Favorite motherboard vendor?

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 7:18 pm

Just curious what everyone's favorite motherboard vendor(s) is (are)? This question is from a reliability standpoint, i.e. what brand has exhibited the least number of problems?

I don't think I've really built enough computers to get a good idea of what motherboard makers are consistently problem-free.

Just curious!
Thanks,
Matt

Edit: added survey

liquid_celica · Post by **liquid_celica** » Sun Jul 24, 2005 8:39 pm

1. Abit
2. Asus
3. Intel (p4 only

4. MSI

Soyo used to be really good, but they've had some bad boards in the past.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 5:40 am

1) Intel

2) Asus

3) Abit

StarfishChris · Post by **StarfishChris** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:07 am

1) Asus
2) Gigabyte
3) Abit (limited experience)
TBH there isn't a great deal between these. It's probably best to search the internet with your chosen board to see if there are any recurring problems.

...

n-2) PC-CHIPS
n-1) ASRock, unless they have improved recently
n) ECS

lucienrau · Post by **lucienrau** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:22 am

I've had decent luck with Asus, MSI, and Giga-byte. Will not buy another foxconn or Biostar board again.

POLIST8 · Post by **POLIST8** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:41 am

My currently recommended hardware list:

Here

ASRock have gotten a ton better, though PC Chips and ECS have not. Soyo is OK, though their rebate process is awful.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 7:41 am

I would have said ABIT on top. However, they have no clue as to making stable bios revisions anymore. They used to be sick good at them. Something is desperately wrong now. If it fixes the issues, then it's number one. They are truly tested, never had to rma one ever, they answer their phones and answer your questions honestly!

that's even better than a good board at times.

However:
Intel makes the most stable boards now. it used to be between abit and intel, you couldnt go wrong. For amd, abit doesnt do all of the chipsets right it seems. shrugs. Maybe it is fine for the pentium systems, i never hear anytthing about that actually.

Gigabyte is what I am going for now. The GA-K8V Ultra-939. shrugs. seems liek the most feature rich and.... it has only 3 revisions to bios !

the abit i was getting has like 12... no good. and 2 in a month now... and still not working for many peeps.

Lawrence Lee · Post by **Lawrence Lee** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 7:51 am

Asus. Starting to like Aopen. I hate Gigashit with a passion.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 8:01 am

lol why no gigabyte?

and you must not have been in computer hardware business during the 90's... Not very much to say ASUS. *shiver*

man that company made more blacked out or dead boards than any other company puting out a board in NY. It would reboot you like for absolutely no reason. if you had gfx card that installed and worked, the next day it might not be recognized, even if you changed nothing at all. THis is from working with a few hundred of these boards, btw....

now that was a crap company. Im curious about gigabyte? most people love them. what board did you have problems with? I am planning to try them out for a x2 system.

afrost · Post by **afrost** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 8:05 am

I always buy Abit.....I hear a lot of people complain about bios problems, but it always seems like overclocker nit picks to me.

I have never had any problems with them so I coninue to buy them.

I like my most recent purchase the AN8-Ultra with heat pipe quite a bit.

I have a Venice 3000+ overclocked from 1.8 to 2.4 and it is completely stable at stock voltages on everything.....could probably go further but haven't tried because I am happy with the speed and heat output right now.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 8:09 am

well for one, i wouldnt buy an ultra board. and 2 i wouldnt overclock, and 3 you didnt mention your setup, mainly, the HD configuration and what bios you are using... dont want to get into an ABIT thread, but well...

I want to go k8t800 pro chipset for a 40 watt less power using vs an sli ultra board and the least power using of all them is the k8t800 pro (via) in general.

also has a cool northbridge, no need to ever worry about heatpiping or fans on it. So that's my market, kinda crappy in the abit forums, so im staying away from it, returned the AV8 to the store for a refund while i save up money for x2 chip.

POLIST8 · Post by **POLIST8** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 10:03 am

You should make a poll out of this and take 10 hours to compile the whole list. Then we can do video cards, processors, etc.

It would be cool to see (based on various polls) which parts people like the best for their silent systems.

Fans would take forever to compile.....

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 10:12 am

Yes yes. it would be good.

This almost calls for a new thread to draw people.

It would be good to make a list of mobo companies and chipsets and platforms and have people check off whatever they enjoy and not enjoy.

If you say to people, "what has given you x problems per year of usage" that is meaningless and typical of what goes on in "tech" world. Really, someone who uses a soyo hybrid board with no name company would have the least issues as they never load a blessed thing besides word, their digital photos, email browser, ebay, nudies at night, and like norton 2003 90 day expiration. to them, thats the most stable cuz its crappy and does nothing. so, instead:

we should have something like,
"what motherboard did you enjoy or not enjoy this year?"
"would you recommend it to a family member who is non technical?"
"would you recommend it to a tweaker"
"how about to an overclocker?"
"what about most importantly, an spcr enthusiast for its ease and lower cost of making it quieter/cooler?"

that would be nifty. would be great to run it for a year.

StarfishChris · Post by **StarfishChris** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 10:15 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote:and you must not have been in computer hardware business during the 90's... Not very much to say ASUS. *shiver*

man that company made more blacked out or dead boards than any other company puting out a board in NY. It would reboot you like for absolutely no reason. if you had gfx card that installed and worked, the next day it might not be recognized, even if you changed nothing at all. THis is from working with a few hundred of these boards, btw....

Most manufacturers (Gigabyte included) have been through the same process before. They work great now, that's all that matters.

derekva · Post by **derekva** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 12:10 pm

I've a *lot* of experience in this...

Intel-based:

1) Intel (natch)
2) Tyan
3) SuperMicro

AMD-based

1) GigaByte
2) Asus
3) Tyan

AOpen occasionally throws a good board out (they were pretty decent in the 90's when Asus was going through it's bleak period). Tyan is very spendy, but pretty damn reliable - especially in regards to workstation boards (same goes for SuperMicro's server & workstation systems).

-Derek

Ackelind · Post by **Ackelind** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 1:34 pm

afrost wrote:I always buy Abit.....I hear a lot of people complain about bios problems, but it always seems like overclocker nit picks to me.

I have never had any problems with them so I coninue to buy them.

I like my most recent purchase the AN8-Ultra with heat pipe quite a bit.

I have a Venice 3000+ overclocked from 1.8 to 2.4 and it is completely stable at stock voltages on everything.....could probably go further but haven't tried because I am happy with the speed and heat output right now.

What bios are you using?

In theory, this MB really has got everything i want, but I've been reading a lot about stability issues with different bioses.

Rasbelin · Post by **Rasbelin** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 9:36 pm

I'm a newcomer around here, but after having read these forums for hours nonstop now, thought would be okay to pitch in a few thoughts.

A good motherboard manufacturer is one that cares about what people think about their products and not just the profit. Abit has been very much into being overclocking community friendly, which I give some extra brownie points for. Also a good manufacturer has several different offerings available and tries to distinguish itself with features others don't have.

From my past first hand experiences with motherboards ranging from Abit to Soyo, plus based on zounds of product reviews and discussion threads I've read in the past, these are the motherboard brands I would give my approval to:

- Gigabyte. Overall quite feature rich products in the higher product category in terms of price. Dual BIOS is a feature of theirs that I'd definetly want to see as an industry standard. Saves a great deal of effort fixing corrupted CMOS chips. Not very overclocking directed brand, but sure does a fine job powering any PC with good components. Currently I'm running a Gigabyte powered AMD system.

- Epox. The price vs. quality ratio is absolutely top notch. Ever since their brand went mainstream, their flagships have been great AMD overclocking boards. Despite they may look cheaper in looks than for example Abit or MSI, they're well-made and do the job especially for a savvy gamer. They're perhaps best extra feature is the two digit error code display which Abit has later on plagiated (indeed, what a shame).

- MSI. The grand old man of motherboard manufacturing. Has been around for most of the time and does OEM manufacturing for large retail vendors (in the past at least Compaq and HP, but can be found abit anywhere). Never been an overclocking brand, but instead more of a versatile brand. Many models have been very crammed full with features (eg. first to have USB 2.0 and WiFi) and also a quite large collection usually available, covering most chipsets coming out on the market. Has carried VIA, Intel, AMD, ULI/ALI and now even ATI. These are reliable products, so if you just want a board that works, MSI is something to check out.

- Soltek. Usually people give credit only to the largest contestants that have released most new products, while forgetting the smaller contestants. In this category you easily find flaky brands such as Asrock and Biostar (yes, it's flaky IMO - just dig up some benchmarks for their current mobos), so it easily gets less attention. However we have Foxconn, Chaintech and Soltek as viable players in this league of cracking good basic products for a cheaper price. Soltek has been abit MIA lately, but they do come out with some interesting products every now and then. They're more oriented as cheaper overclocking friendly boards, maybe abit subpar to DFI or Epox. There has been some crappy models, but as overall they're much more promising than for instance Asrock, I'm much more happier to approve Soltek. One small, but sometimes very useful thing is that IMHO Soltek still carries the best software bundle I've ever seen. Others usually have an older antivirus or security suite program bundled, which really isn't useful, taken how those products develop all the time (not talking about virus description files). They have the full version of PoweQuest's Partition Magic included as the only mobo brand I've ever seen doing that. I still have their abit older bundle CD left for my partition needs.

My final advice is to always look up with a search engine product reviews for the motherboard you're planning to buy. If you can't find, you're better off taking a different model. This isn't just because of benchmarks, but usually reveals any very crappy models that already during a test setup for a review fail to deliver a 100% stable motherboard. Also you get better pictures off the product and details regarding its features.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 10:59 pm

a couple of very nice posts and this above one of course is good

hm. yeah, tyan is a good company. never really showcased, but I have used them, friends have, they collect dust now, but really never had issues.

I wonder why abit doesnt come out with another BX board type thats indestructible.

Tom Brown · Post by **Tom Brown** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 12:29 pm

I pretty much agree with Rasbelin.

Epox, Gigabyte, Intel, Soltek (I'm new to Soltek but the two boards I've used seem fine). ... in that order.

By the way, I use Linux as much as Windows so that definitely slants my view.

Personally, I'd stay away from Abit motherboards despite owning two of them with reasonable success and an Abit video card that I really like.

Ryan45 · Post by **Ryan45** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 6:50 pm

How come nobody said DFI?

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 6:52 pm

Because DFI isn't liked?

Mar. · Post by **Mar.** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 6:53 pm

Ryan45 wrote:How come nobody said DFI?

Because DFI boards are one part glow stick, one part Fisher Price.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 7:09 pm

DFI nForce2 was pretty flakey, but my experiences with their nForce3 board have been great. I think they've really upped the quality since their nF2 days.

To be honest, though, I don't know if I really have loyalties toward any particular brand. Usually, I look at features first, brand second. I try to steer clear of manufacturers with an unusually bad reputation, but otherwise, I'll buy about anything.

But if I had to make a list of the brands I've heard mostly good things about and feel most comfortable buying, it'd probably be something like this (in no particular order, by the way).

- ASUS
- DFI
- Soltek
- Aopen

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 8:49 pm

asus has severe noise issues via the on board sound on the via chipset board, as well complete blacking out/no posting of dual core on most of their boards without prior full bios updates.. which is impossible to do if you dont have single core spare 939 chip on hand.

DFI is the fastest board when you overclock that also is the most stable when you overclock.

EPOX is the fastest board without overclocking for nforce4, however, who wants a 2 mm fan at 200,000 rpm (i.e., dentist drill) on a spcr board that has a cpu that runs cooler than that northbridge.

just a rant about things not many mention when comparing boards. Abit is kinda crappy out like HARDCORE for bios's in the past 3-4 months and never addresses the issues people post on their own forums, shrugs.

I duno what that leaves

are all board mildly crappy in many ways?

wheres the ULi m1695 chipset on an Asrock board.... come save me asrock

think they could have made a better name than as*rock

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 9:54 pm

I used an ASRock for a budget PC I built for a family member. Seems to be a pretty solid board, and has been going strong for over a year. Actually, I believe I read somewhere that ASRock is a sub-division of ASUS. I'd assume similar quality components are used, but ASRock markets their boards to the budget users, whereas ASUS targets power users and enthusiasts (and their prices reflect this).

Freelancer77 · Post by **Freelancer77** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 10:17 pm

I've built between 180~200 systems for folks over the last 9 years, as well as 7 for myself. The order of preference for MOBO retailers:

1. ASUS <== Two, count them, two bad boards in almost 100 handled.
2. Gigabyte <== Used to be bird cage liners, gotten far better.
3. MSI <== Still some stability issues if you try ANYTHING non-standard.
4. TYAN <== I won't buy MP server boards from anyone else.

ECS <== Only have experience with one ECS board, no problems I can recall, but nothing stood out feature-wise.
EPOX <== Penthouse or outhouse. Sharp boards, as long as they work.
ABit, Aopen, DFI <== all decent board makers, but with mixed results in my experience.

I personally haven't used anything but ASUS since I bought an A7V133. I still remember nVidia sending out boards to reviewers for their (at the time) brand new nForce2 chipset. Did they send reference boards? No, they sent A7N8X Deluxe boards from ASUS, because the BIOS was more stable than their own reference. I've seen more hardware reviewed on ASUS boards in the last 5 years than all other makers combined. Why? Because both the reviewers and the vendors know that an ASUS board is less prone to freak compatibility problems.

This is not to say that I haven't experienced frustration with ASUS. A particular BIOS rev that fixed a main chipset issue broke the VGA aperture. Setting any but the minimum and you were zeroizing the CMOS to bring it back to life. I could name other instances of far less than perfect behaviors. But pound for pound and dollar for dollar, the most stable, broadly compatible, full-featured and well-integrated boards for PCs.

Of course, just one geeks opinion.

PS: ~El~Jefe~, 5 ASUS boards with onboard sound of my own, never had a noise problem, except again one BIOS for the A7N8X-E Deluxe messed up the sound. Backed up to previous rev and waited for the following one. No biggie.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 7:57 am

nice info thanx!

maybe i will go with asus then.

if anyone had themduring the k6-II or k6-III era, they knew how much they sucked asrock.

lol i love using that word.

Tom Brown · Post by **Tom Brown** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 7:58 am

Freelancer77 wrote:PS: ~El~Jefe~, 5 ASUS boards with onboard sound of my own, never had a noise problem, except again one BIOS for the A7N8X-E Deluxe messed up the sound.

I had an A7N8X with noisy sound. I RMA'd it twice for replacement and once for refund. I didn't check into the BIOS as a possible cause.

Before that the only major problem I had with an Asus board was a K7v133 that I couldn't get the CD burner to function properly with. None of my buddies who had the same board could burn CDs, either. We put up with the problem for about 6 months and then most of us ditched the boards. I found out later that Asus eventually released a BIOS fix for the problem about 6 months after I gave up on them.

It seems like there are a hand full of choice boards for any given platform. I had an Abit NF7-S v2.0 which was an excellent board but had a nasty issue which caused corruption on SATA disks and they didn't fix it for about a year after I bought the board. When I say fix it... I mean made it work. They put a setting in the BIOS that dumbed down the timings to the point where I was down to 16 MB/s. The speed sucked but at least I didn't have to reinstall my OS's every 6 weeks.

I'm with frostedflakes in that I'm not particularly loyal to any brand. If one particular board is receiving a lot of positive reviews and is widely reported to be a good board, I'll run it regardless of brand.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 8:07 am

Hey, I'm there with you on that.

Whatever is quality, I will buy.

what is the most quality and not super hot passive northbridge for amd right now??

afrost · Post by **afrost** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:10 am

Ackelind wrote:
afrost wrote:I always buy Abit.....I hear a lot of people complain about bios problems, but it always seems like overclocker nit picks to me.

I have never had any problems with them so I coninue to buy them.

I like my most recent purchase the AN8-Ultra with heat pipe quite a bit.

I have a Venice 3000+ overclocked from 1.8 to 2.4 and it is completely stable at stock voltages on everything.....could probably go further but haven't tried because I am happy with the speed and heat output right now.
What bios are you using?

In theory, this MB really has got everything i want, but I've been reading a lot about stability issues with different bioses.

I used bios 15 which was the latest at the time. I have turned the computer over to a friend so I never did update to bios 16.

Honestly I think a lot of the complaints you see are from people trying to overclock that are clueless and using the wrong settings, or they are using some piece of crap power supply, etc.

Web forums are always going to be full of complaints for any product, especially products with so many tweaking options for people to screw up.

I was very happy with the board and would buy another one for myself. I think I am going to buy the Saphire board that I just posted about though.

Favorite motherboard vendor?

Manufacturer of most reliable motherboards?

Favorite motherboard vendor?

My $0.02