# Motherboard quality among brands



## trparky (Apr 24, 2018)

So if you were to have to choose a motherboard to buy, which brand would you buy? Asus? Asrock? MSI? Or Gigabyte?


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## R-T-B (Apr 24, 2018)

The price segment within the brand would hold a lot more weight.


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 24, 2018)

Asus and Asrock for Overclocking


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## rtwjunkie (Apr 24, 2018)

In my home I have Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock.  There is no definitive choice for me on brand.  Every brand has good and bad models.

While many expensive models rate well, it is not exclusive: there are expensive duds.  Likewise, some bargain-priced and mid-prices gems with many features and few bugs can be had as well.

Basically, they all get it right and wrong in varying amounts with each generation.


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## trparky (Apr 24, 2018)

Alright, how about narrowing it down to the sub-$200 USD range?

I'm not looking for a whole lot of bling like fancy LEDs and the like here, I don't need or have a want for that kind of stuff. I'm more than likely going to be putting the system inside a case with no windows so what it looks like I have no care of.

I've always been a function over form kind of person. Who cares if it looks pretty if it doesn't work right? Know what I mean?


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## Hood (Apr 24, 2018)

It all comes down to which company you trust to stand behind their products, since DOA or faulty ports/slots is a possibility for all motherboards.  I always buy Asus or occasionally Asrock boards, but Asus has the absolute worst reputation for customer service, with large numbers of claims being denied, often blamed on the customer.  I've never had a Gigabyte board, and both of the MSI boards I've owned were disappointments; they worked, but not well.  But I've been lucky, never had to return a board, out of a dozen or more builds.  My prejudices aside, Any of the 4 major board makers will probably be okay. (and let's not forget EVGA and Supermicro, both are high quality)  I would definitely read as many buyer reviews as possible, to identify models which have a high rate of DOA or "infant death syndrome".  For sub-$200, Asus or Asrock, whichever model has all the ports you need.


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## JalleR (Apr 24, 2018)

My favorit is Asus, Gigabyte is ok (not so grate for OC) and MSI i don't like, the 2 MSI boards I have had within 5 years has died


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## Vayra86 (Apr 24, 2018)

Mid range: AsRock for the hardware and price/performance metrics @ Z370. I cannot speak for their range on AMD chipsets but for Intel they have the whole stack on lockdown really.


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## MrGenius (Apr 24, 2018)

I've got a perma-hardon for all things MSI. I like ASRock too. Just not quite as much. Other mobo brands? Not interested.


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## dj-electric (Apr 24, 2018)

Depends on the platform, and on the budget. In many cases i do find ASRock to give better quality and features per cost


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## Liviu Cojocaru (Apr 24, 2018)

For that price it will come down to your personal preference, if you want a good balance between quality, features and price I would say ASRock, ASUS and MSI are quite on the same level. I now have a Gigabyte MB and I am ok with it but I think the BIOS could be a bit better, when it comes to features it has a lot and the build quality is good but if I have to buy another motherboard anytime soon I would pick ASRock...it's just my opinion


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## Toothless (Apr 24, 2018)

In the end it really comes down to customer support and features per unit of currency. I won't touch another ASUS board from the last adventure I had with their horrid support.


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## Athlonite (Apr 24, 2018)

Asus for high end Asrock for midrange goodness my last 3 mobos were all Asus next one will most likely be an Asrock


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## mad1394 (Apr 24, 2018)

I would avoid gigabyte. I personally had gpu compatibility issues on their boards.
When I build my new system it will probably have an MSI motherboard again. My second choice would be Asrock, never owned one but all I hear is good things about their quality.
PS: Thread needs a poll


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## dj-electric (Apr 24, 2018)

ASRock is flamboyant, cheeky and daring. 
It has hutzpa. That's why i love them so much, besides the quality of component of course


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## qubit (Apr 24, 2018)

PC Chips M590.


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## csgabe (Apr 24, 2018)

Biostar and ECS.


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## Vario (Apr 24, 2018)

Asrock.  You should set this up as a poll instead.


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## Vya Domus (Apr 24, 2018)

Asrock , especially if you don't want to pay an absurd amount of cash for a motherboard.


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## John Naylor (Apr 24, 2018)

We were strictly an Asus shop for about 10 years ... with Z87, we began having too many issues with RMAs and TS ... w/ Z87 performance was significantly lower than competing brands and Pegatron (ASrock's parent company) was handlng Asus' TS and RMAs.  One more thing, Asus started "cheaping out" where, for example, almost every board under $150 had a subsrtandard sound system, and finally, there was the "Rog Tax"  having started early trying ASrock boards, when most boards ony had 1 or 2 year warrantees... at that time it was a way for Asus to sell low cost MoBos for the system builder market w/o tarnishing the Asus reputation for enthusiast quality boards.  We had issues with thin boards which warped, bleeding caps, cracked boards, etc.  Once Asus spun them off as an independent entity, things began to improve and really can't knock their products above $150. 

However, it's foolish to throw a blanket label on a brand cause every one of them has winners and losers.  The RMA rate for each major brand is such that they only differ by a few hundredths of a % point whiuch is less than the statistical standard deviation.

Gigabyte 1,48%
ASRock 1,55%
ASUS 1,59%
MSI 1,63%

When we limit consideration by chipset, we see that things change ,,, for Z170 / Z270

1,41% MSI
1,63% ASUS
1,97% Gigabyte
2,94% ASRock

Here we have quite a wide difference so there's reasonable cause for concern.

 But what the data is most useful for is determining specifically what boards to avoid.  For example... Asus TUF line bears out very well, whereas the  inexpensive (< $150) boards usually do not.  So the individual rates for each board do matter.  I recommend avoiding those with > 2% failure rate

_5,71% ASUS Z170I-PRO Gaming
5,59% ASUS X99 Strix Gaming_
4,70% MSI B150M PRO-VDH D3
_4,17% ASUS B150I PRO GAMING/WIFI/AURA
3,81% ASRock FM2A58M-VG3+
3,45% MSI X99A Gaming 7
3,17% ASUS X99-A II_
2,23% MSI Z170A Gaming M3
2,19% ASUS Z170-A
2,08% GIGABYTE GA-Z170XP-SLI

Another thing I like to look at is the newegg user reviews.  I'm oft countered that these are useless because so many users don't know what they are doing.   While a valid point, it's irrelevant because with say xx % of reported problems may be user error ... there's no reason to suggest that such users are choosing one brand over another.  Branding, as in model line,  also is not a reliable indicator.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130968
Here MSis XPower Titanium gets 74% 5 egg reviews. 81% 4 or above and just 4 % 1 egg.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813144016
Yet here, the same XPower branding brings us just 23% 5 egg reviews. 48% 4 or above and just 23 % 1 egg.

Another thing you want to be sure to check is the subsystems on the board ... thru Z170  Asus boards for example dropped their sound and LAN subsystems down a notch in quality as part of the RoG tax .  On boards < $150, we were looking at ALC 892 and even 887 instead of the gaming standard ALC 1120.  With Z270 many vendors followed suit and w/ Z370, they seemd to have realized that customers caught on.  So be sure to check you are not getting short chnaged.

Other things may factor into the decision ... my son for example likes MSI because they have the best assembly videos ... at least he has this one bookmarked for some reason.










AT the lower end of your price range, my fav board was the MSI Z270 SLI PLUS, usually available for $100 - $119.  In previous generation, used the Gigabyte equivalent with similar name but thois gen had some issues.  At $150 - $175, the MSI Gaming Pro Carbon and Gigabyte Gaaming 5 and Aorus boards.  At $200ish, the Gigabyte Ultra Gaming and K5.  For Workstation builds the Asus TUF series is always int he mix.   For Z370, pretty much the same boards tho haven't really got a list of favorites.

In short... look at specific models ... everybody has princes and everybody has toads.


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## trparky (Apr 24, 2018)

Well I got the Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Ultra Gaming motherboard. From what it looks like it's getting good reviews.


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## mcraygsx (Apr 24, 2018)

Asus has overall the UEFI BIOS out there in the segment. ASKROCK simply offers lot more for your money with excellent overclocking capabilities in the industry. Have not purchase Gigabyte / MSI in a decade.


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## cdawall (Apr 24, 2018)

MSI still sells a subpar product at above average cost. So I will go with anything else.


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 24, 2018)

mcraygsx said:


> Asus has overall the UEFI BIOS out there in the segment. ASKROCK simply offers lot more for your money with excellent overclocking capabilities in the industry. Have not purchase Gigabyte / MSI in a decade.



Considering Asus Holds the Overclock record for ram and cpu? AsRock Has come a long way, however when it comes to OC out of the Big 4, Asus Holds the Crown just sligthly over AsRock, but hey both are from Pegatron. GA has a crap bios, MSI uses crap components on pcb, so Understock MSI/GA are ok, more like a OEM board from Foxconn/ECS/PCChips


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## qubit (Apr 24, 2018)

I would have said Gigabyte, but @newtekie1 has had some real bad experiences with them a while back and created a thread about it to warn everyone, so maybe not.

I've not bought a mobo in years, but ASRock seem to be really good nowadays.


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## mcraygsx (Apr 24, 2018)

eidairaman1 said:


> Considering Asus Holds the Overclock record for ram and cpu? AsRock Has come a long way, however when it comes to OC out of the Big 4, Asus Holds the Crown just sligthly over AsRock, but hey both are from Pegatron. GA has a crap bios, MSI uses crap components on pcb, so Understock MSI/GA are ok, more like a OEM board from Foxconn/ECS/PCChips



While true that ASUS holds the crown but it comes at cost. To get best out of OC capabilities , you have to get into their Maximux line and those boards cost almost same as CPU itself. While Asrock offers same features for lot less. For example ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero ( Least expensive board in the lineup) Cost around $249.99 and in comparison ASRock Fatal1ty Z370 Gaming K6 (similar to taichi) will achieve similar results for $169.99. Of course more extreme overclockers can look towards APEX ($320+) or Formula lineup.


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 24, 2018)

mcraygsx said:


> While true that ASUS holds the crown but it comes at cost. To get best out of OC capabilities , you have to get into their Maximux line and those boards cost almost same as CPU itself. While Asrock offers same features for lot less. For example ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero ( Least expensive board in the lineup) Cost around $249.99 and in comparison ASRock Fatal1ty Z370 Gaming K6 (similar to taichi) will achieve similar results for $169.99. Of course more extreme overclockers can look towards APEX ($320+) or Formula lineup.



249 is still pretty affordable.


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## mcraygsx (Apr 24, 2018)

T


eidairaman1 said:


> 249 is still pretty affordable.




Not sure why you deleted your previous comment. Z370 is for Intel and latest X470 is for AMD.


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 24, 2018)

mcraygsx said:


> T
> 
> 
> 
> Not sure why you deleted your previous comment. Z370 is for Intel and latest X470 is for AMD.



Because it's not applicable considering the op specs are intel and he did not specify what cpu he would be going with at this point.

Also x470 availability is not common yet, by the way Z490 would be the top AM4 Chipset that is yet to release. Most who bought a Crosshair 6 Formula/Extreme or x370 Fatal1ty/Taichi won't really move up unless there is a considerable reason to, right now there isn't.


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## cdawall (Apr 24, 2018)

mcraygsx said:


> While true that ASUS holds the crown but it comes at cost. To get best out of OC capabilities , you have to get into their Maximux line and those boards cost almost same as CPU itself. While Asrock offers same features for lot less. For example ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero ( Least expensive board in the lineup) Cost around $249.99 and in comparison ASRock Fatal1ty Z370 Gaming K6 (similar to taichi) will achieve similar results for $169.99. Of course more extreme overclockers can look towards APEX ($320+) or Formula lineup.



Why would you cheap out on motherboard? Like the center piece to your entire system...


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## eidairaman1 (Apr 24, 2018)

cdawall said:


> Why would you cheap out on motherboard? Like the center piece to your entire system...



PSU and mobo


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## xkm1948 (Apr 24, 2018)

I choose whichever one has best customer service. Probably EVGA for my next board.


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## Fx (Apr 24, 2018)

rtwjunkie said:


> In my home I have Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock.  There is no definitive choice for me on brand.  Every brand has good and bad models.
> 
> While many expensive models rate well, it is not exclusive: there are expensive duds.  Likewise, some bargain-priced and mid-prices gems with many features and few bugs can be had as well.
> 
> Basically, they all get it right and wrong in varying amounts with each generation.



This, all day, but in general I primarily choose Asus or Gigabyte for my own personal rig.

My choice for a motherboard (after assessing features) basically boils down to review percentages on Amazon and to a much lesser extent Newegg. I have a system that I go by and it hasn't ever failed me.

Preferably, I want 5 star ratings above 70%. If it is >80% I know i'm good to go.
If I cant get that, I must at least have 4 *and* 5 star ratings when added together to equal >70%.
I prefer 1 star ratings to be <10%
I never buy a product where the 1 star ratings is >15%


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## sneekypeet (Apr 24, 2018)

Considering the OP says on the last page that he bought a motherboard already and nobody batted an eye at it, it's time to close up shop.


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