General quality and reliability of ASRock boards

[minedwiz]

I recently (May 18th) build a system around an ASrock 970 Extreme3 board. I don't have experience with the brand, and the internet's opinion on them is divided, to say the least, so what are people's thoughts here on them?

 

[dac7nco]

I recently (May 18th) build a system around an ASrock 970 Extreme3 board. I don't have experience with the brand, and the internet's opinion on them is divided, to say the least, so what are people's thoughts here on them?

ASRock is quite nice these days... what is your opinion now that you've built the system?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I've had a 990FX Extreme4 board for I think around a year or more. Never had any issues with it.

 

[Sheep221]

My P67 pro3 is rock solid for more than a year already, nothing to worry about ASrock

 

[mikeymikec]

I'm curious, does anyone here really believe that the milestone of a year is enough to determine that a board is reliable (let alone a brand)? I wouldn't be glad that a board lasted a year, I would be bloody annoyed if it didn't.

I personally would be looking for a large enough group of people who have been using a model of board for at least 3 years, preferably 5.

IMO another thing that determines quality are teething issues that aren't the result of user error, as well as things like "have you had to do a BIOS reset out of the blue without any user-caused factors?".

 

[Sheep221]

This is mostly enthusiast forums, where most users are hardcore gamers, overclockers and professionals, who are doing stuff that stress the components alot and they frequently upgrade, so no one here is probably holding 5 year old boards. There are some people here still using P4s and C2Ds but I'm not sure if they have ASrock boards.

 

[BUnit1701]

I've got 2 ASRock boards that are 3-4 years old and have seen fairly heavy use, and thus far both are still going strong. One is an LGA775 nforce 650i board currently serving my brother with an E8600, the other an AOD790GX/128M that I ran a PII 940 @3.6Ghz for most of its life, recently picked up a PII 975, been running that at 3.9.

 

[WilliamM2]

We've used dozens here at work going back at least 5 years. No failures yet.

Bought my first for home use a little over a year ago, a Fata1ty P67 Performance. It's been rock solid and stable with a 2500K at 4.4 stock voltage. No complaints.

 

[dac7nco]

I personally would be looking for a large enough group of people who have been using a model of board for at least 3 years, preferably 5.

I have an X58 Extreme in the office (blue and white era!), which still sustains an i7-920(D0) @ 3.6GHz. It's been running 24/7 since August 2009 (nearly 4 years). It's been in continuous operation since November of last year, when I shut it down for ten minutes to install another 12GB memory kit. I haven't rebooted it since.

 

[UaVaj]

ASJunk.

own a Z77 Extreme4 and a Z77 Pro3. both had problem within the first 90days. not user type problem but manufacturering defect type problem.

quality is so-so. warranty is piss poor and requires jumping through hoops for RMA.

if you want subpar that might work. buy a ASJunk.

if you want quality and peace of mind and ez rma. buy a GigaByte or Asus.

 

[Endymion FRS]

All you're going to find here is anecdotal stuff. For example, in contrast to the guy above me, I have used a Z77 Extreme4 since launch and had a great experience. Good board for a good price.

 

[UaVaj]

my asjunk problem may be isolated or simply my bad luck. point taken.

-----

as for manufacturing quality. put an asjunk next to a gigabyte/asus. see for yourself. do not have to take my word for it.

as for warranty process. http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2321808

enough said.

-----

it is your money. spend as you see fit. if you want an asjunk. buy an asjunk.

 

[dac7nco]

Edited to remove crankiness.

 

[dma0991]

I have an ASRock board that uses Pentium 4. I still have it and I think it still works. Current ownership of ASRock boards would be ASRock H61M-GS and ASRock H61M/U3S3. They're low budget boards but they've had no problems yet for nearly a year.

Can't deny that some might have bad boards as these boards aren't marketed as premium, individually tested parts like ROG or MPower. They're mostly budget, so you will come across bad boards no matter how good is the factory's QA.

 

[JBT]

ASRock Z68 Extreme 3 Gen 3 running an 2500K @ 4.4Ghz the last few years just fine.

 

[Patrese]

I`m using a Z68 Extreme 4 for a bit more than an year, and it`s been rock solid.

 

[Zap]

I recently (May 18th) build a system around an ASrock 970 Extreme3 board. I don't have experience with the brand, and the internet's opinion on them is divided, to say the least, so what are people's thoughts here on them?

You should ask these kinds of questions BEFORE buying.

 

[Kenmitch]

You should ask these kinds of questions BEFORE buying.

I agree.

Asrock makes some good motherboards with best bang for the buck most of the time.

On another note the z87 motherboard world is lacking info at this time. Guess Haswell isn't doing so hot....Or is it

 

[Smoblikat]

I only buy ASRock boards. I have built 6 computers with the 970 Extreme3 and it has worked flawlessly in all of them.

 

[mdlam]

Asus requested Proof of purchase, serial number, and had a bent pin refusal condition when i RMAed a smoking board. Those are really standard paragraphs.

Oh and ASUS took 2 days to get back to me, and 6 weeks to ship me a new board...what is so different from one Asian company to another? NOTHING

 

[MrDavid]

I am always wondering about those discussions. One is afraid of Asrock, the other one of Biostar. Then somebody complains about Asus quality and so on.

Honestly, i dont think that any motherboard is really worse than others. The higher price is only for the expensive marketing of those products. A manufacturer trying to do a full feature board will always have to ask for more return.

Smaller brands are not doing that, having less marketing expenses and can also sell their products for lower price.

For me, i am using my second biostar since a while although everybody is advicing me against. I did not regret the choice.

I think its the same with Asrock. Of course, a board can break down, but that also happens with cars and planes. But that doesnt mean all of them are crap.

just my thoughts

 

[dac7nco]

I am always wondering about those discussions. One is afraid of Asrock, the other one of Biostar. Then somebody complains about Asus quality and so on.

Honestly, i dont think that any motherboard is really worse than others. The higher price is only for the expensive marketing of those products. A manufacturer trying to do a full feature board will always have to ask for more return.

Smaller brands are not doing that, having less marketing expenses and can also sell their products for lower price.

For me, i am using my second biostar since a while although everybody is advicing me against. I did not regret the choice.

I think its the same with Asrock. Of course, a board can break down, but that also happens with cars and planes. But that doesnt mean all of them are crap.

just my thoughts

/Thread

 

[VirtualLarry]

I am always wondering about those discussions. One is afraid of Asrock, the other one of Biostar. Then somebody complains about Asus quality and so on.

For me, i am using my second biostar since a while although everybody is advicing me against. I did not regret the choice.

I sold a friend a computer with a Biostar AM2+ mobo, and the USB ports were bad.

I built a computer for a relative, with a B75 Biostar mobo with solid caps. Hopefully that works out, and lasts a long time. It's pretty fast with a G1610 IB dual-core, 16GB of DDR3-1333, and an 80GB Intel SSD.

 

[bononos]

There were some grouses about the thinness of Asrocks pcb. But they've really up there in terms of sales numbers.

 

[Meghan54]

All you're going to find here is anecdotal stuff. For example, in contrast to the guy above me, I have used a Z77 Extreme4 since launch and had a great experience. Good board for a good price.

And anecdotal evidence is ALL you find for any reliability rankings. How else do you think JD Power, CR, et al, produce their reliability rankings? It certainly isn't because they can access the manufacturers' warranty claims/service records. No one can access those...those pesky manufacturers tend to keep those stats and records very hidden. So we're left with asking owners how their experiences have been using Brand X or Y.....you know, anecdotal experience.

as for manufacturing quality. put an asjunk next to a gigabyte/asus. see for yourself. do not have to take my word for it.

Interesting you mention comparing AsRock to Asus as far as manufacturing quality. You do understand that AsRock motherboards are built on the same assembly lines as Asus boards. Guess that is a leftover from when Asus created AsRock as a company to fight at the mid- to lower-levels of the motherboard spectrum. And even after Asus spun off AsRock (to the parent company of both....Pegatron), AsRock boards never left the Asus assembly/manufacturing plants.

True, comparing an Asus board to an AsRock board sometimes shows AsRock using electrolytic caps instead of the solids on the Asus board, or not as feature rich as its "competing" Asus board, but the layouts are strikingly similar to identical and their BIOS's are darned near identical, also.

Over the last few years, AsRock has become my go-to "cheap" board because they just work---and thanks to Microcenter's aggressive pricing on cpu and mb combos. In the several dozen I've built with, have yet to have one failure.