My strategy has always been to go with last year's finest. I'm going to violate that this time and go for AMD Ryzen processor. It's killing the present generation of Intel chips and will even beat the next unless Intel makes huge changes. They're overpriced anyway.
I've been AMD since 2004 and never regretted it. Saved about 50% and got 90% of the performance. I'm always willing to give up a little quality for a honking good price.
But with Ryzen, that's out the window. Now you can have better for less than Intel. Probably won't last long but who cares. I love to support the underdog.
I had problems with my ASUS motherboard, but it wasn't the fault of ASUS. There was a catalytic capacitor scam going on at the time where the company who sold most of the worlds' supply was the victim of industrial espionage. The guy who stole the blueprints took them to another manufacturer, who proceeded to steal the market.
But what the thief and other company didn't know was that the formula for the electrolyte that was stolen lacked the chemical that preserved the formula. All over the world television sets, phones, radio control equipment, computers, microwaves........failed a year after manufacture. My ASUS motherboard and an EVGA graphics card both died from popped electrolytic capacitors. Today I'd fire up my soldering iron and replace the caps. Then I wasn't up to the task.
I think there are a lot of great motherboard manufacturers now. I chose the MSI because it was more Linux compatible, but ASUS, MSI, Asrock, and others are all good right now. And you're right, RAM is the biggest bang for the buck out there.
Personally SSDs don't blow my skirt up because I don't care how fast my computer boots once a week. If they get a lot more reliable and cost a quarter of what they do now I'll probably get interested.
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