner on here.

But you do have to get to that moment where you stop getting info and just buy whatever it is that you have been agonizing over or as Big Wayne says by the time you make up your mind the next best thing will be out and you’ll be back to square one.

I don't mind people asking for advice or opinions, I do get extremely frustrated when people won't listen because they've actually already made up their mind and they've shut down and gone into bunker mode, which is pretty much what's happened here.

 

[Big.Wayne]

It's a problem common to almost all the Core2Duo boards. The new Intel specification says no PATA disks, so even the PATA ports that are there are basically bodged on.

Well I wouldn't call it a 'problem'?

I mean I did read a fair bit about the add-in PATA controller and I was worried I would have a problem with my 'single' PATA DVD-Burner but no, I just connected it up and its works fine, really no bother at all. Maybe if your one of the consumers who has 4x PATA DVD-Burners then maybe its an issue but most people have one or two Optical drives max so a single PATA controller is fine.

Add to this the fact that SATA Optical drives are available to purchase and the whole issue of no native PATA controller on the i965 chipset becomes a mOOt point.

Of course there will be one guy with 8 SATA hard-drives and 4 PATA Optical drives that can have a little moan!

 

[bfar]

I don't mind people asking for advice or opinions, I do get extremely frustrated when people won't listen because they've actually already made up their mind and they've shut down and gone into bunker mode, which is pretty much what's happened here.

He's entitled to ask for advice, and also not to take it dude - don't take it personnaly, I'm sure your input is appreciated.

When it comes to overclocking core2Duos, any one of the following are top of the heap -

Abit QuadGT
Asus Commando or P5B Deluxe
Gigabyte DS3 or DS4
DFI Infinity 965

If the OP wants to buy any one of those I wouldn't argue...

There's no perfect mobo, all overclocking mobos have funny quirks. Its the nature of overclocking - there'll always be a few side effects no matter what board you have.

 

[WJA96]

Well I wouldn't call it a 'problem'?

OK - it's an issue common to all i965 boards. Besides - you've got one of those DVD copier tower (sorry - backup device) things haven't you?

 

[WJA96]

don't take it personally.

I didn't - I just hit the ignore button. There is no point in wasting time responding to posts where the OP is only looking to have his own point of view confirmed.

 

[Big.Wayne]

OK - it's an issue common to all i965 boards. Besides - you've got one of those DVD copier tower (sorry - backup device) things haven't you?

No, just a single NEC 16x DVD Burner, although I'm starting to consider fitting an extra drive.

Your quite right to highlight the i965 chipset not having PATA as standard, INTEL obviously had their own reasons for this and to be honest thanks to the release of SATA optical drives I can see where they are coming from.

There is no point in wasting time

Good one Right I'm off to do something meaningful like run a 32Mb SUper PI

 

[VortX]

4 PCI sockets:

True, but you are likely to lose the use of a couple with dual slot gfx cards & the QuadGT gains a PCI-E which will probably be more useful in the future.

Agreed. The Abit's PCI slots are position better however I will not be going SLI or CF. I would rather just buy a better single Graphics card when released.

I didn't - I just hit the ignore button. There is no point in wasting time responding to posts where the OP is only looking to have his own point of view confirmed.

I was not looking to have my own point of view confirmed, I already knew the Commando was a good board but I wanted to see if other people thought the same or they thought differently and reasons/explanations why. However all I had on here is people (including yourself) who had 'already made up their mind' that the Commando was bad and not worth the money and just say 'yeah go for Abit, it’s the best'... but I did not see any evidence to back it up. If everyone went on saying yeah the best car in the world is the Aston Martin DB9 it’s the best combination of speed and luxury, everyone would soon believe that it is. Even though there is no evidence for or against the car. It's just believe what someone else says. However I am not willing to just accept that I should buy the Abit because everyone says to get it, when half the people saying so don't even own the board, and they have no reason to justify not getting the Commando. The only reasons that I have heard why I should not get the Commando I have already explained that they are fixed in BIOS updates, maybe a bad user or just something I am willing to compromise. For example the price. I have already explained that I can afford the Commando as I have found it cheaper elsewhere and the price does not concern me, however, you persist on bringing the subject up. To be honest when you were saying about 'scraping for positives' I think its just a matter of you 'scraping for negatives' as the only thing you seem to find bad against the Commando is the price or something such as squeaking RAM, which can be fixed or a simple RMA. I have agreed that both are good boards, A+, however you persist in making comments. I do not wish to follow the leader without any reason and evidence to do so, because when it comes to the DS3P Rev 3.3 everyone said 'yeah its fab, get it, its one of the best boards out there.' Now loads of people are coming onto the Overclocker’s Forums and complaining about multiple issues. If you do not wish to here me out when I have agreed that both boards are great and its almost impossible to decide which is the better, and I also said that I appreciated your help, and I said I would go and look in more depth at the Quad GT...yet you still wish to make comments then more fool you. As for everyone else on here I appreciate your help and opinions.

 

[Mekrel]

What you need to remember is the 965 chipset is basically a good robust all round chipset and a lot of boards based upon it will clock high and be stable, and that's probably the reason as to why 975x is faster clock for clock but has less head room.

That is exactly what you get with the commando, you get a 965 based chipset with no added extras on the board itself. The bump in price is justified by Asus with the software they pack with it.

Now please don't tell me that you actually use these pieces of software when pretty much every third party alternative is better. 3rd party clockgens, temp tools, chipset/memory tweakers are much better. The only exception to the above rule I've ever had when owning a motherboard is with RD600 and thats because the clockgen is good and nothing else supported it.

That connector thing is basically a piece of plastic, and if you can't build a PC using the normal wires from the case chassis then you shouldn't be building a PC.

Asus have made NO work on the bios what so ever to even control the chipset above and beyond what it's supposed to run at. Abit and DFI have in order for it to clock higher on the tighter chipset.

So basically you are paying for a factory deafult board with some LEDs soldered onto it, a LCD screen which is at the back of the case (WTF?) and software bundles which don't justify the price. If you want to spend a lot of money on a board for it's looks then go with the commando, if you want to spend less on a better board for what a motherboard really should be then go with other choices.

 

[VortX]

What you need to remember is the 965 chipset is basically a good robust all round chipset and a lot of boards based upon it will clock high and be stable, and that's probably the reason as to why 975x is faster clock for clock but has less head room.

That is exactly what you get with the commando, you get a 965 based chipset with no added extras on the board itself. The bump in price is justified by Asus with the software they pack with it.

Now please don't tell me that you actually use these pieces of software when pretty much every third party alternative is better. 3rd party clockgens, temp tools, chipset/memory tweakers are much better. The only exception to the above rule I've ever had when owning a motherboard is with RD600 and thats because the clockgen is good and nothing else supported it.

That connector thing is basically a piece of plastic, and if you can't build a PC using the normal wires from the case chassis then you shouldn't be building a PC.

Asus have made NO work on the bios what so ever to even control the chipset above and beyond what it's supposed to run at. Abit and DFI have in order for it to clock higher on the tighter chipset.

So basically you are paying for a factory deafult board with some LEDs soldered onto it, a LCD screen which is at the back of the case (WTF?) and software bundles which don't justify the price. If you want to spend a lot of money on a board for it's looks then go with the commando, if you want to spend less on a better board for what a motherboard really should be then go with other choices.

I don't wish to argue with you I am just repeating what Custom PC mag have said and many many more reviews across the internet say that the Asus Commando's BIOS is extremely good with plenty of head room which includes the 'outstanding voltage controls.' I wouldn't sall the Commando a factory board either, it is actually supposed to be an improvement on the Deluxe. I agree with what you say about the P965 chipset. Like I said though I am looking for good features, looks and software. Just go on the R.O.G website or the Asus website and you can find it all there. As for me im off to chill out. Thanks for the reply

 

[Mekrel]

Just read XtremeSystems Intel section about it - you can't get much better views than those who have RETAIL versions of the board.

CustomPC's, Tony @ DFI, Andre Yang etc all get boards which are not part of mass production (not all the time but a lot of the time).

Now, if you read a few threads (mainly the first few posts) you will see how amazing all boards reviewers have then watch the amount of posts after it where people simply can not mirror the same out comes the reviewers had.

I just read the few last pages about the Commando, and there are problems with it and people not hitting as high FSB as with other boards with the same memory and processor, hissing coils etc.

Not what I would call a stable board.

 

[Typhoon]

I had a Commando for a few weeks and it worked for me. Probably not much different between this and the P5B. Bios has has plenty more to fiddle with and if your a tweaker this will keep you up till the small hours. I got to a pretty stable 4.1GHz (512x8)with water (but silly Vcore). Supposedly has hand picked NB's too. If you after the last bit of juice out of your chip then this is probaby the board.

I didn't have any of the common issues. I RMAed mine for the P5W DH after it refused to boot when there was anything plugged in the USB ports. Was also getting intermitant system crashes in Vista (not sure if it was the board as clean installed Vista again). I had settled for 3.6Ghz (400x9) for this 24/7 rig and I figured I was after stabilty rather than the ultimate clock so went for a i975x chipset. Its running at the same 400x9 and no issure (so far )

 

[Cupra]

I tell you what is REALLY useful! The external reset switches they are strating to fit to these boards. It's a godsend not having to pull out half the SATA connectors then blindly grab about with a pair of long-nose pliers to get at the reset pins. Well, that could just be me , but I think it's easier with a switch.

lol im sick of blind reseting bios with my long nosed pliers.. although i dont remove my sata cables

 

[Mekrel]

There is no such thing as a hand picked chipset.

Hand picking only occurs on chips which step to different speeds within a family. I.e a processor, GPU.

The system runs on a bus and at least has to run at that speed, so you can't create dumped down version where the silicon doesn't run at a certain bus speed.

 

[BUFF]

just say 'yeah go for Abit, it’s the best'... but I did not see any evidence to back it up.

Well, hopefully I have given you evidence to back up the assertion.

The only reasons that I have heard why I should not get the Commando I have already explained that they are fixed in BIOS updates, maybe a bad user or just something I am willing to compromise.

but several of the issues don't appear to be fixable by BIOS (they are hardware), plenty of the people who had problems aren't noobs & when they (not just an individual case) have problems with 2 & 3 in a row you can't say that they just had a one-off bad board (which we all accept happens with mass manufacture).

For example the price. I have already explained that I can afford the Commando as I have found it cheaper elsewhere and the price does not concern me, however, you persist on bringing the subject up.

OK, you can afford it but if you can get something as good (or better) for ~25% less wouldn't you rather save that money or put it to another use?

 

[WJA96]

lol im sick of blind reseting bios with my long nosed pliers.. although i dont remove my sata cables

I had to on the P5N-E as I'm running SLi so the SATA connectors have to be the type that come out at right angles and they are right on top of the reset pins. It's a pain it the rectum, but I have actually made up my own switch which just fits onto the three pins and it's now resettable from outside as well. £4 in bits from an electronics shop. Ghetto modding at it's simplest.

 

[Big.Wayne]

That connector thing is basically a piece of plastic, and if you can't build a PC using the normal wires from the case chassis then you shouldn't be building a PC

What an ACE idea that was, should be standard on every board from now on as you only ever have to fiddle around with the wires once ever. I do remove my mobo from time to time so things like Q-Connect are most welcome.

Asus have made NO work on the bios what so ever to even control the chipset above and beyond what it's supposed to run at. Abit and DFI have in order for it to clock higher on the tighter chipset

What do you mean exactly? there are plenty of voltage options on the P5B-Deluxe I am using? Have I missed something or is there less features on the Commando?

 

[dod]

What an ACE idea that was, should be standard on every board from now on as you only ever have to fiddle around with the wires once ever. I do remove my mobo from time to time so things like Q-Connect are most welcome.

I agree, it's a really simple great idea that works, doesn't really justify the price difference but saves messing about when you do strip the board down.

I'm quite surprised about the hostility towards the Commando in this thread to be honest. Everyone's going on about how good the gigabyte boards are but if you have a look through the threads how many are saying "please help, problems with my Asus XXXXX" whilst there are plenty for the gigabyte. (both of mine let me down) There's a lot to be said for stability right out of the box even if you maybe do lose a fraction in performance.

This is the first Asus board I've had (I've been through a lot of other boards in the last 5 years) but would have no problem in going for another one based on this one.