Question Gigabyte motherboard, are they really durable or reliable?

[Charlie98]

I've got a Gigabyte Z68 board that is still in everyday service... it's been 100% solid for... uh... 11 years. It was my first gamer board, and I abused it OC'ing everything I could. Further, I've used GB boards on a number of builds, including this one, they've always given me good service.

 

[Hotrod2go]

The Gigabyte X58 boards were great.

Yes, even the lower tier Lynnfield platform with P55 chipset were great boards. Still got my GA-P55-UD6 board from 2010 working perfectly to this day. It was my main gaming rig for a few yrs back then. Booted it up only a few months back with an i7-860... all working just like they day it was bought! That board had "Ultra Durable 3" on it. That board would overclock DDR3 to incredibly high levels for an Intel 1st gen IMC - I had a G.Skill kit rated at 1600MHz XMP overclocked to 2200MHz stable with well over 100% coverage in memtestpro!
When I get onto another machine here eventually, I'll upload a screenshot for proof.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

I've been building computers since last century

Since it seems I always have a tight budget, I mostly went for the "best bang for the buck", no brand preferences (although I did become an AMD fan, at least for CPUs). I also refurbished and rebuilt stuff.

Off the top of my head, I know I put together computers using boards from Abit, Asrock, Asus, Biostar, Foxconn, Gigabyte, MSI, Intel and Pegatron (OEM). Some I kept and used, some went to friends and family, some were donated or sold (so I don't know what happened to them in the long run). But my experience looks like this:

- 1 Abit board (AthlonXP era) died on me (company soon after disappeared.)
- 8 Asrock builds: zero failures.
- 10+ Asus boards: 3 failures, one just recently (from AM3 era).
- 4 Biostar builds: zero failures
- 10+ Gigabyte boards: zero failures.
- 6 (?) MSI builds: zero failures

The computer I'm typing this on was built in 2019, on a H370 Gigabyte board. Stable as a rock.
My dedicated gaming rig (built last fall) runs a 9900T on a B365 Gigabyte board. No problems there.
And that's just what I can remember.

But judging from this small personal sample, you'd think Asus is among the worst

See how this goes?

 

[evident]

just bought an Aorus Ultra Z690 board. had good luck w/ them in the past during the z68 days. I had an ultra durable board for around 100 back in the day. Z68MA-D2H-B3 i think. two of them. i actually remember one had a bad LAN port after a year or so. I sent it in and they replaced it for me. Also feel like I had a few other gigabyte boards i cant remember. I also had a coffee lake 7700HQ Laptop w/ GTX1060 that i still use. great specs for the price. battery is still good. Do have some major build quality issues though. the track pad sucks and the keyboard caps keep falling off, and i had to replace a fan in it. surprised i was able to find the exact fan online. but it's still chugging along fine still.

 

[Hotrod2go]

Yes, even the lower tier Lynnfield platform with P55 chipset were great boards. Still got my GA-P55-UD6 board from 2010 working perfectly to this day. It was my main gaming rig for a few yrs back then. Booted it up only a few months back with an i7-860... all working just like they day it was bought! That board had "Ultra Durable 3" on it. That board would overclock DDR3 to incredibly high levels for an Intel 1st gen IMC - I had a G.Skill kit rated at 1600MHz XMP overclocked to 2200MHz stable with well over 100% coverage in memtestpro!
When I get onto another machine here eventually, I'll upload a screenshot for proof.

Just wanted to apologise for the claim of the OC ram on the Gigabyte board, that was actually on an Asrock P55 board instead, while looking back through my OC archives.
But the Gigabyte P55 board is still fully functional to this day, I have some OC results from it made in 2019 if anyone's interested with that i7-860.

 

[bigboxes]

I have an A88X (FM2+) mobo from Gigabyte that's still working. I had a Gigabyte video card that failed, but that was eons ago.

 

[biostud]

All brands can have bad samples. I doubt that you could find any statistics that would put a certain brand above or below the rest.

I look for the features I want at the lowest price, and buy that board no matter what brand.

It looks like my next board will be ASRock, as my current build, the one before were Gigabyte.

 

[Jimminy]

I've been building computers since last century

Since it seems I always have a tight budget, I mostly went for the "best bang for the buck", no brand preferences (although I did become an AMD fan, at least for CPUs). I also refurbished and rebuilt stuff.

Off the top of my head, I know I put together computers using boards from Abit, Asrock, Asus, Biostar, Foxconn, Gigabyte, MSI, Intel and Pegatron (OEM). Some I kept and used, some went to friends and family, some were donated or sold (so I don't know what happened to them in the long run). But my experience looks like this:

- 1 Abit board (AthlonXP era) died on me (company soon after disappeared.)

See how this goes?

Indeed Anita. Statistics can be very tricky; sometimes misleading. Everything falls on a Gaussian bell curve. Or some other probability distribution. For example ...

I have an Abit athlon XP board. I guess it's the same that you had, except mine ran constantly for almost 20 years. I still have it today, and it still runs the same old win XP. No problems ever, other than replacing the cmos battery a couple of times. In 2019, I replaced it with a used/refurb dell, but that old abit machine still runs. It's loud and slow, but still running.

Every manufacturer that stays in business has some examples that fail early, and some that seem to never die. We tend to expect the latter, but sometimes we get the former.

It's always a gamble.

 

[enigmaticdill]

I don't care for them especially the bios.

 

[mindless1]

I miss Abit. Last board I bought from them, IP35-E overclocked a Pentium E2180 to twice the stock speed with no extraordinary measures, just a modest vcore increase.

I had a fair amount of failures in the Athlon XP era, mostly motherboard VRM capacitors and I'd recap boards, then they kept running till the tech was obsolete (too slow once multi-core CPUs became affordable). Granted, I was overclocking them quite a bit, back when single core was the norm, you had to o'c in order to not be waiting on every process to free up CPU time, or spend a fortune on the CPU instead.

Guess I've always been a bang for the buck builder, have never spent over $200 for a CPU, or motherboard. Granted, I have gotten some in the gray market that would have cost more when first appearing on the market. I buy mostly based on noticing an especially good price.

 

[CP5670]

I have never used GIgabyte somehow. I've had a ton of Asus and MSI boards, and some Abit and DFI ones as well. Generally modern boards are far more reliable and less finicky than the boards from 10+ years ago. I tend to stick with MSI these days since I'm familiar with their bios and tools.

 

[evident]

I miss Abit. Last board I bought from them, IP35-E overclocked a Pentium E2180 to twice the stock speed with no extraordinary measures, just a modest vcore increase.

I had a fair amount of failures in the Athlon XP era, mostly motherboard VRM capacitors and I'd recap boards, then they kept running till the tech was obsolete (too slow once multi-core CPUs became affordable). Granted, I was overclocking them quite a bit, back when single core was the norm, you had to o'c in order to not be waiting on every process to free up CPU time, or spend a fortune on the CPU instead.

Guess I've always been a bang for the buck builder, have never spent over $200 for a CPU, or motherboard. Granted, I have gotten some in the gray market that would have cost more when first appearing on the market. I buy mostly based on noticing an especially good price.

I think I had that exact board too. Speaking of defunct brands. Had a DFI lan party for a socket 754 system that I loved... and an ecs board for an older Athlon Chipset... k7s5a?? Not sure how i remember that, that gave me nothing but usb issues.. usb mouse would cut out every minute or so. I think it went in the trash.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I have never used GIgabyte somehow. I've had a ton of Asus and MSI boards, and some Abit and DFI ones as well. Generally modern boards are far more reliable and less finicky than the boards from 10+ years ago. I tend to stick with MSI these days since I'm familiar with their bios and tools.

The game mode in the MSI UEFI on the Tomahawk B450 I had, is the best auto overclocking tool I have ever used, and it isn't even close. Had a 5600G running 4.7GHz all core with a mouse click.

I also agree the UEFI is the weak point for Gigabyte. At least compared to the other major brands. MSI is the best, then ASRock, then Asus, then Gigabyte, IMO.

The most recent Gigabyte I bought is the B550 AORUS Pro AX v1.1. It uses the AMD/MediaTek Wi-Fi 6E RZ608 (MT7921K) I have to say, it is excellent. I started using Wi-Fi because I added a test bench in one of the only spots in the house I didn't run ethernet to. It gets better throughput, and the bluetooth gets better range, than the boards I have with Intel solutions. Gigabyte also does little things that matter to me. Including the magnetic base for the antenna for instance. My Asus X570 TUF Gaming didn't, and it is annoying for someone that moves PCs between rooms a lot. I can add one, but it should have been included. Gigabyte includes the USB-C header on the Elite series, which most boards at that price don't.

 

[Hulk]

Almost every Gigabyte mobo I've owned has had some quirk I've had to live with.

Well said. That is my experience with Gigabyte as well. They are generally good boards but I'm partial to Asus these days.

 

[CP5670]

The game mode in the MSI UEFI on the Tomahawk B450 I had, is the best auto overclocking tool I have ever used, and it isn't even close. Had a 5600G running 4.7GHz all core with a mouse click.

I also agree the UEFI is the weak point for Gigabyte. At least compared to the other major brands. MSI is the best, then ASRock, then Asus, then Gigabyte, IMO.

The most recent Gigabyte I bought is the B550 AORUS Pro AX v1.1. It uses the AMD/MediaTek Wi-Fi 6E RZ608 (MT7921K) I have to say, it is excellent. I started using Wi-Fi because I added a test bench in one of the only spots in the house I didn't run ethernet to. It gets better throughput, and the bluetooth gets better range, than the boards I have with Intel solutions. Gigabyte also does little things that matter to me. Including the magnetic base for the antenna for instance. My Asus X570 TUF Gaming didn't, and it is annoying for someone that moves PCs between rooms a lot. I can add one, but it should have been included. Gigabyte includes the USB-C header on the Elite series, which most boards at that price don't.

The MSI UEFI does have its quirks and confusing terms like calling the auto-OC "game boost." I find those auto-OC tools do work but increase the voltage much more than needed and create unnecessary heat, so I don't use them. However, there are no serious issues and they release regular BIOS updates that work smoothly. The MSI antenna has the magnet too. I stick it on the back of the case. The MSI Center app is horrible bloatware (needed to set RGB), but I think that applies to all the other companies too.

I would consider USB-C and Bluetooth must-haves at this point, and wouldn't buy any board without them. Some VR headsets need USB-C to work properly.

 

[Charlie98]

Z68MA-D2H-B3

That is the same board I'm still running, with my 2500K. It was my primary game/desktop board until 2020, I think, then I moved to to my wife's computer, to replace the incredibly solid Gigabyte B75M-D3H/i3 Sandy combo.

I don't care for them especially the bios.

GB's older BIOS was not very polished, their newer versions are pretty decent.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The MSI UEFI does have its quirks and confusing terms like calling the auto-OC "game boost." I find those auto-OC tools do work but increase the voltage much more than needed and create unnecessary heat, so I don't use them. However, there are no serious issues and they release regular BIOS updates that work smoothly. The MSI antenna has the magnet too. I stick it on the back of the case. The MSI Center app is horrible bloatware (needed to set RGB), but I think that applies to all the other companies too.

I would consider USB-C and Bluetooth must-haves at this point, and wouldn't buy any board without them. Some VR headsets need USB-C to work properly.

In my case it used less voltage than the OOB PBO did. While providing a significantly better overclock. Manual is certainly the best optimized. But my response is - Ain't nobody got time for that.

I refuse to even plug in aRGB cables, or use apps from any board maker.

I agree about USB-C and BT; must haves.

 

[Tech Junky]

USB-C and BT;

You can add BT & WIFI for under $20 using the AX411 + antennas for $10. USBC card for another $20.

Does it make you feel better to spend an extra $100+ to have the OEM install them?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

You can add BT & WIFI for under $20 using the AX411 + antennas for $10. USBC card for another $20.

Does it make you feel better to spend an extra $100+ to have the OEM install them?

Some day you are going to tell me something I don't know. Start with where you pulled the $100 from.

And how it is specific to Gigabyte reliability, the topic of the thread.

 

[utahraptor]

I am still using my Gigabyte Z77X-UP5TH and now using for work from home so over 10 hours most days.

 

[Caveman]

GREAT THREAD! I've used MSI and Asus 2X but thinking MSI, ASROCK or GB for this coming AM5 build and was spooked that the UEFI may be a disappointment on anything other than Asus. The MSI board was 20 years ago before UEFI. Looking back, I think I was so wowed by the UEFI concept that I attributed it to Asus and stuck with them for 2 builds 7 years after the MSI build and another 15 years later... Now I get it - and I'm pleasantly surprised to hear MSI and Asrock have good UEFIs. That makes me want to try them again. Asus are just a worse value for the AM5 at least right now...

 

[lopri]

Here is my skinny;

Asus - Most experienced vendor. Can probably whip up a board with one hand tied. Their boards are usually sophisticated and well rounded, and easy to work with. They rarely give you a bargain, though, and you are more than likely get ripped off. (in the sense that you pay more for the same stuff that you can get from other vendors cheaper, a la ASUS tax)

MSI - Hottest thing currently. It seems like this vendor is at its prime right now, firing in all directions in recent years. They have strong line-ups that appeal to contemporary enthusiasts, and their BIOS seems to be the favorite of overclockers these days. Even their products' appearance seems a cut above the competition. Though I do feel like they somewhat play fast and loose at times.

Asrock - Often tries to undercut competition with lower prices and rare features that are not seen on boards that are comparable in prices from other vendors. They do indeed produce great bargains, but you need to do a research because they do cut corners in some products as well. As long as you do due diligence you are likely get more bang for the back from this vendor. Their aesthetics leaves a lot to be desired, if that's your thing.

Gigabyte - I tend to think them as by-the-book guys. They seem to make stuff exactly to the specs more often than not. This has pros and cons. Some vendors will try to fix Intel/AMD's shortcomings on their own and when that works out, their products shine. But Gigabyte doesn't seem interested in such endeavor. The other side of this coin is that their products seem quite durable and their interoperability seems top notch. I believe Gigabyte boards were the favorite of Hackintosh crowd and you get the idea why. I find their Intel offerings more attractive than their AMD stuff mainly because their BIOS is incredibly frustrating to work with when it comes to memory tweaking on AMD platform.

 

[CP5670]

I think that Asus tax applies to MSI as well. They know their boards sell well and have really jacked up the prices of their higher end ones.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I am currently running a Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master and its components are slowly dying one by one causing me issues and their support has been dismal during my time using it.

Its replacement, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero is on order as I transition back to Intel and Asus as they have consistently been the best boards I have ever used.

 

[BoomerD]

I'm currently looking for a replacement Z390 board to replace a dying ASRock Phantom Gaming 4 OEM board.
I'm stunned by the prices for products that are already ~4 years old. At or above their retail MSRP prices...and being sold by marketplace sellers that come WITHOUT any factory warranty. (according to MSI...still waiting to hear from Gigabyte) Newegg says they still have the full warranty...but after the Gamers Nexus fiasco earlier in the year, I'm just not sure I trust the egg any longer.

In ~30 years of building PC's, I've always leaned toward ASUS for quality and reliability. I screwed up once...got in on one of the Fry's ECS/Pentium 4 bundle scams. Ended up replacing the board with an ASUS when the ECS (extra crappy stuff) board died and took my video card with it.