- Asus and Gigabyte because both brands are well documented and you can still download manuals, drivers and BIOS files.
- Intel. It just works 😁
- Creative and Roland. Despite Creative cards being noisy, hanging notes, 12 bit DAC and whatever they are the original and things also just work.
- Nvidia
- Mitsumi optical drives
- Gravis (GUS but mostly the fantastic joysticks and pads)
- Vobis / Highscreen computers (apart from the Colani series)

I can't believe nobody mentioned 3dfx. 😁

And Diamond. Didn't anybody remember Diamond MonsterSound and Monster 3D?

IBM - Keyboards before 1992 (and PCs if you are a fan of early PC gaming)
Tandy - 1000s

ABit motherboards. After several years of gathering dust and rust out in the shed, the BP6 and NF7 still work like new.

Creative sound cards. They're shit, but what else is there?

LG CDROM drives. A dime a dozen, which is good when you buy a dozen off eBay and only one of them works.

Logitech EX110 Keyboard & Mouse combo. Wireless keyboard that works with a 286.

Intel processors if you like something that just works, AMD or Cyrix if you're looking for a challenge.

Matrox video cards. Got a whole stack of them from where I used to work. After several years of service in a hot, noisy, dirty and oily environment, they still work perfectly. And I mean all of them 😁

AOpen power supplies. See Matrox video cards.

Honestly, as much as I love Diamond, I also hate Diamond. They've given me some good performers and as many bad ones.

For me the brand would depend on the era. For example, Biostar back in the 486 era was pretty decent, but newer boards haven't really impressed me.

For newer hardware, I perfer:
Asus (most of their products)
LG (some of my best drives)
TEAC
Creative
Logitech
Razer
AMD and Intel both for CPUs (AMD for better price:performance, Intel when money isn't an issue)
Nvidia (though I respect AMD video cards too)
The list goes on, but those are most of my favorites.

Vintage hardware is tough:
Asus motherboards
TEAC
Cyrix (actually I only really respect the IBM fab units and the Cyrix 133 5x86 chips)
AMD and Intel (of course)
Lite on
Tandy
IBM
ATi and Nvidia (depending on the task... I pay some respect to 3dfx, but they tend to be more trouble then they're worth.)
Tseng Labs
I'll stop myself here, as most of the rest of the products aren't really my favorites.

My 3dfx Voodoo 1 card IS a Diamond Monster 3D card. I thought Diamond was just a distributor.

1. Love it or hate - the legendary word - AWE32.

2. S3 ViRGE.

3. Diamond Edge 3D (everyone was amazed then, especially after looking at Virtua Fighter 1 running butter smooth on a PC).

4. Diamond Monster Sound - the harbringer of Aureal3D to households.

5. 4X Creative CD-ROM Drive with the words "MPC" and "Quad Speed" printed on the front bezel door.

6. 3-Button Serial Mouse and "Bus Mouse".

7. 80286 and later went goo-goo-gaa-gaa over the numbers "386".

8. 486DX2-66 (based system) - A DOS gamer's Ultimate Dream Machine.

9. NEC Multisync Monitors - was very well known over here and much sought after during the SVGA explosion.

10. 8088 XT - dunno - maybe it's the nostalgic thing - my first pc.

(And... Uh... anything beige - Keyboards, Monitors, CPU cases - Desktop styles.... )

I haven't been building retro PCs for long, and I usually just pick parts appropriate for each build, so I haven't been able to develop favorites for every sort of hardware, but I definitely have a few.

As others have said, Asus is pretty great. My Pentium and Pentium 4 systems both use their motherboards, and both impress me with their quality and features. At least 2 of the builds I have planned for the future will also use Asus boards.

3Dfx kind of goes without saying; Voodoos are awesome 😁

I've only ever used one Matrox card (my Mystique 220), but I was so impressed with Matrox's support for their old hardware, how easy it was to find drivers for everything all the way back to DOS on their site, and how flawlessly it's worked for me so far that I know working with other Matrox cards in the future will be a pleasurable experience.

Chewhacca wrote:

Creative sound cards. They're shit, but what else is there?

I share that sentiment. I kind of hate everything about Creative, from the crap drivers, to their business practices, to the mess of different versions of SB16 cards, and yet for compatibility we're more or less stuck with them.

For me it's gotta be Diamond. From VGAs to Mainboards (Micronics) it never failed me... 😀

I'll put in my love for Intel, Creative, 3dfx, and Abit.

Not that anyone uses modems anymore, but I loved my old external USRobitics modem. That used to be my gateway to the world in the pre-2000 days.

I don't know about Abit love. Just about everything made by Abit from 1998-2003 would need to have capacitors replaced to work reliably today. There was even a class action lawsuit for that. Video cards, motherboards, etc. They used the bottom feeder caps. ASUS boards tended to have Rubycon caps in the VRMs and so often work fine even if some caps elsewhere are defective.

Diamond had the worst driver support around. They didn't really....support. There was a time when reference drivers weren't made available to end users and back then Diamond cards were a nightmare.

Creative is the poster child of playing lawyer games with their competitors. RAMBUS learned from them, I think. I like my Audigy and X-Fi cards, but before that it gets meh and the prices were crazy for what was low quality hardware.

Matrox is/was overpriced and overhyped. Few advantages and lots of flaws in practice.

I'm not sure I have specific favorites anymore. Some products are better at certain games than other products, but nothing is ideal for everything. Well, except that Voodoo cards are probably the undeniable #1 choice for most pre-2000 3D games.

laxdragon wrote:

Not that anyone uses modems anymore, but I loved my old external USRobitics modem. That used to be my gateway to the world in the pre-2000 days.

I had a love hate relationship with our Netcomm modem; man those things were slow. You'd finally find a free line to your favourite BBS, begin download, 40 mins later you were at 99% and someone picks up the phone in the kitchen, killing the connection.

The handshaking squeals and blips sounds are burnt into my brain - I still vividly remember the first time I connected to the internet.

A couple more I thought of:

- Honeywell DIN keyboards
- Logitech mice, specifically the serial 2 button ones.

There's a thrill in store for all, For we're about to toast, The corporation known in every land. We're here to cheer each pione […]
Show full quote

There's a thrill in store for all,
For we're about to toast,
The corporation known in every land.
We're here to cheer each pioneer
And also proudly boast
Of that "man of men," our friend and guiding hand.
The name of T. J. Watson means a courage none can stem;
And we feel honored to be here to toast the "IBM."

EVER ONWARD -- EVER ONWARD!
That's the spirit that has brought us fame!
We're big, but bigger we will be
We can't fail for all can see
That to serve humanity has been our aim!
Our products now are known, in every zone,
Our reputation sparkles like a gem!
We've fought our way through -- and new
Fields we're sure to conquer too
For the EVER ONWARD I.B.M.

EVER ONWARD -- EVER ONWARD!
We're bound for the top to never fall!
Right here and now we thankfully
Pledge sincerest loyalty
To the corporation that's the best of all!
Our leaders we revere, and while we're here,
Let's show the world just what we think of them!
So let us sing, men! SING, MEN!
Once or twice then sing again
For the EVER ONWARD I.B.M.

For giving us the PC standard we know and love, for giving birth to the progressive corporate cultures that fostered the digital revolution, and for building a bunch of solid, rugged, awesome products in the 80s and 90s that mostly still work today.

What happened to you IBM? You used to be COOL!

I'm a fan of IBM hard drives, I run them in all 3 retro rigs I have. I know there was the "DeathStar" snafu, but mine's still running. : 😁 In fact I have had a much greater percentage of Western Digital drives die on me.

SquallStrife wrote:

http://www.mikecase.net/ModelM/IBM-Model-M-Keyboard.jpg […]
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Behold tis' the Keyboard of the Gods
pray tell is it as awesome as legends suggest

trouble is all these companies had shortcomings or made bum decisions, but here are the ones that made products that make me feel wow:

yamaha
ibm
SGI
3dlabs
3dfx
microsoft

IBM, 3dfx and Yamaha for obvious reasons.
Well, Yamaha might not be so obvious, their only computer parts I know of are a few sound cards/chips. But those few are definitely awesome. What am I saying.. everything Yamaha makes is awesome.

Hewlett-Packard is also one of my favourites, since my first 486, was a Hewlett Packard. The monitor from that system still heats our house to this very day. (though I hate that stupid officejet printer)

Philips is another one. Like Yamaha, they never made many PC parts. Unlike Yamaha, their quality level is not always consistent. But the few Philips parts I own are good enough to call them my favourites.

For example, I have a pair of Philips PC speakers. They're not very loud and sound like crap, but are still the best sounding computer speakers I ever heard.
The screen I'm staring at right now is also made by Philips. It's a standard shadow-mask screen, sharp enough but still a bit on the blurry side, with a flat lens in front of the obviously round tube. But the amazing colours and contrast make me want to stare at it all day 🤣

Now if there's one brand I don't like at all.. it has to be Creative. The only good thing they ever made was this commercial. Ironic is that their sound cards work exactly the other way around: first impressions are good, but after a while you'll come to the conclusion that it is actually a piece of trash. 🤣

Oh and before I forget, IBM is awesome.

I would say:

Asus or Tyan boards
Seagate hard drives
Awe64 Gold sound cards
Lite-on DVD drives

Let's put it this way - that is my "standard configuration." The only deviations have been in systems were I can't use an AWE 64 gold, such as a system with no ISA slot.

IBM keyboard, 3dfx, Creative's ISA cards, Gravis Ultrasound, Yamaha XG, Roland, etc. 😀

Can't go wrong with ASUS motherboards either- I've rebuilt mine at least 3 times!