Which Motherboard Brand is best for desktop??

[StephenHawking9]

Hi
I have been thinking about the motherboard's are the Intel Board's the best or ASUS?? Or Biostar??
I am a bit confused. Can anyone help me to find out the right one?

http://www.fromdev.com/

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

I think mobo selection is as much emotion as practical.

Ive used Asus board for the last 15 yrs.

these kind of questions always spark debate, a bit like asking which religion is best.

So, for me Asus is best bang for buck, and quality. The often introduce a great range of new boards and features to fit your budget.

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[goombawaho]

Personally - had very good results with Asus, Gigabyte, MSI. Probably couldn't go wrong with an Intel either, but can't vouch for them personally.

I've got an old Asus from 2002 and it's still humming along - every day.

Would avoid things like Chaintech, ECS, Biostar.

The problem is that even good companies put out some bad products. Pick a car company and tell me that their entire product line is stellar. Not likely.

 

[Freestone]

Another vote for Asus and Gigabyte, in that order.

 

[kjv1611]

I'd say tops in this order:
1. Asus
2. MSI
3. Gigabyte

I've had more issues from Gigabyte (historically) than MSI. However, their boards of the past couple of years have gotten really good reviews. So, if I had used them more recently, I might put them above MSI. I don't think anybody could put much (taking in all history) could put anybody above Asus.

But really, it'd be best to look at individual reviews, motherboard by motherboard. For instance, if you find a board that has been around for at least 3 to 6 months, yet no reviews are out there, it's probably not worth messing with (my opinion) - the good ones will be reviewed by somebody at some point in time.

Also, I have had no bad experience with a generic Intel board, as far as stability. I'm not as crazy on functionality as I am the prior mentioned 3. For instance, I've got one Intel board right now that I got b/c it specifically fit the needs of a system that wouldn't be used very often - media center toy, really. Every time I turn the thing on, it beeps at me only b/c that's the only setting - always beep - no options to turn it off, and it's an onboard speaker, so I can't just disconnect it. Also, the thing always checks for a monitor, telling me "no monitor found" when I've got a tv hooked up via hdmi. So it just doesn't see anything on the VGA or DVI ports, and is telling me (though if no monitor, I couldnt' read it anyway) that no monitor is attached. To me, that's really annoying. The board runs stable, no issues, but still just annoying.

I've had problems personally, and fixing for other folks, with ECS and Biostar. Trying to remember whether I've ever used Chaintec, but from what I've read, they seem to be in the same boat with those.

There are other options out there as well. You could, for instance, just do a search on NewEgg based on features you want, and sort by reviews, and then see if there is one or two that spark your interest. Then do some online searching for the particular model(s) of your liking, and go from there.

Right now, based on all I've seen building and fixing, if I had no specific lead on a specific motherboard, I would be looking first for Asus, and then everything else. So when I do my search online for boards, I'd first look for features. If I find 2 or 3 boards that are about the same, I'd then look at brand and price (and specific board reviews of course), and balance it all out. Something like: Yep, I like this one being an Asus, but the MSI is only missing one feature (that I wouldn't use), and costs $100 less - so I might go MSI.

Anyway, long story short - don't just stick with one brand. I have had bad events with Asus boards as well, just not as frequent as others. MSI, that I can remember, I've had 0 issues with, but they are generally not as feature-rich, and the most recent reviews I've seen, they don't perform quite as well. Then again, the performance gaps on motherboards are usually so small that it isn't worth discussing.... unless you get into overclocking.

happy reading

"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57

 

[rclarke250]

I agree with the above statements, also, if you are looking for a good deal, check out the open boxes at Newegg.com, The last 3 boards, 2 Asrock, and an Msi board were all open boxes, got them, and everything inside was still sealed up, including the motherboard, 30 day return policy, and the full manufacturer warranty has worked out very well.

 

[gorge544]

Generally just go with more known brands of motherboards. Most of them hold up well but I have not seen the Intel brand do well in the performance category. I have used EVGA and ASUS with no problems. It is when you get to the lesser known brands that they generally don't last.

Compare features, performance, and price.

 

[kjv1611]

+1 for EVGA. I forgot about them. They are newer than the other 3, and I've usually primarily thought of them for video cards.

"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57

 

[chrismartin4u]

Definitively Intel is the best from any other mother Board. Intel is the world famous company in this field.

 

[goombawaho]

Definitively Intel is the best....

Do you work for Intel?? Meh, strictly an opinion and not based on hard core facts. I think we have more votes for Asus, Gigabyte and MSI though.

 

[rclarke250]

Intel is not even close as the best motherboards in their class. at least not from an enthusiast view point. Intel is okay if you want a standard desktop, with limited extras, but still want to pay the top dollar. No thanks, I'll take the best Asus or Gigabyte or MSI has to offer, any day of the week and twice on Sundays to run circles around any offering from Intel. Intel isn't even the top in Server motherboards, and they have a terrible service record, when you point out that a board of theirs has an issue that is causing failures. I know of two different system boards that IBM was using that would have a failure that caused a CPU failure also, and it was their board taking out not only the cpu, but the socket. Approached Intel with the evidence, and they said oh, well, it's not us. So IBM had to replace all of the system boards with boards, they had to rework a fix onto themselves. I will never purchase an intel motherboard. period.

 

[goombawaho]

I just put one in service (Intel desktop board) - seems okay. Too bad there's not a J. D. Power type of survey to find out which motherboards have how many and what type of failures after 1 year, 2 years, etc....... A super product out of the box may sour you if it has issues later. I know my Asus board is still running since 2002 (A7V266-E). That does NOT mean a current ASUS board is bullet proof though. They're just like cars.

It's hard to make an educated choice. You just have to listen to talking heads on some forum.

 

[cdogg]

Intel boards have been traditionally behind the curve when it comes to having the latest bells and whistles. However, at the same time, they make some of the most reliable boards on the market. Also in recent years, they've attempted to enter the enthusiast market with boards like the Z68 that came out recently. You can read a review here.

I actually work with an ex-Intel employee who worked at one of their testing facilities out in Oregon. He said you wouldn't believe the rigorous testing methods they used on their hardware.

-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

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