Is there a generally preferred board/manufacturer for Sandybridge?

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[F2C]MaDMaXX

Limp Gawd
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Sep 1, 2005
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So at some point this year i'll likely be returning to Intel after a near 15 year stint on AMD.


My last board, was a generally accepted good solid board by HOCP, the Asus 785 EVO.


Is there a good, reasonably priced board for Intel chips, i don't want to overclock, though will likely enable the Turbo feature. I just want solid stability and something to run a RAID1 without paying through the nose.

I do not need sound, SLI ability, onboard video or anything else out of the ordinary.

Any recommendations appreciated.
 
+1 for NS1! I was an alpha tester and server admin back in the day :)

I don't know that there is a "preferred" brand for Sandy Bridge boards, but based on your requirements I don't think you can really go wrong with the $120-150 price range of boards from ASUS, ASRock, Gigabyte or MSI. I would look at the Z68 chipset over the H67/P67 chipsets though as they are a bit handicapped by their arbitrary limitations (no overclocking on H67, no onboard graphics on P67).
 
I would avoid ASUS. They seem to be on a downtick as far as quality and customer service are concerned and I'm glad I was able to return my board to NewEgg after five months of ownership, one recall related RMA, and another dying board that ASUS was unresponsive about when I inquired about cross-shipping with another RMA.

For what it is worth I'm happy with my Z68 UD5 and haven't had a single problem with it. I'm also happy with NewEgg, because they were nice enough to help me find a way to return the ASUS board without my committing to buy a replacement board through them (I did though).

If you read through the ASUS BIOS thread in this forum you'll probably get a good idea of how much trouble ASUS seems to be having with their boards now. I just noticed a post in there about the 1606 BIOS and problems with USB2.0 working after sleep. Seriously?
 
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Interesting, i thought Asus were the preferred board these days.

I like the sound of a 120-150 price range, i can't believe how much Intel boards are compared to AMD boards :( and yes the Z68 seems to be a better choice of chipset.

Glad you liked NS1, Blahman :)

Night, what is the Z68 UD5?
 
I don't know why someone even suggest avoiding Asus. It's always my first choice when choosing any kind of mobos.
 
JCNiest5 said:
I don't know why someone even suggest avoiding Asus. It's always my first choice when choosing any kind of mobos.
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They are my first choice as well, however I have never had to use their RMA service on 50+ motherboard purchases. Not to say that their boards do not die but they seemed to die just after the warranty expired at work. The biggest reason was chipset fan failure causing the chipset to overheat without me knowing well until the damage was done. Good thing these are mostly a thing of the past..
 
JCNiest5 said:
I don't know why someone even suggest avoiding Asus. It's always my first choice when choosing any kind of mobos.
Click to expand...

I stopped using ASUS a few years back after having a couple of their boards behave erratically on warm reboots. Every time I'd perform a restart from Windows, the ASUS boards would very briefly cut power to the entire system, placing unneccesary stress on the components, harddrives in particular. I've been using a mix of MSI and Gigabyte since then, but my preference is usually Gigabyte - no problems at all across five Gigabyte boards over the past two years - and I generally prefer Gigabyte's Phoenix bios over MSI's AMI bios.
 
I would personally go ASUS or ASRock; I have been reading about a bunch of issues with the Gigabyte boards.

I ran the Asus P67 Pro and B3 Pro without any issues. The Gigabyte Z68 boards are even worse than their P67 from what Ive been reading. I think if you go high end Gigabyte your better off, but way out of your price range you listed. JMO

NOTE: no matter who you go with there will be some kind of issues as SB is new architechure and is not a solid platform yet. I have heard more complaints towards gigabyte boards though.
 
INFRNL said:
I would personally go ASUS or ASRock; I have been reading about a bunch of issues with the Gigabyte boards.

I ran the Asus P67 Pro and B3 Pro without any issues. The Gigabyte Z68 boards are even worse than their P67 from what Ive been reading. I think if you go high end Gigabyte your better off, but way out of your price range you listed. JMO

NOTE: no matter who you go with there will be some kind of issues as SB is new architechure and is not a solid platform yet. I have heard more complaints towards gigabyte boards though.
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Have you seen the size of the "my ASUS P67 locks up" threads here? I've seen more complaints about Asus boards than I have Gigabyte and MSI combined.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
Have you seen the size of the "my ASUS P67 locks up" threads here? I've seen more complaints about Asus boards than I have Gigabyte and MSI combined.
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When you sell more boards than anyone else, you will have more complaints because you put out more products. Asus is still my preferred choice bar none.
 
JCNiest5 said:
When you sell more boards than anyone else, you will have more complaints because you put out more products. Asus is still my preferred choice bar none.
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Gigabyte is easily just as popular these days. IDK my last Asus board was a bit flaky, since then I've been using Gigabyte and MSI and have had good luck.
 
MSI sound like a good idea. We should maybe be talking Z68 boards now?

Maybe later in the year we'll have some more solid and established chipets integrated, better choice then.
 
I read somewhere ASUS made more motherboards than MSI and gigabyte combined and is the largest mobo manafacturer in the world. Not sure how true that is but I would think so.

And about MSI, they seem really solid however there have been issues of a boot loops, ram incompatibility and the primary bios corrupting itself after a failed overclock.
 
I think it really depends on your price range tbh. ASUS has amazing high-end products (gigabyte as well) but I think for mid range stuff MSI tends to have the best offerings. but again it's all really a matter of opinon/personal expierence Im sure somewhere out there there a guy running two PNY brand gtx 480's on a "1000 watt" diablotek PSU that will tell you those are the best mad PSU's/GPU's on the market.
 
I'd go with asus if they had decent looking boards, but I want matte black so I'm going with a z68 UD4 soon. Same with MSI, I hate the blue theme.
 
I'm usually partial to Asus as well. My ASRock has performed flawlessly over the passed 2 years and overclocks very well.

The [H] motherboard editor uses an Asus in his personal rig and an Asus rep checks in on these forums from time to time so that says enough to me.
 
ASUS is still good, but I went with MSI this time and been rocking with 4.8. G80 is a solid board, but it might be out of your price range.
 
MacLeod said:
I'm usually partial to Asus as well. My ASRock has performed flawlessly over the passed 2 years and overclocks very well.

The [H] motherboard editor uses an Asus in his personal rig and an Asus rep checks in on these forums from time to time so that says enough to me.
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I've bought ASUS three out of the last four times (and only one - an ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe, was a high-end board; the other two were budget boards, including the only nForce board I've ever owned and my current P5G41-LX2/GB). The only reason I'm *not* going ASUS this time is because I'm looking at lower-cost Z68 motherboards, and ASUS doesn't make any (under their own brand); the three boards in the finals are one from Gigabyte (Z68MA-D2H-B3) and two from ASRock, ASUS "budget" brand (Z68-Pro3-M and Z68-Pro3). All three have EFI BIOS support, and the ASRock Z68-Pro3 is ATX and has two PCI slots (one more than I use); however, neither ASRock board supports CrossFireX (the GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 supports either CrossFireX or SLI, but lacks PCI slots altogether).

The three are within $10USD of each other; however, the Gigabyte is the only one available locally brick-and-mortar (MicroCenter - either Fairfax, VA or Rockville, MD). Neither CrossFireX (ASRock's lack) or PCI slots (Gigabyte's lack) is a deal-breaker.
 
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