Why does AT continually reccomend MSI motherboards despite the reliablilty problems?

[SickBeast]

First, the MSI S939 board won top honours from this site, and now they're reccomending one for Socket-A when clearly the Asus and Abit boards are the best.

Get a load of this quote from the article:

Reliability of the MSI boards has been very good in our experience.

What's their "experience"? A day or so to test the board and then ship it back to MSI? Some reliability test. :roll:

*EDIT*: An MSI motherboard brought down an AT server! Do AT editors have a selective memory, depending on who pays them what?[/quote] (Thanks Budman)

Seriously, what's the deal here? MSI has been caught using defective capacitors in their motherboards, and as far as I know their quality control remains poor.

I've lost faith in AT as a motherboard review site.

 

[slash196]

Just stick with ASUS, even if MSI has a slight performance advantage.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I stopped trusting MSI after their i865 board with the hidden overclocking that dynamically ran CPUs out of spec to cheat on benchmarks. Then (I cynically assume without real proof) bribed TomsHardware to give them the Editor's Choice for that exact motherboard over better Abit and Asus boards.

I highly doubt AT can be bought that way, but perhaps MSI has only provided AT with carefully-picked "golden sample" motherboards that are tested enough to be more reliable than what they sell to the public. Again, to any lawyers, that's just a wild guess

 

[svi]

All motherboard manufacturers have been caught using defective and/or low-quality capacitors in their motherboards. And where do you get your information about quality control? Have you used a reasonably large sample (e.g. >1000) of their boards spread out over a wide range of models and time?

I don't really like the K7N2, to be honest. The northbridge cooler isn't the greatest, and the layout could be much better. I don't think it's fair to say that MSI have reliability problems unless you have a REALLY large amount of experience, though.

 

[Thegonagle]

What was the brand of defective motherboard that brought down AT a couple of years ago? (I hope it wasn't MSI! I can't remember though.)

 

[Mem]

they're reccomending one for Socket-A when clearly the Asus and Abit boards are the best.

It works both ways,why do some people always think Asus are the best? Personally I think the DFI Infinity Ultra is better then any Asus Socket A model,then throw in other good brands like Soltek,Epox etc... do you then think Asus is still the best?

Best brand/model is also relative,too many factors involved,best quality,best stability,best for overclocking,best feature rich board,,best allrounder,best budget etc.....

 

[Thegonagle]

Originally posted by: Mem

they're reccomending one for Socket-A when clearly the Asus and Abit boards are the best.

It works both ways,why do some people always think Asus are the best? Personally I think the DFI Infinity Ultra is better then any Asus Socket A model,then throw in other good brands like Soltek,Epox etc... do you then think Asus is still the best?

Best brand/model is also relative,too many factors involved,best quality,best stability,best for overclocking,best feature rich board,,best allrounder,best budget etc.....

Personally, I think "best" harnesses the highest possible performance the chipset has to offer when run within spec, doesn't introduce stability issues or any other issues of its own, offers some tweaking options for people like us, and the quality of the electronic components should never be a question--not the day it's first powered up, not 6 years later.

Asus is a company that has consistently delivered all of the above to millions of users for over 15 years now. (A virtual eternity in the hardware business.)

 

[PingSpike]

Didn't all motherboard makes experience a rash of bad caps a few years back? It was some sort of counterfeiting scam or something.

 

[NathanBWF]

All I can say is every system I've built using a MSI mobo has never had any problems as of yet thus I have no reason to question their reliability.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
First, the MSI S939 board won top honours from this site, and now they're reccomending one for Socket-A when clearly the Asus and Abit boards are the best.

Get a load of this quote from the article:

Reliability of the MSI boards has been very good in our experience.

What's their "experience"? A day or so to test the board and then ship it back to MSI? Some reliability test. :roll:

Seriously, what's the deal here? MSI has been caught using defective capacitors in their motherboards, and as far as I know their quality control remains poor.

I've lost faith in AT as a motherboard review site.

To be fair, MSI is not the only one alone using defective capacitors in their board, Abit and others have also used bad caps sometime ago.

As about AT recommending the MSI K7N2GM2, I'll take the Asus A7N8X-VM/400 (nForce2 IGP) instead without even blinking an eye. I don't know about you guys but all the Asus stuff I have bought and used have worked perfect, but I can't say the same for MSI. The GPU heatsink of my MSI ti4200 started to warp after a few months of use.

What made me really dislike MSI is the hidden overclock function in some of their Neo boards, and that made me not to buy a MSI motherboard again.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

because when msi send test boards out to reviewers they make sure they work, and they probably make sure that its the highest overclocking board they have too.

so AT and other places think, ah yes a good stable product that oc's good too, then in reality things go wrong for the people who purchase these items through retail

 

[Sunner]

Can't say my impression of MSI has been the best either.
Some of their stuff is top notch, while other stuff is flaky or outright sucks.

I'd rather buy from a manufacturer that's always(well almost always, noone gets it right all the time) among the best, rather than one who's the best sometimes and sucks badly other times.

 

[ponyo]

Anandtech is like most big computer review site. It's influenced by corporate handouts and money. I stopped reading these paid advertisements and informercials long ago and rely on what really matters: actual user feedbacks and reviews from various overclocking forums around the Net.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Naustica
Anandtech is like most big computer review site. It's influenced by corporate handouts and money. I stopped reading these paid advertisements and informercials long ago and rely on what really matters: actual user feedbacks and reviews from various overclocking forums around the Net.

That's one approach, but the problem with it is that people in general are very unreliable as far as objectivity goes.
Not out of malice, but people wanna feel good about what they buy, and some people will feel some kind of emotional attachment to companies for whatever reason.

There was a fella on these forums that used to talk about how his Cyrix could kick the crap out of any Pentium in fp intensive tasks, for example Quake.
He based this on one benchmark that a friend of his had made(this friend was also a member, and a much more reasonable one at that), along with some obviously fabricated FPS numbers from Quake and other games.

Of course back then, most people around here were knowledgeable and could tell this was BS without much difficulty, but with the number of people out there today, filtering through all this BS becomes increasingly difficult.

 

[BentValve]

continually reccomend

Its continually recommend.


Sorry but someone who cannot spell or more importantly at least take the time out to find the correct
spelling is probably the same guy who does not read the manual before installing a motherboard or at
least refer to the manual when a problem occurs.

 

[ponyo]

General consensus from various forums are much more reliable in objectivity than one reviewer. Knowledge of one is dwarfed by many. I will take opinion of the masses and people I trust over single paid site reviewer who's objectivity I question.

 

[BentValve]

Originally posted by: Naustica
General consensus from various forums are much more reliable in objectivity than one reviewer. Knowledge of one is dwarfed by many. I will take opinion of the masses and people I trust over single paid site reviewer who's objectivity I question.

yeah but sadly many base their own thoughs on those same reviews. And then you have the "I own it so it must be good" factor.

Its takes quite abit of searching to find the real truth without actually buying the product and finding out for yourself.

 

[SuperFreaky]

I've had 4 MSI boards, 1 ASUS and 1 ABIT die on me...

 

[Ike0069]

I just bought the MSI 939 Neo3 Platinum board mainly for its OC'ing ability and the Newegg reviews. This will be my first MSI board, as I have always been partial to Epox. I would have gone with EPOX again if, but Monarch doesn't yet carry them and I wanted a pre-tested MB/CPU.
Either way, I've never had a problem with any MB; whether is was a Dell (unknown actual brand), Abit, or Epox.

 

[Jiggz]

Originally posted by: BentValve

Originally posted by: Naustica
General consensus from various forums are much more reliable in objectivity than one reviewer. Knowledge of one is dwarfed by many. I will take opinion of the masses and people I trust over single paid site reviewer who's objectivity I question.

yeah but sadly many base their own thoughs on those same reviews. And then you have the "I own it so it must be good" factor.

Its takes quite abit of searching to find the real truth without actually buying the product and finding out for yourself.

". . .their own thoughs .." it's "their own thoughts . ." ; . . .abit . . " it's ". . .a bit . ." two words not one.

Just like the saying goes, "What goes around, comes around . . "

 

[ponyo]

Fanboys exist in all forums but it's usually pretty easy to weed them out.

Even though I enjoy reading Anandtech forums due to its laid back style, I find other smaller dedicated forums are much better with hardware stuff.

 

[Mem]

Personally, I think "best" harnesses the highest possible performance the chipset has to offer when run within spec, doesn't introduce stability issues or any other issues of its own, offers some tweaking options for people like us, and the quality of the electronic components should never be a question--not the day it's first powered up, not 6 years later.

Asus is a company that has consistently delivered all of the above to millions of users for over 15 years now. (A virtual eternity in the hardware business.)

In that case I could name a few brands that have had excellent stability etc and most of the big names offer the same 3 year warranty period,as to the leaking caps that were meantioned,virtually all brands were effected a few years back including Asus.

So far, the only motherboard maker to admit to the problem is ABIT Computer Corp. (Taipei), and the only major PC maker to acknowledge being affected is IBM Corp. But the problem is likely to be more widespread. Indeed, those who have repaired the damaged boards say that they have encountered crippled motherboards from Micro-Star International, ASUSTek Computer, Gigabyte Technology, and others.

link. .

To be fair ,the leaking capacitor problem was not really the board manufacturers fault.

 

[BentValve]

[/quote]


". . .their own thoughs .." it's "their own thoughts . ." ; . . .abit . . " it's ". . .a bit . ." two words not one.

Just like the saying goes, "What goes around, comes around . . "[/quote]




Its, 'What comes around goes around' ...


http://www.mp3.com/albums/387461/summary.html

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: Jiggz

Originally posted by: BentValve

Originally posted by: Naustica
General consensus from various forums are much more reliable in objectivity than one reviewer. Knowledge of one is dwarfed by many. I will take opinion of the masses and people I trust over single paid site reviewer who's objectivity I question.

yeah but sadly many base their own thoughs on those same reviews. And then you have the "I own it so it must be good" factor.

Its takes quite abit of searching to find the real truth without actually buying the product and finding out for yourself.

". . .their own thoughs .." it's "their own thoughts . ." ; . . .abit . . " it's ". . .a bit . ." two words not one.

Just like the saying goes, "What goes around, comes around . . "

Very nice. I no longer can believe anything BentValve says. LOL

 

[Starbuck1975]

My last three boards have been ABIT, and all three have been rock solid...that being said, I am leaning towards an MSI socket 939 or 754 board for my next upgrade partially because their boards have received fairly solid reviews across various sites and forums...I think for any manufacturer, you have the rabid enthusiasts and those who had one bad experience and have developed an utter hatred for that manufacturer.