A-Bit mottherboard fanboys... where are you going next?

R

RADEoN

Supreme [H]ardness
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I'm totally clueless as to what to buy next time around. I feel like ASUS is my only real other option.
 
Honestly, without Abit around, I have no preference for motherboards, i'll just buy by the chipset.

Brands I will not consider are ECS, MSI.

Brands I will not buy unless it's a good deal are ASUS, GIGABYTE, BIOSTAR

The others I'm not sure..
 
I don't like the "idiot mode" on the GIGABYTE. Does anyone know where ABIT's engineers went?
 
I have had may issues with ASUS motherboards lately and I would prefer to look elsewhere.
BTW, ASUS website is so slow and it just drives me crazy.
Gibabyte is not bad but not great either.
My last MSI board was pretty good but it seems they have lost ground in the last 2 years.
I have never owned a DFI board and I might be tempted to give it a try...
 
Not much a fan of Abit. I'm an ASUS fan! :) I hate MSI boards since I had never ending issues with them. :mad: I like Gigabyte boards as well.
 
Abit has made some stellar motherboards over the years and like all motherboard companies ther have been some stinkers too...abit engineers have gone to biostar and foxconn and there boards are starting to show there influence....biostar has been good for a while now and foxconns boards are looking great too...
asus has always been a dependable product along with gigabyte and dfi....
with abit gone ill look at asus,gigabyte,foxconn,biostar as my first choise and the rest as reviews warrant..I will miss abit but times change and somebody always seems to pick up the slack.....the more competition the better it is for us consumers......
 
I switched from Asus to Biostar about a year ago for customer computers and couldn't be happier. I really like the fan control they give you on their T-series boards. I had used Abit before I used Asus, and they were ok generally. With Abit, someone got hit by the bad capacitor problem, and those stupid little chipset fans kept dying. So I went to Asus. I've had issues with those too. One A8N-E wouldn't stabilize no matter what I did (probably the Nvidia chipset, though cant prove it). It would work for a month or two then cause problems. An M2N-E I used had inadequate cooling of the chipset and was unstable until I fixed it. Plus the "Q-fan controller" I found to be inadequate; more of an all or nothing approach. I also used an M2N that didn't have enough voltage selection for the memory I was using.

So far the Biostar T-series boards have done everything right. I can't say enough good about their fan control. I know they use OST capacitors, but they have yet to cause a problem. Their standard non-T-series boards are a bit lacking though.
 
I have only owned a couple of abit boards and before that I used ASUS a lot. I was most impressed with the IP35 Pro's fan controls but overall it still is a little flaky (can only get to BIOS with PS/2 keyboard). The thing that killed my ASUS interest was the screw ups implementing Phenom support on the older AM2 boards and their prices. DFI is the brand for me for the time being. Good prices, amazing quality. Generally everything just works, but not a lot of bells and whistles. On their higher level boards the BIOS options can get nutty but the DK series is pretty straight forward.
 
DFI mainly, with ASUS or Gigabyte being the only other boards I would consider but not prefer. Biostar in a pinch since their one P45 board was supposed to be pretty good.
 
ASUS, Gigabyte, and Biostar are my shortlist. I've had great experiences with every ASUS board I've owned (which is quite a few), Gigabyte's recent boards have been excellent, and I've been hearing that Biostar's P45 boards are amazing overclockers.
 
Possibly Biostar or J&W if either sort out UK distribution & support.
Fallback is most likely Gigabyte.
 
I have owned pretty much all of the motherboard brands except Biostar, Jetway and a few other crappy companies out there. I remember my BH6 from way back when and it ran flawless. The last Abit board I owned was the IS7-G with the 865PE chip set and it ran flawless. It is a shame that Abit is no more, but what can you do? Blame the CEO or whoever is responsible for what happened.

Boards I will consider now, DFI, Asus, and Intel. The last Gigabyte board I had was nothing but problems, so I run with what I know will have no problems. Boards I will not even bother to look at are ECS, MSI, and other notable crappy boards. The only way I would get an ECS board is if it came as a combo deal with the CPU. I sold the last ECS board that I got in a combo.
 
Over the years I have used at least one board for almost every manufacturer. ECS was back in the K7S5A days and I have a K7S5A with a Tbird 1.33 that is still running today. It's been through 1 power supply and 1 hard drive since it was built. It's been overclocked since the first month I had it and just will not die.

For the longest time I used Asus boards when building a PC for a friend of family member. I felt the price premium of Asus was worth it for the piece of mind. Even ran an Asus NF2 board as my gaming rig for quite some time. But then all of a sudden the Asus boards I was getting were having compatibility problems with the Antec PSU's I used and I haven't touched Asus since.

By the time I had a problem with Asus I was already running Gigabyte boards in my own systems for some time and haven't looked back. For my needs I have had no trouble finding a Reliable Gigabyte board each time I do a new build.

I would buy a board from another manufacture but I am done paying the Asus premium for the foreseeable future. I also don't pay crazy prices to have the latest high end chipset boards with as many integrated features the manufacture can cram on to a ATX board. I tend to stick with the mid level chipsets and just the features I really need. I also no longer overclock, my computer at stock speeds is still more power then I need at this point in time. Overclocking for me in the past was just a way to get the performance I desired with out having to pay for it. Even back then I never understood spending a fortune on a motherboard, ram, and cooling to try and get some crazy overclock. For me it's always been about the bang for the buck.

So with all that in mind what suites my needs may not suite yours.
 
Ive always associated gigabyte with lots of features, good reliability, and bad overclocking every since I played with their 939 boards, I guess its time I gave them another shot. Biostar is looking pretty good now days too. Asus is always a nice fall back if the prices are good. Overall though, I dont look at motherboards as a brand thing, I take it on a board by board basis. I never buy a motherboard without reading several reviews about that exact board.

MSI is on my shit list though. My NF3 939 board died and the AM2 board I bought from them had gimpy power circuitry that went up in flames.
 
I've had good Tyan boards, and bad Tyan boards.

I had an Epox board that had leaking capacitors after a while.

I had an Abit that was DOA.

I had an Asus that was the best ever (P4C800-E)

I've seen MSI boards that were just plain shit.

I have an Asus now that's fantastic.

Assuming it's a good board maker, I would just worry about the chipset. All the boards that have been really good to me have been for great, stable, intel chipsets. The intel 440, 875, P45, shit like that. The Epox was for an AMD thunderbird... and it was really really great- until the fucking capacitors exploded lol....

Hardware problems like leaky capacitors shouldn't be a problem nowadays with all the fancy solid capacitors and stuff... so just go with a good chipset, a quality board maker like Asus, or something, and be happy.
 
A former Abit buyer, I just bought an EVGA and I love it so far. Asus was my most recent favorite, but each Asus board I have had over the last few years has had at least one little bothersome ongoing glitch. Gigabyte boards have lots of nice features, but the only board I ever had completely die on me (after warranty expired) was a Gigabyte. Biostar seems to make great boards and they seem to be improving. I also dislike ECS. Never owned an MSI but they worry me.
 
I'm looking to replace my IP35-E and I am having a hard time deciding where to turn.
 
I use foxconn exclusively now. Great price for boards that are good overclockers
 
I don't know but probably Asus for me, as I have had good experiences with their boards as well. I may get a P5Q-Pro to play around with next month, not that I really need to but its cheap and its pretty good from what I have been reading.
 
I think i will move to the DFI Dark series. Cheap performance , high quality
 
diamond flower international or biostar. except for the pos msi in my terciary machine, i have only owned dfi or biostar for several years. not out of brand loyalty, just that the other options suck. maybe foxconn tech group or evga if they come up with something interesting.
 
Gigabyte fan here. I'll definitely choose Gigabyte, been a loyal customer for years now. I'm very satisfied with my two Gigabyte motherboards at the moment, my Intel P45 GA-EP45-DQ6 which is the top of the line of the P45 Gigabyte series and my AMD GA-M750SLI-DS4 works pretty well as well.

I've had an ASUS motherboard and I thought it was horrible, I tend to stay away from them, no offense.

Never tried MSI, Biostar or the other ones yet.
 
Gigabyte has been pretty good to me lately. I've used Asus Intel boards without issue (AMD boards are another story).
 
caw2007 said:
I was most impressed with the IP35 Pro's fan controls but overall it still is a little flaky (can only get to BIOS with PS/2 keyboard).
Click to expand...
There's a BIOS setting to enable USB keyboard support. So you only need a ps/2 keyboard once, to enable that setting. Still kind of annoying that usb keyboards don't work in the bios by default.
 
My current setup is using Abit NF7-S & AMD 2600+, which is anchient. For a new system im currently leaning towards Gigabyte EP45 series, ones that have proper cooling (heatpipe).
 
rls669 said:
There's a BIOS setting to enable USB keyboard support. So you only need a ps/2 keyboard once, to enable that setting. Still kind of annoying that usb keyboards don't work in the bios by default.
Click to expand...

They do on some boards, but yes, it pisses me off when I need to use a PS/2 keyboard at all.
 
I have had a number of Abit boards, but the last ones seem to have components flake out on them, like the LAN.
I will never buy ECS again.
I have never owned an Asus. I hear a number of bad things about Asus, but I would like to buy their G45 and find out for myself.
I don't like Gigabyte's Control F1 nonsense.
I just don't know about Foxconn or MSI.
I like DFI features and apparent quality, but they seem to sell for a premium.
My last two boards are Biostar and I am very satisfied. Setup was easy and straight forward, everything works. Biostar answered my one phone call very quickly. It is hard to go to anything else when these have worked so well. I especially like the on board power and reset buttons. I like the prices.
I have read on several forums where at least some of Abit's people went to Biostar or DFI.
 
I went from Soyo to Abit to Intel.

I hope Intel doesn't shrivel up and die.... ;)
 
Down8 said:
I went from Soyo to Abit to Intel.

I hope Intel doesn't shrivel up and die.... ;)
Click to expand...

I doubt Intel will go anywhere, lol.

I went back and forth from Abit and Asus and not I have an Intel board, lol. Abit has always been good to me. That was over the course of 9 years...
 
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