How are Intel MB?

[imported_mystro]

In the past I usually only considered the Intel boards for mission critical work and always have gotten solid performance from the WS boards.. after reading so many excellent reviews on this Intel Extreme series though I have not been at all disappointed. As DisLikeyou mentioned, the big picture is Intel's solid support and in the event you need help, Intel gives it in spades but truthfully..you'll likely never need it. Another thing I appreciated is this board is not overloaded with third party 'fluff' but has all the goodies a power user appreciates especially its well done visual BIOS for total control.
IMO,any builder who doesn't considered this Intel Extreme series in the mix and gives it a deep look is doing themselves a disservice.

Review and credit for above image: http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-3770k-and-3750-review-with-z77/1

 

[marraco]

So I was pretty much decided on buying a Gigabyte but was curious I never purchased an Intel MB before.

I was curious how reliable are they and how is their RMA service?

I never had an Intel CPU go bad, so was thinking MB are the same?

I had any kind of trouble with Intel mothers.

-They are expensive, so anybody would expect for them to be better than the competence, but they are worse.

-Memory problems: many times, I had memory modules perfectly working on Asus, Gigabyte and MSI mothers, but they didn't worked at all on the Intel ones. (and don't even try to mix different modules. Intel can't handle it).
That one of the main reasons for which Intel mothers are not "reliable" or "stable". After spending too much money on the Intel garbage, and excellent memory, you find that the mother crashes because it just doesn't know how to handle memory modules.

-Hard disk problems. Lots of trouble with installation of Windows on Intel mothers. Hard disk not recognized after rebooting. The problem was that Windows included buggy drivers. Updated ones solved the problem, but Intel did NOT offered the updated ones on his web site, because these drivers were "included" (the old, buggy ones) on Windows installation disk. The only solution was to download the drivers (made by Intel itself!) from other motherboard vendor with updated drivers and same -Intel- chipset, and burning a personalized Windows installation CD.

-Poor BIOS design. Super simple, but super basic BIOS options. Far, far poorer that any of the competence. Intel mothers, as custom, don't have essential configuration options available to the user. And I'm not speaking just of "advanced" features like memory timings and voltages, but not even the possibility to specify any possible working boot drive.

-Poorly featured motherboards. Lots of cheaper-than-Intel motherboards generally offer far more features, like more and faster USB ports, more expansion slots, more SATA connectors... more of everything.

-Bad physical design. Frequently I had problems trying to connect a video card, and finding that it was impossible due to space conflict with a SATA connector getting in the way, or else. Newer mothers have it solved, but they were late comers, far behind the competence, and it just exposes that Intel mothers are poorly tested, and poorly made. Intel just relies on the trademark "Intel" to sell crappy mothers, and doesn't even care for checking that his mothers work on the real world.
X58 mothers, which were triple-channel, should obviously be designed with 3 OR 6 memory slots, but Intel sold ones with 4 memory slots, and frequently triple channel just stopped working if the 4 memory slots were filled.

-Awful driver web page design. Downloading drivers from Intel is a hell. Finding the drivers is more complex than the competence, but after you find the drivers list, for EACH driver downloaded, you need to click 3 or more web pages with "Terms of Service" agreements and other legalese crap. And after that, to keep downloading the remaining drivers, is necessary to go back 3 or more web pages, click the next driver, and suffer again all that hell... Then you find that the driver downloaded is not the newer one, which should be searched by chipset and not by mother model. And even if the chip and driver is made by Intel, some times it is not available on Intel web page, and the only way to get it is to download it from Asus or Gigabyte, and edit some text installation file so it can be installed.

The list of troubles is large. Just stay away from Intel mothers. Don't waste your money.

 

[Mars999]

In the past I usually only considered the Intel boards for mission critical work and always have gotten solid performance from the WS boards.. after reading so many excellent reviews on this Intel Extreme series though I have not been at all disappointed. As DisLikeyou mentioned, the big picture is Intel's solid support and in the event you need help, Intel gives it in spades but truthfully..you'll likely never need it. Another thing I appreciated is this board is not overloaded with third party 'fluff' but has all the goodies a power user appreciates especially its well done visual BIOS for total control.
IMO,any builder who doesn't considered this Intel Extreme series in the mix and gives it a deep look is doing themselves a disservice.

Review and credit for above image: http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-3770k-and-3750-review-with-z77/1

I concur! I have had a few Intel MB never had issues with them either, stable, fast.

Great fan controllers

Only issue i had like was stated, was memory compatiability. I have 8GB in a Core i7 860 rig with the Intel P55? chipset MB, and couldn't get it to go even though they were 1.5v, put them in another MB worked great... These were 4x2GB sticks, took out two of them ran in two slots either pair worked fine in the Intel MB. So moral of the story great MB's, but make sure you can return the memory if you find the MB is unstable as keep trying until you find a set that works well when fully populated memory banks.

 

[imported_mystro]

I had any kind of trouble with Intel mothers.

-They are expensive, so anybody would expect for them to be better than the competence, but they are worse.

*Not really more expensive for this class.

-Memory problems: many times, I had memory modules perfectly working on Asus, Gigabyte and MSI mothers, but they didn't worked at all on the Intel ones. (and don't even try to mix different modules. Intel can't handle it).

I wouldn't suggest 'mixing' with any board, Intel demands a certain criteria for trouble free systems but even then all boards experience isses with certain memor modulas.


That one of the main reasons for which Intel mothers are not "reliable" or "stable". After spending too much money on the Intel garbage, and excellent memory, you find that the mother crashes because it just doesn't know how to handle memory modules.

They are likely the most used boards for servers and other work intensive issues and not just their WS XEON boards.

-Hard disk problems. Lots of trouble with installation of Windows on Intel mothers. Hard disk not recognized after rebooting. The problem was that Windows included buggy drivers. Updated ones solved the problem, but Intel did NOT offered the updated ones on his web site, because these drivers were "included" (the old, buggy ones) on Windows installation disk. The only solution was to download the drivers (made by Intel itself!) from other motherboard vendor with updated drivers and same -Intel- chipset, and burning a personalized Windows installation CD.

When is the last ime you visted a Intel support site? I'd suggest you do it asap so you know whats going on:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Default.aspx?lang=eng

-Poor BIOS design. Super simple, but super basic BIOS options. Far, far poorer that any of the competence. Intel mothers, as custom, don't have essential configuration options available to the user. And I'm not speaking just of "advanced" features like memory timings and voltages, but not even the possibility to specify any possible working boot drive.

Considered one of the best BIOS in the industry:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us...p-boards-software-visual-bios.html?wapkw=bios

-Poorly featured motherboards. Lots of cheaper-than-Intel motherboards generally offer far more features, like more and faster USB ports, more expansion slots, more SATA connectors... more of everything.


Whats missing?

-Bad physical design. Frequently I had problems trying to connect a video card, and finding that it was impossible due to space conflict with a SATA connector getting in the way, or else. Newer mothers have it solved, but they were late comers, far behind the competence, and it just exposes that Intel mothers are poorly tested, and poorly made. Intel just relies on the trademark "Intel" to sell crappy mothers, and doesn't even care for checking that his mothers work on the real world.
X58 mothers, which were triple-channel, should obviously be designed with 3 OR 6 memory slots, but Intel sold ones with 4 memory slots, and frequently triple channel just stopped working if the 4 memory slots were filled.

-Awful driver web page design. Downloading drivers from Intel is a hell. Finding the drivers is more complex than the competence, but after you find the drivers list, for EACH driver downloaded, you need to click 3 or more web pages with "Terms of Service" agreements and other legalese crap. And after that, to keep downloading the remaining drivers, is necessary to go back 3 or more web pages, click the next driver, and suffer again all that hell... Then you find that the driver downloaded is not the newer one, which should be searched by chipset and not by mother model. And even if the chip and driver is made by Intel, some times it is not available on Intel web page, and the only way to get it is to download it from Asus or Gigabyte, and edit some text installation file so it can be installed.

The list of troubles is large. Just stay away from Intel mothers. Don't waste your money.

Sounds like you've suffered, Intel offers virtually all generic drivers from what I've found..your issues basically apply to all mobo issues and happens to 'some' builders...just not many here since they know how to navigate Intel.


.

 

[buggers]

I just wanted to chime in and let you know. (Not buggers btw, gotta love bugmenot).

We use Intel boards in all our systems we build and have very solid performance and reliability out of them. Since we build systems we can bypass tech support to RMA a board when it does fail...and they do. I can't give you a solid percentage as we don't track it simply because we don't see enough to warrant the extra paperwork.

In the past we used various brands of motherboards and typically saw setup issues, quirky settings preventing anything from a drive not being detected to inability to boot and get video from the proper video card.

Now, in my personal machine I have a Gigabyte board and I LOVE it, but it was a nightmare to setup. I had to fight with the settings forever to get it stable, but now it's rock solid, great performance, etc. Still, if you want trouble free Intel seems like a good solid choice.

Intel's site is also quite easy to navigate. Easy to find the board you want information on: Let's pick a...say, dg41rq: http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/highlights/dsktpboards/dg41rq

Bam, processor support listed, all information on the board including an automatic driver update utility. Try navigating Asus' or Gigabyte's webpages and good luck on download speeds being decent.

 

[gpse]

just replaced my gigabyte z68x-ud3h-b3 with an intel dz77bh-55k, this is the first intel board to give me issues. First off the only way I can enter the bios is to use a PS/2 Keyboard, my microsoft wireless usb keyboard/mouse wont let me enter the bios. However after I used the PS/2 keyboard to hit f2, my usb keyboard will work just fine, and i can even unplug the PS/2 keyboard and use the usb without issues in the bios. Second issue is if I enable UEFI, CPU-Z wont show the motherboard make/model, and if I try to install Intel Desktop Utilities it says I don't have an Intel mobo, and install fails. Turning off "Boot UEFI bios" in the bios allows CPU-Z to see the make\model, and intel software installs again without issue.
Both issues can hopefully be fixed in a Bios update, so I'll just have to wait, besides that everything else is great!

 

[gpse]

I figured out how to get into the bios with a usb keyboard, turns out my Microsoft Wireless Desktop 3000 (Wireless Keyboard 3000v2, Wireless Mouse 5000 combo) was the problem. If I plug in a usb keyboard while keeping the receiver for my mouse/keyboard I can enter the bios! Must be a compatibility issue with the microsoft receiver.
Never had this issue on any other mobo, I've been using this keyboard/mouse combo for a while now.

 

[imported_mystro]

Thanks for the update, it always helps someone here and isn't that why we come to Anandtech. I'm betting you'll enjoy the whole Intel Extreme experience or at least I have. Although there seems to compareitive few issues with the Extreme series I hope ppl like Dislikeyou finds his issue..he's so helpful here and at Intel community.