Who has the best quality?

[src1425]

My current, antiquated mobo is from the now defunct DFI, and my only other experience ordering a board was from Gigabyte for my son's rig a couple of years ago, which arrived DOA. I realize you can get a bad board from anyone, but are there generally recognized tiers when it comes to mobo quality? I really have no way of distinguishing between ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ASRock, etc. when it comes to their reputation, and whether it's getting better or worse.

Looking to purchase next week for a 2500K build, so any thoughts will be much appreciated!

 

[Delta6Echo]

My current, antiquated mobo is from the now defunct DFI, and my only other experience ordering a board was from Gigabyte for my son's rig a couple of years ago, which arrived DOA. I realize you can get a bad board from anyone, but are there generally recognized tiers when it comes to mobo quality? I really have no way of distinguishing between ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ASRock, etc. when it comes to their reputation, and whether it's getting better or worse.

Looking to purchase next week for a 2500K build, so any thoughts will be much appreciated!

What happened to DFI? I've been running a Gigabyte DS5 for quite sometime now and it's been a nightmare. It wouldn't boot out of the box and I had to deal with their super buggy firmware flash that would work 25% of the time. When I finally got it working, I called Gigabyte due to other issues (SSD) and they told me that my processor wasn't supported. Their tech support is pathetic.

I would stay away from Gigabyte and go with ASRock or ASUS. Although their new P67 boards seem better they have a long ways to go before I can recommend them to anyone.

 

[src1425]

What happened to DFI?

Sorry, I should have been more specific. According to Maximum PC, they're out of the mobo business.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/turn_out_lights_dfis_lanparty_over

 

[Nintendesert]

I had problems with my Phenom build and the Gigabyte board, so this time for my 2500K I'm going with ASUS, I think the P8P67 Pro.

 

[AsusGuy]

I have had a great experience with my Gigabyte board and all other Asus boards I have owned. EFI looks interesting as well. Looks like DFI is still making motherboards:

http://www.dfi.com.tw/portal/CM/cmproduct

 

[schmunk]

A local shop near me sells both Asus and MSI boards, and they also put together systems for people. They say they have 1/3rd the amount of RMAs with MSI than they do with Asus. I am very happy with Gigabyte lately, though I have also owned some solid MSI boards. I shop by features and then go through all the Newegg reviews, discounting things that sound like novice set up problems, and even the DOAs since I can always return. Failure to post randomly or blue screen or driver/bios problems I give a very heavy weight to.

 

[pitz]

It varies from board to board, year to year, but I've never seen a bad Asus board in the past 15 years of owning/using them.

I'm sure you'll get other opinions though, and the words of one guy is hardly scientific evidence.

 

[mclaren777]

I was planning to get an ASUS P67 but there has been a lot of negativity about their boards here on the forums. I'm starting to think that I might want to go with a different brand. :s

 

[gevorg]

Used Asus for the last 7 years in AMD builds. Now switching to Intel MB & CPU.

 

[BoozeCompany]

It varies from board to board. My personal experiences with Asus are good. Currently I own a R3E which is awesome but you dont really need it unless you do some serious overclocking.

I did a lot of builds with Gigabyte and never had problems with their boards. Usually they are good quality. So my vote goes to Gigabyte

 

[ZipSpeed]

I buy mostly Asus boards and haven't had any problems other than a BIOS flash gone wrong on a 775 board. I built an AMD system with a Gigabyte board recently with no issues.

 

[ehume]

I have found no difference between my As.s board and my two Gigabyte boards. With As.s you have to wade through more ad-copy trash, and all the glitz tends to disguise what you are working with. The Gigabyte is plain and straightforward.

One thing, though, that distinguishes between my Gigabyte boards ($105, $160) and my As.s board ($180). Both of my Gigabyte boards give me the option of using Voltage-controlled fans like Gentle Typhoons and San Aces. The As.s is PWM-only. So it's either get inferior PWM fans of use up a 5.25 slot with a fan controller. Pathetic. No more As.s boards for me.

 

[stevech]

It varies from board to board, year to year, but I've never seen a bad Asus board in the past 15 years of owning/using them.

I'm sure you'll get other opinions though, and the words of one guy is hardly scientific evidence.

Ditto on ASUS.
It would be nice if people would post vendors with high bad-product counts, like, say, ECS.

(People, including shops, bad mouth a vendor because of a couple of incidents. I go on Newegg and look at all the postings. Toss out the high/low and goofballs. And try to factor that gripes get more postings than happy customers. The quantity on Newegg reviews approaches statistical validity, as opposed to lone voices on forums.)

 

[BTA]

Years back when I worked in a repair shop we had to RMA far more Asus boards than the cheapo PC Chips/ECS motherboards we sold and built systems out of. We sold a larger # of the PC Chips/ECS boards too.

They were perfectly fine for us, very few issues with good ram and quality psu.

As for these days, I stick to Gigabyte for the most part. Although I have a Foxconn board and a Biostar board that are both solid as well.

 

[dac7nco]

I'm finding I like ASRock more and more, just for the extras they give you (front USB3) - Gigabyte's good too. I don't like 6-slot ATX boards, like Asus and EVGA are putting out a lot of. I've had good experiences with MSI, but only on that first X58 mATX board. Foxconn is the only one I would never trust.

Daimon

 

[coffeejunkee]

I have found no difference between my As.s board and my two Gigabyte boards. With As.s you have to wade through more ad-copy trash, and all the glitz tends to disguise what you are working with. The Gigabyte is plain and straightforward.

One thing, though, that distinguishes between my Gigabyte boards ($105, $160) and my As.s board ($180). Both of my Gigabyte boards give me the option of using Voltage-controlled fans like Gentle Typhoons and San Aces. The As.s is PWM-only. So it's either get inferior PWM fans of use up a 5.25 slot with a fan controller. Pathetic. No more As.s boards for me.

I'm with you on the Gigabyte plain and straightforward. I've used Asus since 1995 and always good experiences. Decided to switch to Gigabyte for my 1156 build and lived up to the hype, very stable, good memory compatibility, nice overclocker.

I'll admit it's nice you can use bios fan-control with a 3-pin cpu fan, altough you can do the same with Speedfan. But when it comes to casefans Gigabyte is just pathetic. On most boards you get a fake 4-pin fan header that runs at 50% all the time but can be controlled using Speedfan. None of the 3-pin fanheaders are controllable. Most Asus' boards at least have two controllable 3-pin headers (altough they're on the same circuit) besides the cpu-fan. While 'cheap' Asrock and MSI boards offer up to 4 controllable headers on their boards.

(Ok, the UD5 and UD7 get 2 fake 4-pin headers. But compare the UD7 to the Maximus IV: 2 fake pwm vs 6 'true' pwm headers...)

 

[ehume]

I'm with you on the Gigabyte plain and straightforward. I've used Asus since 1995 and always good experiences. Decided to switch to Gigabyte for my 1156 build and lived up to the hype, very stable, good memory compatibility, nice overclocker.

I'll admit it's nice you can use bios fan-control with a 3-pin cpu fan, altough you can do the same with Speedfan. But when it comes to casefans Gigabyte is just pathetic. On most boards you get a fake 4-pin fan header that runs at 50% all the time but can be controlled using Speedfan. None of the 3-pin fanheaders are controllable. Most Asus' boards at least have two controllable 3-pin headers (altough they're on the same circuit) besides the cpu-fan. While 'cheap' Asrock and MSI boards offer up to 4 controllable headers on their boards.

(Ok, the UD5 and UD7 get 2 fake 4-pin headers. But compare the UD7 to the Maximus IV: 2 fake pwm vs 6 'true' pwm headers...)

How exactly do you get Voltage control on an As.s board with Speedfan? On my current P7P55D-E Pro there seems no way to change Voltages.

 

[GundamF91]

The board qualities do vary even within the same brand, it's somewhat affected by their quality control standard and testing, which means flagship products should be better on average if you have a sample of 1000 units, but those tests and components also make them more expensive. But for the most part, it's really like playing lottery, it's all pure luck when you're just buying 1 or 2 boards for personal use.

Personally I've used Asus, Gigabyte, ASRock, Foxconn, Abit, Biostar, Elite group (ECS), Chaintech, EPoX, and First Int'l (FIC), to build for family and friends. It's kind of funny now that I think about it. I've never bought a brand twice!! I always went after price at the time.

Foxconn for Core2Duo was DOA and was returned, and I just never warmed up to it since then.
EPoX with Athlon was affected by capacitor plaque and blew its caps after 4 years.
Abit with Core2Duo was somewhat fussy, required a lot of tweaking in an overclocked system, still working fine after 3 years.
Chaintech with Penitum4 been very stable by comparison and still running strong after 6 years.
Both FIC and ECS are the cheapest of the cheap boards, but performed really well (but I never overclock those). I could still boot up my Pentium II LX440 board after 13 years.
The ASRock with AthlonXP after 4 years recently had issues with random shutdowns and USB detection. I haven't had time to deal with it enough to know what's going on, probably a board issue though.
Biostar with Athlon II X2 is a recent buy (replaced ASRock system above). BIOS was limited but it was a no-frill budget board, once I had it set correctly, it's been stable after 4 months.

Best of the bunch? My Asus with Core2Quad and Gigabyte with Athlon II X4, but Asus is only 2 years old, and Gigabyte is just 2 months old. Both are really excellent though, clean BIOS, highly stable, and well designed with connector placement. But those are also more pricey boards since I built them to my own spec. If I have to buy again tomorrow and for best quality, it'd be between those 2 brands and whoever has better price wins.

 

[Indyboy2]

I thought foxconn made 90% of oem boards including intel boards?I have had a few foxconn boards and never had much trouble

 

[CDC Mail Guy]

I suggest stay away from Gigabyte...both the two board I had never held an overclock

I'm going back to Asus

 

[ehume]

I suggest stay away from Gigabyte...both the two board I had never held an overclock

I'm going back to Asus

We are mirror images.

 

[Hogan773]

That's why both companies are still in business!

 

[StinkyPinky]

ASUS are my preferred brand. I've almost always gone with them and never had a problem.

 

[RussianSensation]

I was planning to get an ASUS P67 but there has been a lot of negativity about their boards here on the forums.

Where? Their P67 board scored editor's choice at TechReport.
BitTech.net was able to get 4.85 and 4.9 ghz overclocks on their mid-range Asus P8P67 board as well.

My last 3 boards have all been by Gigabyte (although I played around with some Asus and MSI boards). But this round, Asrock Xtreme4 and Asus boards are just full of features that the other brands are either missing or are charging more $ for.

 

[aigomorla]

Best quality is relative to your budget.

If you have the money to burn the top tier level boards are always the best to get.
As they have the best stock cooling options on the boards, and the highest vreg components.

I thought foxconn made 90% of oem boards including intel boards?I have had a few foxconn boards and never had much trouble

They also made a lot of flops. eVGA 680i ring a bell?

OEM doesnt have anything to do with much.
It has to do with how much money the oem gets to put on the board though its partners.

MSI even showed us that if they use quality parts like military caps, the boards are ROCK solid.