AsRock, ASUS or ECS? Z68 is not an option! :(

[Patrese]

Sorry for posting one more of these threads, but I gave the search function a try and came up with nothing regarding my miserable choices. I'm going to buy a motherboard for an i5 2500k build, but my options are quite limited here in Brazil/Paraguay. Actually, my ONLY options are:

AsRock P67 Pro 3 - US$ 136,00
ASUS P8P67 - US$ 185,00
ECS P67 H2-A2 SLI - US$ 191,50

I'm not planning to do SLI/CF at the moment, so the AsRock seems like an easy choice, given the price difference. Its I/O ports are somewhat limited, though, but not "US$50 limited". What I want to be sure about are the other things like reliability, stability, overclocks and so on.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Sniper82]

I'm usually against ASrock(mostly because they offer 1 year warranty vs others 3). But for some reason they are offering 2 years on the P67 line. For that reason and fact your not planning on SLI/CF I'd save the money and go ASrock. But I'm a warranty>everything else kind of guy.

 

[Crap Daddy]

Check the ASRock P67 Extreme4. I'm a happy owner of one.

 

[Infrnl]

if you're really tight on your budget; I would go with the ASRock. Otherwise I would go with the Asus. Your prices are high where you live. here in the states you can get the asus-p67 pro for $175

I take it newegg does not ship to Brazil? what about Amazon or something alike? you would be able to get a lot better options

 

[Patrese]

Check the ASRock P67 Extreme4. I'm a happy owner of one.

That was my first choice, as it was US$174 around here. But then it went out of stock for good. Now I'm stuck with these 3.

if you're really tight on your budget; I would go with the ASRock. Otherwise I would go with the Asus. Your prices are high where you live. here in the states you can get the asus-p67 pro for $175

I take it newegg does not ship to Brazil? what about Amazon or something alike? you would be able to get a lot better options

There is a 70% federal import tax plus a 20% state tax added if you buy this stuff from Amazon, plus shipping (about US$20 for that sort of package). I know, it sucks. Could you elaborate on why would you go with the ASUS if money was not an issue?

Thanks for the answers!

 

[BoomerD]

I'd avoid the ECS at all costs. I've never had one that was reliable...ASRock is an ASUS company, so their build quality MIGHT be a bit better than ECS, but for my builds, it's almost always ASUS. Every time I've bought a "bargain board," I've had nothing but problems with it. Gigabyte is another good quality board if you have them available.

 

[stevech]

ECS - the Yugo of motherboards

 

[Patrese]

Yeah, I thought ECS had found their way but it seems not to be the case. It leaves me with the ASUS or the AsRock, then.

I know I have to take the NewEgg user reviews with a grain of salt, but the AsRock has got better reviews than the ASUS over there. Actually, the whole AsRock P67 line up seems to bring better experiences than the ASUS around the web, but with the volume of ASUS sales being a lot bigger, I don't know if it means much. That's why I'm interested in a closer feedback about the ASUS...

Thanks again!

 

[stevech]

I've had about 4 ASUS mobos over many years, in succession. All AMD (I support the underdog - what would Intel CPUs cost without AMD's existence?). Never a problem. I figure that a vendor with a huge market share as they have cannot put out a bad design else the quantities of warranty RMAs would hurt them badly financially. ASRock may have a financial connection to ASUS but it's all about market share, I say.

Not to say that there aren't some low volume high quality board makers. But to do so is paradoxical due to the complexity of the PC boards.

 

[Patrese]

I've had about 4 ASUS mobos over many years, in succession. All AMD (I support the underdog - what would Intel CPUs cost without AMD's existence?). Never a problem. I figure that a vendor with a huge market share as they have cannot put out a bad design else the quantities of warranty RMAs would hurt them badly financially. ASRock may have a financial connection to ASUS but it's all about market share, I say.

Not to say that there aren't some low volume high quality board makers. But to do so is paradoxical due to the complexity of the PC boards.

I must admit I'm a little biased against ASUS. I had one heck of a hard time with an A7V600-X back in the Athlon XP days, as well as a pretty bad experience with a couple M2NPV-VM I used on clients builds. The P5Q I sold prior to this upgrade was pretty good, on the other hand...

I'm going to buy it tomorrow, so more opinions are welcome. As of the moment, I'll try hard to find an AsRock P67 Extreme 4. If I can't (95% chance of happening), I'll probably get the P8P67.

 

[mrblotto]

I thought ASRock only had a 1 year warranty, but it looks like it's 2 years (well, for the couple I looked up anyhow).

 

[RoyG]

I thought ASRock only had a 1 year warranty, but it looks like it's 2 years (well, for the couple I looked up anyhow).

If MB last for one year, it would last for 3 years, if it has solid capacitors. I throw at least 405 boards in past several years, never had failed board.

 

[Chaoticlusts]

Remember in regards to warranty's it changes from country to country you really need to look up what it is in your country specifically (ie I just bought an Asrock board in Australia and it comes with a 3 year warranty standard)

If your sure you never want to go SLI/Crossfire and you don't think you'll ever have need for a 4x PCI-E lane (ie for a RAID card or similar) then probably go the Asrock...spend the extra cash elsewhere on your system

 

[Patrese]

I got hugely lucky last tuesday when I went to buy my motherboard: the store had just received a AsRock Z68 Extreme 4 and I got it! So Z68 ended up being an option after all. I'm quite pleased with the board so far, no problems at all to report. Thanks for all the help!

 

[McQualude]

I must admit I'm a little biased against ASUS. I had one heck of a hard time with an A7V600-X back in the Athlon XP days, as well as a pretty bad experience with a couple M2NPV-VM I used on clients builds....

Same. Might have been the same model, I don't remember, but it was an Asus XP board... after two DOAs I got one that would post then had nothing but problems with it. Finally sold it and bought an MSI as a replacement. Been using an ECS the last 4 years without a problem. This time around I've been on the fence between ASRock and Asus and I'm going with an ASRock based on Newegg reviews.

 

[Patrese]

Same. Might have been the same model, I don't remember, but it was an Asus XP board... after two DOAs I got one that would post then had nothing but problems with it. Finally sold it and bought an MSI as a replacement. Been using an ECS the last 4 years without a problem. This time around I've been on the fence between ASRock and Asus and I'm going with an ASRock based on Newegg reviews.

I have nothing but praise for my AsRock so far. Easiest build I've ever had, everything worked, including that "XFast USB" thing that I was really skeptical about. The thing actually improves transfer speeds a lot.

About the K7 Asus you had, I'm willing to bet it was the A7V8X-X. The damn thing was a nightmare, but one that I never used first hand.

 

[Aikouka]

I've got an ASRock P67 EXTREME6 in my server PC and it works rather well! Glad the ASRock is working out well for you too! I haven't tried the X-FAST USB (or any other motherboard's version of it) though... what sort of speed differences do you see?

 

[Patrese]

I've got an ASRock P67 EXTREME6 in my server PC and it works rather well! Glad the ASRock is working out well for you too! I haven't tried the X-FAST USB (or any other motherboard's version of it) though... what sort of speed differences do you see?

I have a Dingoo A320, which is a neat (and cheap) chinese PMP which runs lots of emulators as well as Linux. It has 4GB internal memory plus a slot for a mini SD card. I'd normally get 1,2 MB/s transfers to the microSD card attached to the Dingoo, and it was not rare that the speeds got as low as 450KB\s. With X-FAST USB I'm getting consistently above 2,0MB\s with peaks of 3,0MB\s. Anandtech's test of the P67 Extreme 4 found it to work quite well too, but I was skeptical of the real world difference until I saw it myself.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4080/welcome-to-sandy-bridge-with-the-asrock-p67-extreme4/6

As for the Dingoo, if someone got curious:

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/dingoo-...-mini-sd-23032