Who has the best quality?

[Delta6Echo]

I used to buy MSI back in 05-07 I hace since learned of there horrible customer service, and cheap quality boards. Had NB fan go out on 2 boards, VRAM chips on 3 laptop mobos, CPU's running hot due to poorly designed laptop, Customer Service told me to put some scotch tape on a vent which may help air flow....and so much more. I called techsupport so much over RMA's and crap that they knew who I was.

.

Since then they might of changed but holy crap, I have so much wasted time using that company.

Yea So since then I been using Gigabyte for cheaper boards and Asus for the more expensive boards.

I have NEVER had one issue with these companies. I will not use any other brand.

I haven't heard any good things about MSI recently though I did use them back in the Athlon 64 days without any problems. Gigabyte on the other hand was awful and I don't recommend them to anyone. Yes, their boards are often cheaper, but trust me, you get what you pay for here. You don't want to have your storage drive go out like mine just did (I luckily pulled off some important data recently) and have to deal with massive SSD errors.

I couldn't even use my brand new SSD because the motherboard was telling Windows 7 that it couldn't be formatted. I've had serious issues with the shitty SATA ports. Absolutely terrible. ASRock or bust for me from now on.

D6E

 

[zCypher]

I've had a number of MSI products and never a single problem with any of them, the same with Asus.

 

[ssmokeyy]

This is what i have seen.

first brand i used was tyan best board i have ever used. sad news years they win't server side only. Win't to msi had like 4 boards plus sold sold about 6 to people i knew. 3 out of the 4 had nothing but problems. Win't to asus since never had a problem i have had and sold like 30 boards my mom wife brother wifes mom work she owns did her own place with boards, lcd's never a problem haven't had a phone call for a problem. I now have the crosshair iv formula the thing takes a ass kicking. I just win't and tried ot get a new video card first win't with msi for the 6970 got it crashed my pc and found out it was a dead card out the box. Yeah i know shit can come broke but how can some one have soo many problems with one brand. I used to love bfgtech but there gone now and i have always watch evga and they have always been the same ok got my gtx 580 sc from them not one problem. My list goes.

top
tyan
asus
asrock had one board by them 1366 and never had a problem sold it never got a phone about problems.
evga
abit
ok

gigabyte

bad

msi

any other brand i won't play with.

 

[djshortsleeve]

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.

Same here, thats the best way to go about it. Its similar to deciding on a model of automobile.

 

[Rubycon]

temperature standard MIL-PRF-39003L of the US Department of Defense



I work at a semiconductor Fab, we are DOD certified.


They did, here's their press release:
http://www.tcmagazine.com/tcm/news/...-advantages-its-military-class-graphics-cards


Rubycon,
Please let me say in advance, I'm having fun with this, please don't view my posts as confrontational, this is a good debate, and makes forums fun. (some times the back and forth is seen as aggressive, so please know that I'm in good mood and enjoy your comments.

From the link above MSI news release:

. . . Taiwan-based manufacturer MSI has decided on hyping up its current offer, more specifically, the models that feature the relatively fresh Military Class design. Basically, by using components like the Hi-c CAP, SSC (Solid State Choke) and Solid CAPs, MSI was able to make cards that comply with the temperature standard MIL-PRF-39003L of the US Department of Defense, and deliver improved stability over longer periods of time, even when overclocking comes into play.​

So by their own press release they describe what they are referring to with their term, the actual military standard it meets, they point out which of their motherboards and GPUs offer this set of features, (Hi-c CAP Tantalum core capacitors, Pure iron solid state chokes, and solid core aluminum caps) and even that their company does not offer this for every product (see the link showing their product skus: the N260GTX Twin Frozer does not offer the better components). By your argument every company uses the same components, not true for MSI.

I would agree with you that any company can offer high grade components, they can offer whatever they like, all im saying is MSI is not flakey for using a term to distinguish their products, describing what that term means, and what features it includes, and then showing which products include those features.

Alright let's phrase this another way. If one obtains parts with mil-spec and no doubt they will advertise it as such - it does not make the product military grade! Just as Asus uses "super computer" on some of their boards with 7 PCI-E slots. Of course that does not mean a system built with these boards is a bona-fide supercomputer!

With all the bad capacitors over the last decade causing a plethora of motherboard/psu issues the companies are marketing on this. I have systems that have been in service for over 8 years (Super Micro) with all standard electrolytic caps (Sanyo) and not ONE has leaked or blown out. Capacitors aren't the only element of failure as well. One can install the best components but if their board design is not up to the task it will not fix those issues.

My main issue with the term "Military Grade Components" is people may be persuaded into buying said products thinking they are superior because they are the same thing that the military may use! This is where the laughable part comes from.

As far as "world record" overclockers getting high results with these boards that may or may not indicate superior quality. You will see variances from board to board from the same manufacturer. If anyone can tell you that it's me as everything I acquire is sent in pairs. Also one must keep in mind that most of the "suicide runs" done by the WR folks (LN2/LHe, etc.) are NOT 24/7 conditions obviously.

I'm not sure that PC shop reports may be a good indicator as well. Take DFI for example. A lot of folks could not get the boards to work right due to the all the BIOS settings in them so they returned them for Asus, EVGA, etc. replacements. How much of this is a PICNIC? (Problem In Chair Not In Computer) I was quite frustrated with the BIOS settings on those X48 boards at first but I usually don't have the time that most of you do but I did not give up and got some impressive results. I also killed two boards suddenly due to a PSU issue. It does happen anywhere, any time.

As for my preference I do like Asus. EVGA is actually a bit better for pure overclocking and getting higher numbers BUT they do have serious issues with IOPS (affecting high end storage) and THAT is definitely a deal breaker for me. I thought about trying the MSI Big Bang but I'm pretty much done with X58 at this point, waiting for Z68 ivy bridge and the next server platform.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

The VRMs on MSI's AMD boards seem to have a nasty habit of going boom ala :
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1559489

 

[combust3r]

It seems that every OEM I'm using for my mainboards are vanishing from the face of the earth, chipset makers also.

Chaintech - 5AGM2 - they are dead now. Motherboard (chipset actually, VIA MVP3) was terrible.

Epox - 8RDA+ (nVIDIA nForce2) - also dead, great motherboard however.

Now I'm buying Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H - I hope I don't jinx them

While I worked @ computer service (from 2000-2003) there werent unreliable manufacturers, just unreliable chipsets. SiS was a disaster, VIA also (but I have a Epox VIA KT333 still running, can you belive it, 9yrs now )

I really don't belive that right now there is much difference between Asus/GigaByte/MSI as in terms of quality, all of them have lower-end to top-end boards and features/price ratio is what matters the most. Good looks also helps as far as I can tell...

And it also looks like that they have splitted features among themselves. While I was searching for a mATX H67 mainboard I've noticed the following:

GA H67MA-UD2H
+ 8 phases, EPS, no IDE/PCI, NEC USB3, old school BIOS, DP, Mosfet drivers
- just one system fan connector, sata ports orientation

MSI H67MA-E45
+ NEC USB3, no IDE/PCI, sata ports orientation, 3 system fan headers
- childish designed UEFI, no EPS, no DP, 4 phases

Asus H67M-EVO
+ 8 phases, EPS, nicely designed UEFI, DP, 2 system fan headers
- Asmedia USB3 controller, IDE/PCI (possible flaky Linux support with Nuovoton + Marvell)

I didn't took into account ED55 cause it's noticably pricier than these around 125$ mark.

So this is why Gigabyte won, not because I'm confident that they are the best mainboard manufacturer - they just gave me the best features/price ratio and all the features I really needed.

If anything, solid caps is a must these days, at least one potential source of problems is diminished, so I wouldn't buy a board without them - no matter who is the manufacturer.

 

[jacktesterson]

Im an Asus guy but am giving Intel a go due to a combo deal (foxconn made)

In my 15 years of tinkering, I've had great luck with ECS, Biostar, Asus and MSI.

I've had two gigabyte boards quit on me so I tend to avoid the brand now but I'm sure they are fine.

I've owned 3 ECS boards and loved them all.

 

[schmunk]

As for my preference I do like Asus. EVGA is actually a bit better for pure overclocking and getting higher numbers BUT they do have serious issues with IOPS (affecting high end storage) and THAT is definitely a deal breaker for me.

I too have had issues with EVGA, had a 680i board that had tons of storage issues, and then seems like it killed two sets of DDR2 1066 RAM, had one stick die on a pair, two times in a row?? Didn't have much better time with a two 780is either, and I'm dying to get the 630i out of my HTPC cause it blue screened running Windows7 64 due to Nvidia GPU error (known issue) and also wont run drives in AHCI, and sometimes hangs on boot.

I have had some very good ASUS boards, you know I heard DFI was started by some ex- ASUS engineers.

Here's a new question:

Is there any romance left in (affordable) motherboards?

I still fondly remember my Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe with its 8 phase power and awesome heat pipe paired with my 1.8GHz Dual Opti OC'd at 2.9GHz

My DFI Ultra-D NF4 that only took one pencil line to convert to SLI.

My Asrock Dual939-SATA2 that could run AGP and PCIex GPU, that only took one solder blob to provide a new boosted range CPU Vcore table.

My Abit IC7-Max3 with its cool Outside the Case exhaust housting over the power chips, paired with my good old P4 Northwood.

My ASUS TUA266 that could run SD ram or the new DDR266 with a 1.2Ghz Tualatin core P3 that could beat a P4 1.8Ghz Willamette core in most benches.

sigh

 

[hotboyz012345]

Nothing to fear when i m here,,,,, i read the current reviews of asus p67 mobo and all have problems like booting delay or heat sink problem and gigabyte gets 100% positive reviews so you can check that in this forum.

 

[AstroGuardian]

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

I'm going back to Asus

Funny. Are you sure it's not the other way around?

 

[Golgatha]

Intel and Foxconn boards for no frills stock speed stability builds, with the nod to Intel boards for better product support.

Gigabyte and Asus for overclocking builds with the nod to Gigabyte. Oddly enough I'm using an ASUS P6T in my current rig.

 

[imported_mystro]

Quality is certainly important (DFI Lanparty is certainly that) but isn't support just as or at least equal in importance.

 

[schmunk]

Quality is certainly important (DFI Lanparty is certainly that) but isn't support just as or at least equal in importance.

Good support is a 3 year RMA