IT Professionals

CPUs And Motherboards

Posted by on Apr 18, 2008 | 7 Comments

Well I definitely ended up with some strong, solid arguments both for sticking with AMD and switching over to Intel. And this article certainly gave me a ton to think about as well. So now that we have all been able to share our thoughts on CPUs, let’s move onto motherboards, one area where my opinion will likely remain unchanged.

Other components aside, I am a unshakable ASUS (ASUSTeK) fan. I have owned countless boards over the years and to date, have never had one single issue with anything bearing the ASUS logo. If ASUS was not an option, I suppose my second choice would be Gigabit. And third, be it a distant third, would be Micro-star (MSI).

Okay, so why are my selections setup as this? Simple, ASUS boards have never provided me anything other than idiot proof installations and performance. See, I am downright dangerous when installing my own motherboards. Delicate was never really something that came easily to me and ASUS boards have always been able to take the pounding I give them when installing a CPU (no shims, please), ramming in the RAM or slapping in a new video card, I simply prefer ASUS boards. I have found that they are well soldered, everything is attached tightly and the board’s appearance is of something well built.

Have a board manufacturer you believe to leave ASUS in the dust? Great, hit the comments and tell me about it!

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/theoracle/ the oracle

    I certainly agree with choices 1 and 2, but I’ve had nothing but problems with MSI products, from back in the days of 486′s up to today, so I avoid them like the plague. As for video cards, I like EVGA or BFG for the warranty performance, I have also done well with XFX.

    BTW, my next purchase will be the Spider platform, as I definitely see a benefit to the ‘whole is greater than the sum of the parts’ idea.

  • http://www.goretsky.com/ Aryeh Goretsky

    Hello,

    The first consideration for me when building a system is not performance or features, but reliability. While I have had good experiences with motherboards from ASUS, SuperMicro and Tyan, I have used Intel brand motherboards for the last few years for my personal systems. There is nothing particularly special about any of the boards I have selected from them over the years. In fact, they look rather plain compared to most motherboard manufacturer’s offerings who like to differentiate their offerings via the coloring of their plastics, but they have all just seemed to work well without any compatibility issues, and Intel is excellent about releasing updated firmware and device drivers for their motherboards.

    As it turns out, my next personal system which I am assembling is not going to have an Intel motheboard, but rather one from SuperMicro. The reason for this is quite simple: I was looking for a specific feature set and implementation, and SuperMicro had a motherboard which met those considerations. Right now, I’m still waiting on some RAM, but I am expecting to spend a a fairly uneventful evening building the system.

    Regards,

    Aryeh Goretsky

  • Ken

    Well……I agree ASUS is good mobo vendor…..but they also make something bad. We used a good old P4T-E mobo long time ago. It’s obsolete technology running RAMBUS……if anyone still remember.
    One day, the boards started to die without any symptom. You might think it’s nothing…….consider 15+ mobo died out of ~20 P4T-E we had. We have older mobo, CUSL2, and they are still running strong except this P4T-E one which keeps haunting us.
    Also, I would not try to use cheap, entry level mobo from ASUS……from my experience……

  • Frank Kivler

    Asus motherboards, till lately, were always my choice also. But, i bought a new M3A last month. The sound just would not work. RMA’ed it and received a new one. Sound would now work but was scratchey and noisey to the point where it was replaced with a cheap sound card which was a vast improvement. Secound problem, the onboard network card started to hand the system. Asus tech says to upgrade bios and network to lastest releases. Did that, nothing helped. Finally replaced onboard network with a Dlink NIC and the motherboard now works great. Anybody can build a clunker but ASUS tech support was horrible. I have bought about 50-60 of there M/Bs but won’t buy any more after the bad treatment. Check out the ASUS forums on this.

  • Jason

    If you are thinking of switching to Intel, do yourself a favor and also use an Intel motherboard. Stay with Intel’s retail line and you will find a super-stable platform with a 3 year warranty. In my opinion, AMD’s biggest problem is that they don’t manufacture their own motherboards. This thus leaves AMD customers in the hands of 3rd party’s and their “idea” of innovation. Most stability problems are derived from these variations in product and quality.

  • AdrielK

    Late February, 2008 I bought a $200 cheapie Sears/Mirus FreeSpire Desktop which I received before catching up with Alan Stafford’s article in PCWorld bad mouthing Linux “cheapie” machines as “no bargain”. Beyond his bias toward MS Windows XP/Vista, his “Linux too complicated, etc for the average User who shops at Sears/Walmart, etc., he commented about the less than stellar hardware of the Mirus Box.

    I had to rebut his viewpoint and commented that one measure of quality in my purchase is the use of a ASUS motherBoard P5GC-MX/1333. My argument, that from a quick perusal of its UserGuide, I received a bargain.

    Would you comment on the ASUS motherboard argument I offered as valid, or was I clutching defensively, at straws? For now, as a senior citizen, I’m doing all the things I did with my XP, namely, ThunderBird eMail, FireFox Internet, WordProcessing and playing card games, chess, etc.

  • Frank Schnyder

    I recently had an HP motherboard where a heat sink fell off. This little hoop where an arm across it just popped off. I was livid! it was only 2 1/2 years old. I will NEVER buy an HP computer again no matter how good the deal is.