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Most reliable brand of motherboards ?

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Also anecdotally, I've had more ASUS boards fail on me than any other brand, but I know that it's not a statistically valid observation, especially because historically they are the ones I've used the most.
 
I have nothing against using other brands (currently have an assortment of MSI, Gigabyte and Biostar mobos in service - X58, P67, Z68, Z77, Z87, etc.).

ASRock is alright, but I did not like their Z77-Pro4 (crap VRM section that kept throttling when OCing a 2500K), their Extreme lines seem solid.
MSI was notorious (at one time) for the VRMs on AMD mobos literally blowing up.
Gigabyte was plagued by bootloop issues back in the (IIRC) P67/Z68 days.
 
My last 3 motherboards for my family have been ASRock after I was impressed with the first one. They've all been Extreme versions and I've always overclocked my own personal desktop. They seem to be rather decent quality for a great price.

I used to buy Gigabyte high end boards ($200+) only and then I got married and had kids. No more frequent upgrades and high end models 😛
 
WhoBeDaPlaya said:
ASUS mobos had better be 99.999999% reliable because you'll probably rue the day you have to RMA it...
Haven't owned too many recent MSI mobos other than an old P67A-GD65(B3) and two launch Z87-GD65s, all of which have been solid.
Click to expand...

MSI is a joke. I will favor Asus over MSI any day. I had a MSI video card go out on me. It would flicker, etc. So I shipped my video card off to be replaced, and got a replacement, and it was my same card I sent it with the same issue. So they sent me another replacement and that one worked. But I sold it and switched to EVGA. My MSI motherboard has been nothing but issues/quirks. Their customer support sucks.
 
pimpin-tl said:
MSI is a joke. I will favor Asus over MSI any day. I had a MSI video card go out on me. It would flicker, etc. So I shipped my video card off to be replaced, and got a replacement, and it was my same card I sent it with the same issue. So they sent me another replacement and that one worked. But I sold it and switched to EVGA. My MSI motherboard has been nothing but issues/quirks. Their customer support sucks.
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That only leaves asrock, lol. This taichi board is looking better and better.

Gigabyte puts out bioses too soon.
MSI basically isn't even trying right now.
Asus's flagship board is crapping the bed.
Biostar is usually cheap, but it also uses cheap components.
 
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Yeah, plus it took 1.5 months to actually get MSI to do it. They kept arguing saying they didn't send me the same card back, when I saw the serial # and a marking on it. LOL.
 
unseenmorbidity said:
That only leaves asrock, lol. This taichi board is looking better and better.

Gigabyte puts out bioses too soon.
MSI basically isn't even trying right now.
Asus's flagship board is crapping the bed.
Biostar is usually cheap, but it also uses cheap components.
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Or EVGA
 
The only company I won't buy motherboards from anymore is MSI. I have owned a lot of MSI products, usually because they're cheap. But I banned their motherboards. I kept buying them and every one had some weird issue, usually very esoteric.

I actually own a number of MSI video cards and those have all been fine though.

I actually have had good luck with motherboards with the exception of MSI. I remember I had a batch of ASUS motherboards in the early 2000s that all appeared to be dead once, turned out they shipped with the cmos jumper in the clear position so of course they wouldn't post but I did figure that out.
 
Way back when, I had an MSI Slot1 motherboard that was okay, but I don't think they have quite kept up with other manufacturers. They are still probably better than ECS, imo.
 
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The very first build I did had a Gigabyte mobo and I stuck with them for a long while with only 2 Asus boards. Now I go Asrock exclusively as Asus is always more expensive for no reason, MSI is rubbish and I don't like Gigabyte anymore. Their firmware is twitchy, UEFI is meh and despite the excellent build quality DPC latency was high on my last Z87 board. Its a middling choice at best. Last X99 mobo was Asrock and so is this H270 board.
 
Wow, didn't realize folks were this down on MSI mobos.
Granted, the latest I've used from them is the Z87-GD65 (have four), but they've all been rock solid since launch.
 
pimpin-tl said:
That is the board I have and it is far from rock solid.
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Interesting. What issues did you have with it?
I'm ashamed to admit that I'm probably still using the release day (or fairly early) BIOS on those.

Validated the 4770K overclocks and haven't touched it since 🙂
 
Wish I would have read this thread sooner. I have a MSI 970 with FX-6300 build waiting on me when I get back in town. Its for DC only and will be running 2 MSI R9 280x for Milkyway@home. With an 850W psu, I hope it will run smooth and last a few years. My main system is Asrock x99/i7-5820K running 2 MSI gtx 980's I game with as well as keep it crunching DC. So far its rock solid.
 
WhoBeDaPlaya said:
Interesting. What issues did you have with it?
I'm ashamed to admit that I'm probably still using the release day (or fairly early) BIOS on those.

Validated the 4770K overclocks and haven't touched it since 🙂
Click to expand...

From not booting (just getting stuck counting the letters on the bottom right), to acting dead when a device is plugged into the USB ports. Like I said, very quirky.
 
Personally for me Gigabyte is #1 but MSI is also good.

I had terrible luck with A-bit, Asus, and ECS.

I still have a Gigabyte board that runs a core 2 duo E6550 @ 3.0 after 10 years stable. Although that's now my home theater, hard to argue with results like that.
 
Excessive pcb flexing (thin pcb) seems to a more common issue with Asrock. But to me its an acceptable tradeoff for more features or better price.
 
This is always tough to gauge, IMO.

Reliability of the motherboard itself is a difficult topic due to the many variables that come into play. I'll present what I feel are the most important, with a couple quick questions for each, then my personal experience.

1. The user. As with anything, when customers get to touch something, things can go downhill quickly.

-Is this an experience user or new?
-Did the user adhere to ESD standards?
-Does the user RTFM, or just tear into it?

2. Power

-PSU, is it quality or cheap?
-How's the building power? Is it known to have problems or stable?
-is there a UPS involved and what's the quality for that as well?


Ok, my personal experience...I'm not counting the different chipsets are part of my XP, but have used VIA, Intel, nVidia.

I've personally used these brands to my recollection: Gigabyte, Asus, Epox (gone now), MSI.

Gigabyte - Always been solid. Never had to RMA

Asus - almost always solid. I RMA'd a board for the first time this past fall. The onboard NIC was physically not working. The logic worked, could install drivers, but the NIC never detected a cable. This was not the OS, as I tried a couple. Their RMA process wasn't difficult, but their support reps did have me do some stupid shit before the RMA. Like clean the NIC port....lol ok guys...

Epox - RIP - never had a problem with the couple boards I owned.

MSI - GFY - had weird issues with a couple of their products, looking back on it more than likely just firmware (BIOS) issues...not show stoppers....side note: they burned me on a $10 rebate 10 years ago....so they can GFT....not the only player in town.

I cannot comment on any other brands.
 
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