Which are 1st, 2nd, 3rd "tier" MB manufacturers?

[fritzfield]

I am looking to upgrade my Abit BX6 and CPU. I have read about 1st, 2nd, 3rd tier manufacturers. Can anyone tell me which manufacturer is 1st, 2nd, etc. I see people having trouble with all the different board makers and it is confusing as to which to stay away from. Locally, here in southern NH, the small shops carry DFI, ECS, and Biostar but can special order an ASUS, Intel, or MSI board. On the net, Newegg and Gogglegear sell them all, except PCChips, but do not editorialize on the quality or the "tier" of the board.

With a 1st tier board, what do I get as far as quality, price, and stability vs. 2nd or 3rd tier?

BTW, I see very few complaints about Intel made boards, nor any comments about SuperMicro boards. Is that because they are way too expensive or because they can't be overclocked or pushed beyond their specs?

Thanks

 

[KF]

Sorry, I don't know quite what they are trying to say with "tier." There are some very large manufacturers. There are some well-regarded manufacturers. There are some that don't manufacturer boards (ABIT), they contract them out. There are some manufacturers that use several brands, and will produce boards that others sell under another name that may or may not be identical, and for which the support, if any, does not come from the actual manufacturer.

I believe the do-it-yourself versions of motherboards are not the largest selling, and that as a percentage almost all of a large manufacturers mobos go into pre-built computers and are variants minus the features and BIOS of the separately retailed mobos.

Very popular bands, and very easy to find (on the Internet), are ASUS, ABIT, EPOX, MSI.

ASUS is the only brand that has an exceptional reputation. The company is gigantic.

ABIT has an enthusiatic following among enthusiasts. They are small.

EPOX has a high reputation for stabilty while OCing, which is their specialty. They are very small.

MSI is huge. It has a reputation for poor stability on the first release of a motherboard, which somehow gets pretty good after a few months.

ECS is not highly regarded. The company is huge. Except for one SIS chipset motherboard, their reputation has been dirt forever and ever. PCChips is consider absolute trash and sucker bait. It is among the brands that ECS makes which are distributed differently than ECS.

DFI is practically unmentioned.

Biostar is well thought of by the very few people that look for them. No one is claiming they are high-performing, just that they are solid and cheap for the amount of features.

Intel considers being a fan an approximation to being a criminal. Yes, Intel does not make mobos pitched to fandom. Supposedly the mobos will not work at all (by design) with a new version of a CPU that arrives after you buy the mobo. Intel mobos get fewer mentions than Biostar and DFI on these forums. Except for obsolete ones, Intel mobos I have seen cost an arm and a leg, and for the price difference you get absolute nothing, because that is the way Intel marketing decided it ought to be. Intel is supposed to be about the largest manufacturer of Intel-chipset mobos, probably because they are the lowest cost producer and under-price every other.

 

[fritzfield]

Thanks for the info.

Who, then, makes the motherboards for Compaq/HP, IBM, Dell, and Gateway? These have to be stable boards, right? They can't have problems with finicky memory settings, etc. I know that their BIOS are limited, but do they have for example ASUS make the mainboards for a Compaq Presario or does Compaq/HP make their own boards?

 

[tcsenter]

Uh oh...I predict a response by Peter may be imminent.

The definition of n-Tier markets, n-Tier manufacturers, n-Tier suppliers, can vary quite a bit depending on the nature and type of organization which the writer is discussing. The definition can vary from one writer to the next.

But generally speaking, a Tier One manufacturer is a direct supplier to an OEM manufacturer. An n-Tier manufacturer's products are used in the manufacture of something else. An OEM produces the final product which is not used to make something else but is sold to the end-user. In the automotive industry, it would go something like this:

Toyota = OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer)

Tier One = supplies components and systems direct to Toyota

Tier Two = supplies [sub]components and [sub]systems to Tier One manufacturer

Tier Three = supplies subcomponents to Tier Two manufacturer

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: fritzfield
Thanks for the info.

Who, then, makes the motherboards for Compaq/HP, IBM, Dell, and Gateway? These have to be stable boards, right? They can't have problems with finicky memory settings, etc. I know that their BIOS are limited, but do they have for example ASUS make the mainboards for a Compaq Presario or does Compaq/HP make their own boards?

Typically Intel or Asus...occasionally MSI.
I've seen some AMD-based HPs (or were they Compaqs, or does it matter now?) with OEM FIC boards, too.
Three reasons OEM stuff typically won't have problems:
1) Tested with equipment. They are made with the same equipment each time, and do not support your purchases of 3rd-party products.
2) Minimal BIOS optomizations. They take the nice BIOS defaults, slap an idiot-proof interface on it and go. No tweaking or anything. This is a big one! They aren't trying to get as much out of it as we are.
3) When problems occur with non-Dells, people typically get other people they know to fix it, having had some experience with store and company support. Very often it will be a marginal PSU.

 

[Cerb]

MSI is huge. It has a reputation for poor stability on the first release of a motherboard, which somehow gets pretty good after a few months.

Yeah...like the K7T Pro2 A.
"Whoops, we put POS voltage regulators on there that will fail in a few months. Sorry. Our second run boards have better ones."
I've used their boards and will probably continue to do so, but yeah...not until three or four months after the release ; 'cause the ones that work...well, they work. Forever.

 

[calvink]

Originally posted by: Cerb

MSI is huge. It has a reputation for poor stability on the first release of a motherboard, which somehow gets pretty good after a few months.

Yeah...like the K7T Pro2 A.
"Whoops, we put POS voltage regulators on there that will fail in a few months. Sorry. Our second run boards have better ones."
I've used their boards and will probably continue to do so, but yeah...not until three or four months after the release ; 'cause the ones that work...well, they work. Forever.

Very true, I love MSI products after the bugs are out of its system.

 

[orion7144]

Originally posted by: KF

Intel considers being a fan an approximation to being a criminal. Yes, Intel does not make mobos pitched to fandom. Supposedly the mobos will not work at all (by design) with a new version of a CPU that arrives after you buy the mobo. Intel mobos get fewer mentions than Biostar and DFI on these forums. Except for obsolete ones, Intel mobos I have seen cost an arm and a leg, and for the price difference you get absolute nothing, because that is the way Intel marketing decided it ought to be. Intel is supposed to be about the largest manufacturer of Intel-chipset mobos, probably because they are the lowest cost producer and under-price every other.

Intel does not make junk MB's they are probably one of the most stable boards around. Sure there is not much if any overclocking with them but they generally have all the features that the ABit's and Asus's have. Just like Abit and Asus they have thier different versions adding more options. How can they "cost an arm and a leg" yet still be the "Lowest cost producer and under-price every other" Makes not sense to me.

 

[tcsenter]

Intel has a relatively small retail motherboard market share which is not their focus. They sell a ton of boards to OEMs and system integrators. Recently, Intel began to offer a little bit of 'flash' on some of their boxed retail boards to appeal to enthusiasts. But no, Intel doesn't cater to the overclocker, and neither does an increasingly number of mainboard manufacturers because its a relatively obscure share of the market which invariably results in higher risk (increased support, increased RMA).

Due to Intel's sterling reputation among its bread and butter markets, it has more stringent standards for stability, and the inescapable fact remains that the relationship between performance and stability is an inverse one. As such, Intel boards aren't the top performers, but they are rock solid and are widely viewed to be among the highest quality boards in the market. Intel didn't get to its current position by trying to appeal to the 'overclockerz-pwnd!-woot-I-get-1-more-FPS-than-you-do' crowd.

 

[KF]

>. How can they "cost an arm and a leg" yet still be the "Lowest cost producer and under-price
> every other" Makes not sense to me.

The explanation is that they give a super-low cost to buyers in quantity, like OEMs, but not to individuals. It's not unusual, just wild in Intel's case. OEMs do not pay what you do for MS Windows XP for instance, and the bigger you are, the less you pay.

I haven't been to a computer show in years now, but when I used to go, the price of Intel brand motherboards (current versions) was breathtaking. I'd love to own one. I just don't want to pay!

I believe it to be the case that Intel is also the lowest cost producer of CPUs, but they do not sell at the lowest price. Production cost and selling price are two different things. The bigger the jump, the better as far as the seller is concerned. The buyer (me) wants it the other way.

For Peter: ECSs bad rep far exceeds justice as far as I can tell from my K7S5A.

 

[RedRonin]

Wow! An excellent question, followed by GREAT answers! Just know this, no matter the "general reputation" of a motherboard manufacturer - all produce occassional lemons. Even if the failure rate is as low as 2%, those that sell more, will appear to have more problems. That is, 2% of 20,000 is a lot less than 2% of 2,000,000... The reputation is generally due to whichever market or enthusiast segment is reporting as well... Newbies who fail to RTFM are one group prone to problems on one end, while extreme overclockers who are willing to spend hundreds of dollars for a 0.0001% frame rate increase are another. More people buy components that cost less money, say under $100... So fewer people own those that cost over $150... So more problems are reported with the more affordable parts... And the more expensive pieces have the higher reputation.

Me? I'm somewhere in the middle, preferring simply the best price performance ratio for components that are within my personal "willingness limit" for purchase. That is, I find it very hard to spend more than $250 for any particular component of a computer system. In general, I don't see the point of spending more than $150 on many of them, unless there is a very specific added value for the purchase. For some, buying "top tier" means that my $150-250 maximum range is their baseline minimum. Similarly, the components I would use from the $50-150 range are not worth their consideration at any rate. You should know the audience from which you gather information and listen to others with differing opines as well.

Worth, cost and value are all different things. Sure, a Bentley or Rolls-Royce may cost great amounts more than a Mercedes or BMW. There are those who would certainly say they were worth it... Still others though would find more value in a Lexus or Infiniti than any of the rest. Meanwhile, I'd be perfectly happy with a Cadillac or Lincoln, but that's just me. So with that in mind... Today I would probably choose nForce 2 mATX boards from Biostar, Shuttle or Chaintech to build a system for friends and family members. If my budget were much tighter, I'd likely go with something like the Biostar M7VIG Pro or ECS L7S7A2 as a basic motherboard purchase.

Toyoniya Hiyaku, Noromuoy!

Red Ronin, The Cybernetic Samurai

 

[Mustanggt]

alot of times when I visit Newegg refurbs there is a long listing of MSI boards and they dont sell very fast, I consider MSI on the bottom of the Tier jusy my opinion from past nightmares.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Mustanggt
alot of times when I visit Newegg refurbs there is a long listing of MSI boards and they dont sell very fast, I consider MSI on the bottom of the Tier jusy my opinion from past nightmares.

I got the K7T Pro2A just after it came out. My dad as well. Died after a bit over 6 months.
My mom's machine is a K7 Pro (slot-A).
K7 Master a few months after it came out (had the perfect feature-set for me at the time, and not too bad of a price). Working but not idiot-proof.
KT3 Ultra-ARU just before the Ultra2 came out. Just got an email over a mailing list I'd like the chew the guy out for, so I guess it still works
...the DVD machine here uses a K7T Pro2A that was gotten almost six months after the two fated ones here...just a bit before they died. Last time my dad used that board, and the only one still running.
I'll probably never get a brand new MSI board, but there are too many still in good working order to call them all crap.

 

[Insane3D]

Hey there fellow NH AT'er. I'm in Merrimack, and would be glad to help you out with your upgrade. Enable your private messages and shoot me a PM.

The manufacturers that were tops in the day of your BX are not quite the same now. However, pretty much any of the mainstream boards today...AMD or Intel are stable as a rock. Manufacturing processes have come a long way since the BX days.

 

[Corporate Thug]

tier one: abit, asus, epox
tier two: gigabtye (maybe even a tier one), msi (lately), soltek
tier three: ECS, FIC, Pc Chips, biostar, leadtek

 

[tcsenter]

tier one: abit, asus, epox
tier two: gigabtye (maybe even a tier one), msi (lately), soltek
tier three: ECS, FIC, Pc Chips, biostar, leadtek

Explain the basis of your classification.