A little sad to see Gigabyte's quality slip. As someone who doesn't like Asus (they bow down to MS's whims, the "ROG" stuff is so cringey, their good stuff is overpriced, and their cheap stuff is terrible), at least I've still got MSI and ASRock to come to - those companies haven't let me down so far.

Not surprising to me. Never a hiccup from my Asus motherboard and Gpu. The only problems I have with Asus are self inflicted. 😕

I still cant believe gigabyte is second they are trash and buggy developers when it comes to gpu,s and motherbords lol, firmware a,b ,c ,d e, f, ,g etc etc etc just trash lol. MSI all the way.

I stopped buying ASUS stuff two or so generations ago, when I had both a dead motherboards and a dead GPU within a few months, and many people reported an uptick in DOA hardware as well, which seemed like they let quality slip quite a bit. Using MSI now and happy with it.

schmidtbag:

A little sad to see Gigabyte's quality slip. As someone who doesn't like Asus (they bow down to MS's whims, the "ROG" stuff is so cringey, their good stuff is overpriced, and their cheap stuff is terrible), at least I've still got MSI and ASRock to come to - those companies haven't let me down so far.

You do know that ASRock was a sub of Asus? 😀 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASRock#History Honestly, I've had both a MSI board and graphic cards, an ASRock board, Gigabyte graphics cards, and Asus mainboards and graphics cards. Had virtually no troubles with any of those. But I'm not surprised about Asus leading, it's a lot of marketing money they spend. And yes, their stuff isn't exactly on the cheap side either.

fantaskarsef:

You do know that ASRock was a sub of Asus? 😀 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASRock#History

I am aware (hence the "AS" part of the name) but even as that article pointed out, it is a spin-off. To my knowledge, Asus has no control over the company, in the same way that AMD has no control over Global Foundries. In fact to my understanding, ASRock's current parent company (Pegatron) doesn't own Asus. I guess what I'm getting at is it isn't unreasonable for someone to like one company more than the other.

Honestly, I've had both a MSI board and graphic cards, an ASRock board, Gigabyte graphics cards, and Asus mainboards and graphics cards. Had virtually no troubles with any of those. But I'm not surprised about Asus leading, it's a lot of marketing money they spend. And yes, their stuff isn't exactly on the cheap side either.

Asus will give you a good experience if: * You don't mind spending the extra money for their high-end parts * The "ROG" stuff doesn't bother you * You plan on only using the latest version of Windows, and anything associated with it (like SecureBoot, EFI limitations, motherboard utilities, etc.) Being a Linux user, a tinkerer, and someone who prefers value over prestige, Asus has given me more problems than any other company. I can also see why Asus is in the lead, I personally just don't like them.

nevcairiel:

I stopped buying ASUS stuff two or so generations ago, when I had both a dead motherboards and a dead GPU within a few months, and many people reported an uptick in DOA hardware as well, which seemed like they let quality slip quite a bit. Using MSI now and happy with it.

same same, not much luck with asus - giga has been good for me, shame their software is crap

so happens both those company's make great boards. thank god both have pretty kickass corporate overclockers in the old days you want the best overclocking board no matter the price just go find where the man.. the legend shamino was working asus has the cash to do what they want so we crazy overclocking hardware then we get the run down on the features sub zero oc tutorials debugging and mods come at a fast rate now not for nothing but giga tries to do the same thing what I always like was they would take a mid range board and set freaking records and stuff I used to take a giga mid range boards to task pretty good board under extreme use and cheap as hell. I never really like asus rma service giga was ok the one time I used it for the p67 launch bs but they always have the early custom cards and think they are kings to nv and amd

Still to this day using the z68 asus maximus iv extreme-z had it about 6 years, had no issues with it so far. Here's to another 6 years with the board

schmidtbag:

I am aware (hence the "AS" part of the name) but even as that article pointed out, it is a spin-off. To my knowledge, Asus has no control over the company, in the same way that AMD has no control over Global Foundries. In fact to my understanding, ASRock's current parent company (Pegatron) doesn't own Asus. I guess what I'm getting at is it isn't unreasonable for someone to like one company more than the other. Asus will give you a good experience if: * You don't mind spending the extra money for their high-end parts * The "ROG" stuff doesn't bother you * You plan on only using the latest version of Windows, and anything associated with it (like SecureBoot, EFI limitations, motherboard utilities, etc.) Being a Linux user, a tinkerer, and someone who prefers value over prestige, Asus has given me more problems than any other company. I can also see why Asus is in the lead, I personally just don't like them.

Yes that I can perfectly understand. Linux is completely different territory in the first place, and I can easily believe that some things are just working under windows these days. Yes, the market leaders usually don't have only fans, and I too can understand why people arent' going for Asus. My last decision to go with the Asus board was the availability of a waterblock at that time actually, and I didn't want to wait longer for a Gigabyte or MSI mainboard block to arrive when building my first custom loop. But I have to say, if my HTPC gives in, I'm actually considering going for a board not from Asus but rather MSI / Gigabyte this time around, because there I don't need the "high end" extra tag (and pricing 😀 )

I've bought gigabyte for a while now but right now....a month after skylake x platform came out, there is about 15 different asus boards at all price points and gigabyte only has one board available for it...some ud4 low-mid tier garbage.

Never bought Asus i bought MSI, Gigabyte, even PC Chips Asrock now is pro, after quit from Asus my favorite stills MSI, B350 Tomahawk on the way! grettings

fantaskarsef:

Yes that I can perfectly understand. Linux is completely different territory in the first place, and I can easily believe that some things are just working under windows these days. Yes, the market leaders usually don't have only fans, and I too can understand why people arent' going for Asus.

I would like to make two clarifications: I don't care so much that Asus doesn't support Linux - pretty much no motherboard manufacturer does (not consistently for PCs anyway). In most cases, Linux works fine regardless of whether the company supports it. For most companies like Gigabyte, they choose to be negligent of Linux, because the Linux marketshare isn't big enough for them to worry about. Fine, fair enough. But what I dislike about Asus is how they intentionally break compatibility, and do what MS says. The funny thing is Asus (unlike most brands) did at one point release some laptops that came with Linux (some of the first EEE PCs) but those were just plain awful. I also am not the type of person who hates on a company because they're #1 or widely successful. What I usually hate is why a becomes successful. I like plenty of companies that are [of] the most successful of their category. That doesn't mean I always get their products, but rather I have no major issues with buying, using, or recommending them. For example, Coca Cola, Toyota, Valve, AT&T, and so on. I dislike companies that got to #1 because they did something shady or awful to get to where they are, or, when they do a real crappy job maintaining their position because nobody will challenge them. So, companies like Walmart, Intel, Microsoft, Monsanto, Oracle, and Dell. In the case of Asus, it's a bit different because what I dislike about them has very little to do with their success (at least on the surface).

Asus boards especially ROG boards overclock better than there Rivals generally. I wont buy anything else as i like high overclocks that are *stable* and Asus is the best in my experience to go with if you want to do that.

Well as an Abit man I needed to pick a new one after it folded I still have SKT939 and and SKT478 boards in my closet, My first ASUS board was the P67 Sabertooth. Sold! 5 year warranty super solid board still running a 2600K at 4.6 with my friend today. My current Z97 Sabertooth MK1 again just a solid board.

Veteran:

Asus boards especially ROG boards overclock better than there Rivals generally. I wont buy anything else as i like high overclocks that are *stable* and Asus is the best in my experience to go with if you want to do that.

I really don't feel Asus is a whole lot better (or worse) than any of their competitors for overclocking. For just looking at the motherboard's responsibilities, it really just comes down to the BIOS options, capacitors, VRM phases, and the on-board cooling. Nowadays, most boards offer the same OC features (after all, OCing is child's play these days), most offer solid capacitors, and most offer sufficient heatsinks. That just leaves the VRMs - the one thing that board manufacturers don't seem to advertise. But, there are charts out there of people who manage to collect this information, so you know objectively what is the best to get. You'll find most boards of similar performance/price tiers offer the same total amount of phases, albeit, some have different priorities. So at that point you can just pick the board with the features you care about (such as number of USB ports or the arrangement of expansion slots) or the best price (which in most cases isn't Asus). To put it in another perspective, plenty of world records for highest overclock were not on Asus boards. Again, I'm not saying Asus is a worse overclocker (I haven't checked but I'm sure there are plenty of world records that were beaten by Asus) but I'm not sure I agree they're generally better. I would say Asus merely sets the bar: if a mobo can outperform an Asus ROG, it is a very good board. If it fails to do so, it is sub-par. For me personally, I'd rather spend less money on an Asus ROG for a competing board with the same VRM phases, and spend the extra money on a higher-quality PSU. People often forget PSUs play a big role in OC stability.

Well i can only go on my experience and the Gigabyte boards ive had in the past dont oc as well as the ROG Extreme boards. There normally around 2-300mhz off with similar settings and the same cooling. Ill always go for ROG extreme because ive had good experiences with all ASUS boards, however there RMA process is definitely not the best. EVGA and Gigabyte are so much better for RMA.