# What company would you choose it when it comes to new motherboard?



## saarxee (May 18, 2013)

ASUS
GIGABYTE
MSI

I know usually customary to compare by model board, but now I'm talking in general - which company do you think is the best in terms of quality and reliability?
This is a discussion ...


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## Fourstaff (May 18, 2013)

They are all good, with lemons seeded within if you are not careful. Warranty in your country plays a big part on whether they are actually good or not. Other people may say otherwise, but that is largely because of personal experiences. 

As for rumors, Asus's quality has dropped a bit, ASRock is the manufacturer of the moment.

You will need to consider the ease of use for BIOS too, you will have to ask motherboard reviewers for that.


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## AlienIsGOD (May 18, 2013)

I personally go for AsRock boards these days


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## saarxee (May 18, 2013)

ASRock? Good Motherboard?


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## radrok (May 18, 2013)

saarxee said:


> ASUS
> GIGABYTE
> MSI
> 
> ...



Price point and purpose is the key.

You want the best overclocking platform with the best BIOS around? Get a RoG Extreme board.

You want a good overclocking platform with loads of features? Get an Asrock Extreme11.

Reliability is not an issue when talking about high high end, the chances you get a dud board are almost the same between those brands you mentioned.

I praise ASUS but I'd never recommend one of their boards if it is outside the Deluxe/RoG/Sabertooth tier. Their top tier motherboard are the BEST clocking board your money can buy 

Other brands are just good in every segment  except maybe for Gigabyte but it could have been a coincidence of issues I had to deal with.



saarxee said:


> ASRock? Good Motherboard?




You'd be surprised at what ASRock achieved these days.

ASUS has to watch its back carefully because ASRock will come in biting, trust me.


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## de.das.dude (May 18, 2013)

ASRock seems to be the best in the market ATM.
ASUS quality has popped. so has their service, but all manufacturers service seems to be bad.

Dont buy ASUS especially if you are in india.


PS: i dont see the purpose of this thread?? do you want a motherboard? or are you just looking around/trolling(which seems the ? if its the latter there are


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## d1nky (May 18, 2013)

asrock for the board and price/performance

gigabyte second for boards

(and you asus haters meh! my first choice for graphics)


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## newtekie1 (May 18, 2013)

ASRock and ASUS are my picks usually, both make great quality boards(and it makes sense since they both share IP).  Both build very solid boards.


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## Protagonist (May 18, 2013)

I have personally used Intel Desktop Boards for many years now its sad to see them go, 8 series boards being the last from them, after that i will have to choose from other companies eg the ones the OP mentioned above plus others.

I always give Intel priority for my personal builds, i don't look for the best OC board or the one stacked with features either, I normally try to get ones with most features running from the native chipset, i don't like having too many 3rd party chips on my motherboards.

Generally i have had a great experience with the Intel Desktop Boards with only one giving me BIOS issue being the one I'm currently using the issue is not a big deal as i don't use it (the issue is Intel management engine fails to initialize from a cold boot ever since the introduction of 003x BIOS) other than that a great board if not using the 003x BIOS

Would i buy Intel again YES, I'm currently eying Intel DZ87KLT-75K, I'll probably get in a month or so after launch as i already have a buyer for my i7-3770 and DZ68BC.

Support from Intel is great to me as i don't have to pay for any warranty shipment and I'm in Kenya they provide me with a DHL Supply Chain accounts so they can pick defective part and deliver the replacement no charge, process normally uses DHL Express so 2 days shipping to destination, 1 day for checking defective part for any damage and dispatching replacement, 2 days to ship back replacement to Kenya. So on average worst case scenario is 6-7 days and i have a new replacement.


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## ThE_MaD_ShOt (May 18, 2013)

I prefer Gigabyte these days. Just my 2¢.


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## radrok (May 18, 2013)

de.das.dude said:


> ASUS quality has popped. so has their service, but all manufacturers service seems to be bad.



This I do not agree.

Bought every single Rampage since the first (REIII excluded) and they've always been top notch.

About service well, that's region-bound. If something is wrong in NA you just cross-ship and that's awesome.

If your country does not support cross shipping well... be prepared to wait for months.


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## de.das.dude (May 18, 2013)

radrok said:


> This I do not agree.
> 
> Bought every single Rampage since the first (REIII excluded) and they've always been top notch.
> 
> ...



we have more than one service center in my city. no question of shipping.

we drop off. they fix board somewhat, they return, board starts crapping after 6months again.

most people would agree their quality has dropped. even i was an asus fanboi. made 5-6 builds with asus boards. 4 of them have started giving problems.


oh and the last time my prev board stopped working (sata problems), i removed the southbridge heatsink to find bubble gum.
yes bubblegum! i didnt believe it but i smelled it and it was fruity. it was sticky and flexible like gum too.
since it was 6months after the last rma(4th time) i just bought an asrock board.
i re applim TIM and it the other board works well(albeit a crappy VRM)


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## xxdozer322 (May 18, 2013)

MSI...I really fell in love with the build quality of it


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## LAN_deRf_HA (May 18, 2013)

AsRock if I want decent overclocking features for a build in the $100 range. Asus around the $150-200 mark, and typically I'd go Asus or in a rare instance Gigabyte (GA-Z77X-UP5 TH) in the 200+ market.


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## natr0n (May 18, 2013)

Asrock for motherboards.They have lots of models,features, mixes new and old tech.

MSI for custom designed video cards.


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## Frick (May 18, 2013)

All of them. Depends entirely on what you do imo. Some models are better than others, but if you just want something, anything, anything will do.


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## d1nky (May 18, 2013)

I agree on the asus up the higher end of the scale, the rog range is dedicated to enthusiast and overclocking.

they got a whole division for it!

but price/performance I cant knock this Fatality.


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## Geofrancis (May 18, 2013)

I have boards from all 3 but asrock boards just work you don't find any quirks or strange behaviour or features go missing after a bios update.


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## Ikaruga (May 18, 2013)

Protagonist said:


> I have personally used Intel Desktop Boards for many years now its sad to see them go, 8 series boards being the last from them, after that i will have to choose from other companies eg the ones the OP mentioned above plus others.



The Intel boards aimed for the retail channel were always made by Foxconn, so you can still pick something from them I guess. They are usually very stable and reliable boards but not really enthusiast friendly, well, not at all tbh. 

Also: Put a video card into that PC at once


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## de.das.dude (May 18, 2013)

foxconn stopped making consumer boards a while back. a year ago i think.


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## Ikaruga (May 18, 2013)

de.das.dude said:


> foxconn stopped making consumer boards a while back. a year ago i think.



IIrc they just released some z77 boards last fall, but either way, they will probably still make some to somebody else then.


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## Mindweaver (May 18, 2013)

I usually go between AsRock, Asus, or Gigabyte, but I picked up a MSi board the other week and I really like the board. I hope to pick up more soon. 



xxdozer322 said:


> MSI...I really fell in love with the build quality of it



I did as well!


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## Protagonist (May 18, 2013)

Ikaruga said:


> The Intel boards aimed for the retail channel were *always made by Foxconn*, so you can still pick something from them I guess. They are usually very stable and reliable boards but not really enthusiast friendly, well, not at all tbh.
> 
> Also: *Put a video card into that PC at once*



Intel Motherboards are not made by Foxconn, people have always speculated that, it's only some of Intel Stock CPU Cooler & CPU Socket that are made bay foxconn.

The boards are made entirely In House By Intel Motherboard Division.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hawthorn-farm-motherboard,2963.html

The Photo above is for the upcoming board that I'm interested in its 8 series DZ87KLT-75K with thunderbolt


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## remixedcat (May 18, 2013)

Asrock


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## Sasqui (May 18, 2013)

I was a former fan of ASUS... but they've made the BIOS on their boards mega confusing (from all I've read).  I sill own a Maximus and Rampage Formula, awesome boards.

I'm sticking with Gigabyte for now (UD5H), it's awesome... they've gotten their shit together.  I used to have a DQ6 and wasn't terribly impressed.


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## arnold_al_qadr (May 18, 2013)

Gigabyte..


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## erocker (May 18, 2013)

I will only answer if I know a reason for the question.


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## MxPhenom 216 (May 18, 2013)

AsRock and Gigabyte. Asus if you get one of their ROG or TUF boards. But AsRock and Gigabyte are doing really well right now.


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## blibba (May 18, 2013)

I've had more bad experiences than good with MSI. Aside from MSI, for me it comes down to the individual boards and prices.


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## FordGT90Concept (May 18, 2013)

First I look at feature list.  When features are the same, I'll often pick MSI above anything else.


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## NdMk2o1o (May 18, 2013)

All 3 brands have very good high end boards as lot's of people have attested to, so it depends on what you personally want from your money. 

I used to be Asus through and through until about 3 years ago and have been with Gigabyte since then though my last board put me off them a bit with their SHITTY hybrid UEFI bios which caused me no end of instability and was a complete bitch to roll back to legacy bios. 

That said I am running an entry level Z77 Giga board atm and so far I have had no issues with it aside from it's lack of overclocking ability (which is to be expected for entry level anyway so it's more of a non-issue) but if you're not looking at high end and are looking are more mid-market/low end I would rather go with Asus or Gigabyte than MSI or Asrock on past experience alone.


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## m1ch (May 18, 2013)

I've only had experience with ABIT with ASUS boards in my rigs, never failed. Hope I can make the same statement in future about UD3 I'm using right now. Luckily going strong too, no issues so far


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## LAN_deRf_HA (May 18, 2013)

Price point really is important. A lot of the big brands put out utter crap below $150.


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## AsRock (May 18, 2013)

newtekie1 said:


> ASRock and ASUS are my picks usually, both make great quality boards(and it makes sense since they both share IP).  Both build very solid boards.



Yup same here,

Never had any luck with MSI or Giga and cannot just believe there just no good at mid\low range boards. Never had luck with Giga back in 2k and before either..

Try try one of there boards every so often though..


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## newtekie1 (May 18, 2013)

Protagonist said:


> Intel Motherboards are not made by Foxconn, people have always speculated that, it's only some of Intel Stock CPU Cooler & CPU Socket that are made bay foxconn.
> 
> The boards are made entirely In House By Intel Motherboard Division.
> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hawthorn-farm-motherboard,2963.html
> ...



People seem to think that Foxconn manufacturing the board means they designed it.  Foxconn manufacturers a lot of things for other 3rd party manufacturers, the quality depends on the specs the company tells Foxconn to use, Foxconn has nothing to do with the quality in the end.

The high end Intel boards are good, but  anything other than the top end totally sucks, so I wouldn't bother using them and I'm not sad to see them go.  The majority of the boards they made were total junk.


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## radrok (May 18, 2013)

I think a thread like this would have been served better with a POLL, just my honest opinion though...


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## erocker (May 18, 2013)

I personally don't think threads like this serve much purpose at all. The majority of motherboards sold don't have problems. A majority of customers don't post on tech forums such as this one and if/when they do it's more likely to be because of a problem rather than for praise. Then you have folks who buy low-end/cheap boards from "whatever" company and complain that they can't get enough gigahurtz out of their 'puters. The only real way to tell is through facts of what actual return rates are and that isn't really available. I'm sure they're all pretty close.


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## cookiemonster (May 18, 2013)

Gigabyte AMD and Intel boards


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## ogharaei (May 18, 2013)

I like Gigabyte and MSI. ASRock is tempting, though.


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## Aquinus (May 19, 2013)

erocker said:


> I personally don't think threads like this serve much purpose at all. The majority of motherboards sold don't have problems. A majority of customers don't post on tech forums such as this one and if/when they do it's more likely to be because of a problem rather than for praise. Then you have folks who buy low-end/cheap boards from "whatever" company and complain that they can't get enough gigahurtz out of their 'puters. The only real way to tell is through facts of what actual return rates are and that isn't really available. I'm sure they're all pretty close.



I think this is true most of the time. I don't tend to go cheap with motherboards anymore and ever since I've never had a problem. It's actually pretty rare that I will get a defective part in general. More often than not, the only thing that tends to fail on my machines lately are hard drives and in the past I've had some pretty bad luck with a HannsG monitor (4 RMAs later and it still has problems...)


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## LAN_deRf_HA (May 19, 2013)

erocker said:


> I personally don't think threads like this serve much purpose at all. The majority of motherboards sold don't have problems. A majority of customers don't post on tech forums such as this one and if/when they do it's more likely to be because of a problem rather than for praise. Then you have folks who buy low-end/cheap boards from "whatever" company and complain that they can't get enough gigahurtz out of their 'puters. The only real way to tell is through facts of what actual return rates are and that isn't really available. I'm sure they're all pretty close.



We may not be able to get current return rates but we can see feature sets for a price point. Asus, GB, and MSI are all known for having much more limited overclocking options on their lower boards. This is why I said price point is important. I remember the disaster that was the P8P67 LE. Many bought it expecting it to be a normal "budget" (despite costing like $150) board that could still clock well and give you decent options like prior generations had and like you'd get from AsRock or Biostar. Instead they got a board that artificially hid bios options it was perfectly capable of implementing and made them only available if you overclocked with SOFTWARE. I know MSI also outright gave up and stopped fixing bugs on their sub $150 MSI P67 boards as well. You don't need to know the return rates to know some brands are crap at a certain price point. 

Know your price point, look at the features and reviews (users) for boards in that range, and be wary of brands that artificially gimp products to make you pay $100 more for a few extra ports and a proper bios.


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## AlienIsGOD (May 19, 2013)

erocker said:


> I personally don't think threads like this serve much purpose at all. The majority of motherboards sold don't have problems.



^ THIS.  My EVGA board had horrible reviews on newegg.ca because of the BIOS, yet 6 months later when i actually put together my 3570K rig the BIOS had come miles from where it was in Nov 2012.  IMO its one of the most solid, feature rich boards i have ever owned ( i've also owned a Gigabyte EP45 DS4P was a decent mid/low high end board as as well).

That being said my Asrock Z68M/USB 3 is about the lowest priced Z68 board there is feature wise.  I actually had the good ppl here at TPU steer me towards that board as there was nothing even close to it price/performance wise as everything else was P67 or H67 based at that price point.

The only board i have had fail in the last 6 years was an Asus B75, first one was DOA and 2nd died within 6 months.  I have since moved my friend to a MSI B75 based board and im super impressed with MSI's UEFI BIOS.  Much cleaner and more organized than my AsRock's UEFI BIOS.


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## Protagonist (May 19, 2013)

newtekie1 said:


> People seem to think that Foxconn manufacturing the board means they designed it.  Foxconn manufacturers a lot of things for other 3rd party manufacturers, the quality depends on the specs the company tells Foxconn to use, Foxconn has nothing to do with the quality in the end.
> 
> *The high end Intel boards are good, but  anything other than the top end totally sucks,* so I wouldn't bother using them and I'm not sad to see them go.  The majority of the boards they made were total junk.



Intel high end boards are good and also the low end ones are pretty good better than what other companies offer in my opinion much more stable than competitors at the low price point, I have personally used Intel Boards from the Value, Essential, classic, Executive, Media and Extreme Series for over 13 Years to date none of the boards are dead yet they still work pretty well

on the other hand i have used other brands too, and in recent times the last two years I have assembled machines for other clients using Gigabyte P67 which is now totally dead, Gigabyte H61 now totally dead and Gigabyte Z77 that died in less than 6 months, i have since moved the clients to Intel Motherboards In Media and Extreme series they are very happy.


Intel Boards don't necessarily have lots of features but they get the Job done pretty well eg like the Intel DZ68BC Extreme series board i have In my rig running a BIOS 003x which has Intel ME issue but the Board itself is stable, with Intel boards you can brick the BIOS and still get it to work and stable even with the broken bios.

They might not be the best overclocks out there but they get the job done and stable at that eg With the DZ68BC i run the i7-3770 non K at 4.3GHz on stock cooler and has been stable for 11 months now, my intention was not to overclock a non K chip but then i realized it cold do it pretty easy .


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## jboydgolfer (May 19, 2013)

Asrock IMO/IME.  

The Extreme I'm using now, has been running 24/7 365 for just short of 2 years now, and not A single Hiccup. Cleans well, PCB strength is great, Fan plugs,capacitors,and all other Plugs, and mounts are very well secured. Also the Push button release heat sinks on the chip set are nice for Cleaning, IF they are in Your way.Only REAL beef with My board is the Lack of PS2 support for BOTH mouse and keyboard.Has a dual, but Doesn't seem to Work for Me,but it seems as though PS2 is on it's way out. Decent bundle of built in features, LAN, Dolby, UEFI, are all good. Not to mention NOT having to sink $300 on a Board JUST to have it be dependable, and versatile. 

The support, CAN be a issue depending on some factors. Their English Speaking staff were Few and FAR between when I had to RMA a DOA board, but after persistent communications, and patience, I was sent a new board WITH all accessories.Gb,Asus,MSI, All have something to offer, however, when I did My recent build Asrock had the MOST to offer @ a Lower price. For Me $ IS a Factor, and I'd rather use the Xtra on a GPU/CPU,etc. Warranty/quality/price. For ME in that Order when Shopping for a MoBo, or just about ANY other Component.

good Luck.


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## newtekie1 (May 19, 2013)

Protagonist said:


> Intel high end boards are good and also the low end ones are pretty good better than what other companies offer in my opinion much more stable than competitors at the low price point, I have personally used Intel Boards from the Value, Essential, classic, Executive, Media and Extreme Series for over 13 Years to date none of the boards are dead yet they still work pretty well
> 
> on the other hand i have used other brands too, and in recent times the last two years I have assembled machines for other clients using Gigabyte P67 which is now totally dead, Gigabyte H61 now totally dead and Gigabyte Z77 that died in less than 6 months, i have since moved the clients to Intel Motherboards In Media and Extreme series they are very happy.
> 
> ...



Most of the low end Intel boards I've used have died within the year due too few CPU phases and poor quality caps,  leading to caps popping.  They are still using shitty electrolytic caps in the CPU power circuits on their boards, ffs!  Sorry, but they can keep that crap.


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## Jetster (May 19, 2013)

ASRock,


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## Liquid Cool (May 19, 2013)

Anymore, I only buy Intel boards.  A-bit and DFI used to be favorites, I've never cared for ASUS or I guess I should say the ASUS premium.  Nothing personal, I'm a tightwad.

LC


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## Melvis (May 19, 2013)

Personally Gigabyte is my choice, only ever had 1 board go bad in 12yrs, beat that


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 19, 2013)

erocker said:


> I personally don't think threads like this serve much purpose at all. The majority of motherboards sold don't have problems. A majority of customers don't post on tech forums such as this one and if/when they do it's more likely to be because of a problem rather than for praise. Then you have folks who buy low-end/cheap boards from "whatever" company and complain that they can't get enough gigahurtz out of their 'puters. The only real way to tell is through facts of what actual return rates are and that isn't really available. I'm sure they're all pretty close.



Agree fully since the Op keeps assking half assed questions about next to nothing.


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## Baum (May 19, 2013)

For me personal choice was:
Intel: AsRock Extreme Series
AMD: Gigabyte USB 3.0 with onboard GPU's like the HD4250 

Back in the day i had:
Abit was my P2 200Mhz<-failed miserably
Gigabyte GA-6BXC upgraded from 500Mhz P3 to P3 1,1Ghz (Board was designed for 650Mhz top) +dual Bios  -> board was a true legend!
ASrock KVT4 don't know.. Athlon XP 2800 Mobile, my little overclocker 
Bios was total sht, mobo heatsink you could fry an egg on but refused to die till today!


Biostar Tforce P965 with E6550 and then Q6600 as of now, (very) good overclocker with ultra weak power phases and hot running chipset (same heatsink as asrock )

Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H USB 3.0 first time, supposedly AM3+, weak powerphase, Phenom 965BE from 2,6 easy to 3,4 with no heat from the cpu, just the chipset cooked almost :shadedshu

Asrock Z77 Pro 4M (my only ever mATX board!)
ASrock Z77 Extreme 4 
Both on Core i5 3570K 4,2Ghz with ease, just cool running and all solid caps, will last from my experience 

I would say:
Low end: Gigabyte or any other
High End: Gigabyte and AsRock (buy a better board as hint!)


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## michael (May 19, 2013)

I did whole lot of research on Asus, I liked Asus maximus V formula a lot , but then again Maximus series does not have dual LAN Port onboard, to use 2nd as gateway, if you are an IT guy.


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## 20mmrain (May 19, 2013)

I would choose Gigabyte First and Asus Second. I don't consider MSI because I have always found their BIOS to be buggy and there components gimmicky. If I am looking for a 3rd contender it would be EVGA or AsRock.


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## FreedomEclipse (May 19, 2013)

Hmmm... Ive owned early MSI boards, Biostar boards but mainly Asus boards.

Im more inclined to give MSI as ive been hearing a lot of talk floating around about how the standard of Asus's aftersales support has dropped.

When dealing with RMA's it is always a dice roll whether you get a rep who wants to deal with your case or one thats had a rather bad day and really doesnt care at all for whatever problems you may be having.

I say MSI because we have an MSI rep on the forums and if there are any issues I have with my MSI product, he is always there if i need him. Having an active rep on the forums is always a bonus as they can find out the status of an ongoing RMA if you havent heard anything for a while as well as possibly help sourcing replacement parts for older or newer MSI products.


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## Aquinus (May 19, 2013)

FreedomEclipse said:


> Hmmm... Ive owned early MSI boards, Biostar boards but mainly Asus boards.
> 
> Im more inclined to give MSI as ive been hearing a lot of talk floating around about how the standard of Asus's aftersales support has dropped.
> 
> ...



This, this, this, and this. MSI's support has always been top notch in my past experience.


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## Ikaruga (May 19, 2013)

Protagonist said:


> Intel Motherboards are not made by Foxconn, people have always speculated that, it's only some of Intel Stock CPU Cooler & CPU Socket that are made bay foxconn.
> 
> The boards are made entirely In House By Intel Motherboard Division.
> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hawthorn-farm-motherboard,2963.html
> ...



I know about the inhouse motherboard division(s) ofc, but I still have to disagree. I will try to find citation for you when I will have some time.


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## Grnfinger (May 19, 2013)

Asus

Solid company, great support. 
I know some will say there terrible, but I have always been treated great when I have to deal with Asus.


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## Zen_ (May 19, 2013)

I've had at least 6 AsRock boards and never had any problems...they always seems to have the right performance to value ratio. 

Although I will say that since the first one I bought, the 775Dual-VSTA, they have seemed to be drifting further away from high value and niche boards as their core products.


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## Ikaruga (May 20, 2013)

Protagonist said:


> Intel Motherboards are not made by Foxconn, people have always speculated that, it's only some of Intel Stock CPU Cooler & CPU Socket that are made bay foxconn.
> 
> The boards are made entirely In House By Intel Motherboard Division.
> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hawthorn-farm-motherboard,2963.html
> ...



Ok, thanks for you patiance (I was 40 yesterday, so I wasn't really in the mood to stay front of the computer and look up these kind of things for you ;p )

So they did make a lot of motherboards for Intel indeed, the internal team only made boards for development, research and testing . There were many offcial posts also, because of the suicides at foxconn, but I can't really find any of them anymore for some weird reason, only dead links sadly (like this one for example)


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## drdeathx (May 20, 2013)

Let's hear it for ESC!  LOL


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## mjkmike (May 20, 2013)

I may be wrong but don't gigbyte test for intel?


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## kid41212003 (May 20, 2013)

Asus's boards are so overpriced it makes you feel stupid if you own one. Their low-end boards have crappy quality compared to Gigabyte's.

Giga also sell their boards cheaper with more features.


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## GLD (May 20, 2013)

Where is the Biostar love? 

Well I will continue to give Biostar the love as they have served me well. From socket A and each (AMD) generation up to my current rig. Sure my AM2+ rig is dated to some, but it's still pushing the pixels just fine for me. I imagine I will shop for another Biostar when I upgrade.


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## itsakjt (May 20, 2013)

I would get ASUS. Most of my friends have Asus and me too. None of us faced any problem. I had my LAN chip fried due to a thunderstorm-They fixed it onsite within an hour.
Gigabyte is also good but service is bad.
And I have noticed, ASUS's and Gigabyte's PCB quality is the best. If you compare them with similarly priced MSI, ASRock you will see Asus's and Gigabyte's PCB are much thicker and their copper tracings also are much much thicker. Thicker copper tracings=More current tolerance=Less chances of circuit burning.


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## de.das.dude (May 20, 2013)

GLD said:


> Where is the Biostar love?
> 
> Well I will continue to give Biostar the love as they have served me well. From socket A and each (AMD) generation up to my current rig. Sure my AM2+ rig is dated to some, but it's still pushing the pixels just fine for me. I imagine I will shop for another Biostar when I upgrade.



biostar is pretty good for money. but they can be a bit of hit and miss.


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## Aquinus (May 20, 2013)

de.das.dude said:


> biostar is pretty good for money. but they can be a bit of hit and miss.



That has been my experience as well. Not an excellent board but it works and for the price they come at they're not too shabby. Got a great low end biostar am2+ board for a friend several years ago and put an AM3 Athlon x2 in it, while it needed a BIOS update, it will booted and posted but wouldn't boot into Windows until the BIOS was updated which prevented me from needing to putting my own AM2+ chip in it at the time which was nice. Worked pretty well IMHO.


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## radrok (May 20, 2013)

itsakjt said:


> And I have noticed, ASUS's and Gigabyte's PCB quality is the best.



This I can confirm although I've not handled many ASRock boards.


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## itsakjt (May 20, 2013)

radrok said:


> This I can confirm although I've not handled many ASRock boards.



Hmm. And MSI and Asrock's PCB quality is same.
Update: PCB quality of Foxconn boards are also very good. My HP laptop has a Foxconn board and I had one desktop board from them. Both are of excellent quality. And the thing is they still make consumer boards but they are hard to find.
I overclocked my 90 nm Pentium 4 to 4.0 GHz using a Foxconn board and the stock cooler.


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## de.das.dude (May 20, 2013)

Asus uses below standard thickness for PCB, asus uses <1.5mm thick PCBs when ATX spec requires 1.57mm thickness. so no, they are not the best.

ASRocks motherboard quality is the best in the market at the moment. ASUS and gigabyte too have good motherboards, but only the high end one or two are of good quality.


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## AsRock (May 20, 2013)

de.das.dude said:


> Asus uses below standard thickness for PCB, asus uses <1.5mm thick PCBs when ATX spec requires 1.57mm thickness. so no, they are not the best.
> 
> ASRocks motherboard quality is the best in the market at the moment. ASUS and gigabyte too have good motherboards, but only the high end one or two are of good quality.



Were did you get these details from ?.. Any chance there is a list of others too ?


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## de.das.dude (May 20, 2013)

i was watching EEVBlog(electronics based channel) on youtube and he got a new setup and was explaining things, like the things are connected and such.

you can check specs at http://www.formfactors.org/


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## Hood (May 20, 2013)

*Asus or Gigabyte*

I've had bad luck with MSI boards, and they occasionally make spurious claims/performance exaggerations.  While they all sometimes have over-zealous advertising departments, MSI's crosses the line more than the other two.  Had great luck with Asus, but Gigabyte's boards are  looking better all the time.


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## lilhasselhoffer (May 20, 2013)

I have experience with ASUS and Gigabyte.  I haven't purchased MSI, but people I know who have say they are very hit-and-miss when it comes to quality.


I would put ASUS above Gigabyte when it comes to my personal preference.  I've bought two ASUS boards.  The coloration did not match with the manuals, but the products both functioned well.

Gigabyte crams in a lot of features.  They act as though these extra features will make-up for the occasional defects.  I've owned three Gigabyte boards, and worked on a fourth.  My experience is that 3/4 boards have at least one feature that is defective.  Of those defects two have needed to be returned.  Let's remove the socket 2011 board (I'm feeling charitable, but realistically I've returned it more than 4 times so I'm considering this a trash design), and you're still left with 2/3 of the boards having failure, and 1/2 of these failures being critical.  When you've got that high of a defect rate either engineering needs to get their crap together, you need to choose better component manufacturers, or QA needs a boot to the arse.


So, yes ASUS has a price premium.  Yes, Gigabyte has more features.  If it were me, a 10% price premium would pay for itself when you don't have to return the board.  

On to a more general topic, AsRock is a decent company.  They regularly sell for 10-15% less than competing brands with the same features.  You generally have to get an RMA out of the gate, but they are quick about it (with the RMAs always, in my experience, working 100% when you get them back).  You end up paying a little more than competing brands charge out of the gate, but you've got a large fully functional feature set.  Assuming that AsRock could get a handle on DOA materials they'd be my choice hands down.  As it stands now, they aren't a worse alternative than the competition.


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## caleb (May 20, 2013)

A minute of silence for good old ABIT which isn't here with us today....

+1 on warranty terms. I usually ask my local store which company gives the best warranty terms and deals with RMA quickly and go for that. 
I actually considered EFI maturity back when it was a new thing but I guess thats not the issue with current stuff.


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## Ravenas (May 20, 2013)

You named the three best MOBO manufacturers out there...The choice is preference on what you want to spend and what you want on the MOBO not brand.


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## Deleted member 24505 (May 20, 2013)

Asrock/Asus, never had any issues with either.


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## newtekie1 (May 20, 2013)

kid41212003 said:


> Asus's boards are so overpriced it makes you feel stupid if you own one.



It depends.  The ROG series is definitely overpriced, but even enthusiasts don't really need the ROG boards.  The standard boards still offer great features for much cheaper, and if you get one on sale they offer a great value.  Both of my M5990X Evo's I got for under $100 from newegg, that is a great value.

But at the same time ASRock is my choice for real value if I can't find a decent deal on an ASUS board.  ASRock always offers a great value.


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## radrok (May 20, 2013)

newtekie1 said:


> The ROG series is definitely overpriced



With all the BIOS support Shamino has given us for advanced memory/cpu tweaking I consider the extra paid over another high end board the minimum due to pay, trust me.


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## de.das.dude (May 20, 2013)

doesnt shamino make bicyle gear systems?


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## AsRock (May 20, 2013)

de.das.dude said:


> i was watching EEVBlog(electronics based channel) on youtube and he got a new setup and was explaining things, like the things are connected and such.
> 
> you can check specs at http://www.formfactors.org/



Cheers, you know what video camera he uses as it seems like it's a real good one lol.


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## de.das.dude (May 20, 2013)

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+camera+does+EEVBlog+use

Sanyo HD1010


Oh and Shimano makes gears, not Shamino


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## radrok (May 20, 2013)

de.das.dude said:


> doesnt shamino make bicyle gear systems?



He's the one you'd want on developing your motherboard


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## Jetster (May 20, 2013)

Shimano makes bike parts. I think this thread has run its coarse


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## jaggerwild (May 24, 2013)

erocker said:


> I personally don't think threads like this serve much purpose at all. The majority of motherboards sold don't have problems. A majority of customers don't post on tech forums such as this one and if/when they do it's more likely to be because of a problem rather than for praise. Then you have folks who buy low-end/cheap boards from "whatever" company and complain that they can't get enough gigahurtz out of their 'puters. The only real way to tell is through facts of what actual return rates are and that isn't really available. I'm sure they're all pretty close.



 But the ends don't justify the means, price for a high end board is way out of reach for most folks. MSI makes some good mid level boards, BioStar makes some good priced over clockable boards. $400 for a high end Asus board is simply too much IMHO. 
 Then in two months when a new line up comes out, then you have to run out and buy a new $400 board so you can have the latest and greatest. Mean while no one will pay half of what the original board cost used.


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## MxPhenom 216 (May 24, 2013)

Jetster said:


> Shimano makes bike parts. I think this thread has run its coarse



They sure do. Speaking of which on my Specialized mountain bike I have Shamino COGs and derailleur.


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## Jetster (May 24, 2013)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> They sure do. Speaking of which on my Specialized mountain bike I have Shamino COGs and derailleur.



Me too. i just changed my swing arm bearings and my forks are next. Oil and seals


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## Deleted member 24505 (May 24, 2013)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> They sure do. Speaking of which on my Specialized mountain bike I have Shamino COGs and derailleur.



Sorry to be finicky ,but the cog is called a cassette.


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## Jetster (May 24, 2013)

I knew what he meant


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## shovenose (May 24, 2013)

I prefer ASRock or MSI for nice builds.
For really budget builds the occassional ECS or Biostar board.
I dislike Gigabyte. ASUS is fine I guess but usually not the best deal.


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