Most reliable motherboards

Kei

Kei

Soldato
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The most reliable board I’ve had so far is a gigabyte 790fx am3 board which has been running a phenom II x4 955 for nearly 10 years straight. 5 years overclocked as my main gaming machine and then 4.5 years as a 24/7 file server.

Also had a really old socket A nforce 2 gigabyte board that was still running after 8 years. The DFI lanparty nf4 ultra I had before the phenom system above also ran faultlessly for around 8 years before being retired. That was overclocked from day one to the day it was retired having run an Athlon64 3700 and then an opteron 175.
 
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Soldato
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26 May 2014
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I have a Gigabyte AM3 board (GA-MA790XT-UD4P) that still works perfectly too. It had a lot of abuse over the years as well, running overclocked chips most of the time. It was already six years old before I stuck a 1090T in it and cranked it to 4GHz/1.45V. Never missed a beat.

Unfortunately, they've been left in the dust UEFI-wise by Asus, just like ASRock and MSI. The last Gigabyte board I bought was an X99 Designare and I got rid of it quickly because it was so annoying and clunky to work with. All three of them need to sort themselves out on that front.
 
Associate
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I've had the worst luck with Asus and zero problems with gigabyte. But I always get tempted to buy Asus and give them another chance but it always seems to come back and bite me so I'm giving up on them. That and their shameful customer service
 
Soldato
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Have to agree with the UEFI of Gigabyte compared to Asus.

Asus does have the edge for sure on that front but TBH dont make up for there complete crap RMA.

So Gigabyte here I am :)
 
Soldato
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I've always had MSI boards and never had one die. Even did a desoldered trick on one if them to allow faster Athlon chip to run on it. Amazed I didn't kill it! I would say their BIOS isn't always that great and I think there are better options for overclockers but build wise I've found them to be really solid. Still got two P67a-GD65 running fine with 2500K chips in them.

I've considered ASUS but these RMA horror stories are putting me off. Asrock and Gigabyte sound promising.

Are any manufacturers better with the AMD boards?
 
Soldato
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Are any manufacturers better with the AMD boards?
Well, for B450 the fancier the look and marketing BS, the worser actual quality.

This article written by "The Stilt" is in Finnish, but VRM analysis table and graph showing VRM input power, efficiency and temperature should be easy to understand:
https://www.io-tech.fi/artikkelit/testissa-amd-b450-emolevyt-asrock-asus-gigabyte-msi/
(you can try Google translate if feeling lucky)

As summary for VRM quality this direct quote puts it best:
"Checking out VRMs produced surprises, or more properly shocks, for every motherboard. Symbolically view was like from Soviet supermarket, with empty shelfs and what little there's available having questionable edibility."
Common factor was absolutely lowest possible cost in design and component selection.
With Asus and Gigabyte going even further by cutting number of high side FETs to one.
And then sabotaging VRM cooling with those harmfull marketing BS covers.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Aug 2009
Posts
7,070
Well, for B450 the fancier the look and marketing BS, the worser actual quality.

This article written by "The Stilt" is in Finnish, but VRM analysis table and graph showing VRM input power, efficiency and temperature should be easy to understand:
https://www.io-tech.fi/artikkelit/testissa-amd-b450-emolevyt-asrock-asus-gigabyte-msi/
(you can try Google translate if feeling lucky)

As summary for VRM quality this direct quote puts it best:
"Checking out VRMs produced surprises, or more properly shocks, for every motherboard. Symbolically view was like from Soviet supermarket, with empty shelfs and what little there's available having questionable edibility."
Common factor was absolutely lowest possible cost in design and component selection.
With Asus and Gigabyte going even further by cutting number of high side FETs to one.
And then sabotaging VRM cooling with those harmfull marketing BS covers.

Thanks that's very interesting. Does confirm some of my experience with MSI. Not the best when it comes to software but their components are good quality even on the lower tier motherboards.

You'd think there would be space for a no frills (no rgb, plastic carp, expensive marketing) but high quality motherboard. I'd like to see what such a design and spec would look like and the price relative to the current offerings.
 
Soldato
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Earth, for now
Even tho I have an Asus motherboard on my main PC now in all probability I'll go back to Gigabyte for my next upgrade.

Gigabyte have always been ultra reliable for me and most importantly their UK based excellent customer service, having used them, has been great, along with a fast turn around.
 
Associate
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6 Sep 2018
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Scotland
Back in the early 2000’s the computer company I worked for always purchased ASRock boards if possible. Owner was a real penny pincher.

The worst components I have ever seen. Failure rate was through the roof and they were just, well, cheap and nasty.
Needless to say, I’ve never bought, used or recommend ASRock ever since.

Funny, now they’re seen as very good quality. Should have revisited them a while ago then. Extreme4 does look good and gets a good review

Abit, there’s a blast from the past :)
 
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Associate
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12 Mar 2017
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Ireland
Abit had a few issues with using dodgy components (faulty caps), their management embezzling funds and they also outsourced the design of their low end boards, they do have the nostalgia factor but the quality of their boards dropped off really hard in the early 00s.

I miss DFI more, too bad they dropped their consumer motherboard line.
 
Associate
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Alpha centauri
Abit had a few issues with using dodgy components (faulty caps), their management embezzling funds and they also outsourced the design of their low end boards, they do have the nostalgia factor but the quality of their boards dropped off really hard in the early 00s.

I miss DFI more, too bad they dropped their consumer motherboard line.

Yes they lost the plot towards the end.it was also the last time I used AMD CPU`s switched to Intel after.
 
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