Well, for B450 the fancier the look and marketing BS, the worser actual quality.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.
My Abit AX78 still boots up happily enough.
Well when it ventures out of the loft anyway.
I know, I keep putting it off - I'll have to do it when my hoarding instincts are at their weakest.Yes it is time I had a good clear-out in the loft.
Some actual returns data from hardware.fr: https://www.hardware.fr/articles/954-2/cartes-meres.html
So there's not much of a difference between brands, buy based on feature set/price, etc.
- ASRock 1,45% (contre 1,91%)
- ASUS 1,90% (contre 1,96%)
- Gigabyte 1,92% (contre 1,90%)
- MSI 2,36% (contre 2,20%)
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.