Asus and Gigabyte

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mrtheshaggy

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 28, 2003
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There are the two major board makers, Asus and Gigabyte. You had some board makers come and go, like Abit. You had some sporadically putting out diamonds, like EVGA. But in the end, Gigabyte and Asus have been the major players.

There are three categories to motherboards: Quality, Performance, and Price. You can generally pick two of those categories to work with. This is where the major differences I have noticed between Gigabyte and Asus exist.

Gigabyte boards are cheap and powerful. Yet their quality is shit. Between shotty bios with missing options, high tolerances in achievable overclocking results, and questionable durability. I've never had a Gigabyte board that has made it through its lifetime without multiple quirks.

Asus boards you typically have to spend an extra $30 to $40 for. They have terrific performance and great quality. I've had a lot of Asus boards that have worked without issue. Yet when your looking for a budget build, you can always save some bucks switching to another brand.

Anyway, at this point in my life, budget isn't so much an issue. I am fucking tired of Gigabytes issues.

Was wondering what others experiences have been who have owned many different Asus and Gigabyte boards over the years.
 
i've owned 3 asus boards in over the years.
An A8V deluxe, P5Q pro, and p8p67 pro. The first 2 lasted as long as I used them (a good few years) infact the p5q pro is still going in my parents pc.
The p8p67 pro died recently after a couple of years use, infact probably less as I had it swapped for a b3 version when that all kicked off. I RMA'd with retailer and Asus service is horrible. It took a month to process, which in this day is a joke. So it does feel(from my point of view) that Asus are not as great as people say anymore.
 
erratik said:
i've owned 3 asus boards in over the years.
An A8V deluxe, P5Q pro, and p8p67 pro. The first 2 lasted as long as I used them (a good few years) infact the p5q pro is still going in my parents pc.
The p8p67 pro died recently after a couple of years use, infact probably less as I had it swapped for a b3 version when that all kicked off. I RMA'd with retailer and Asus service is horrible. It took a month to process, which in this day is a joke. So it does feel(from my point of view) that Asus are not as great as people say anymore.
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That would mean they all suck now imo.
 
I've owned multiple Gigabyte boards in the past that span from Super Socket 7 all the way up to AM2+. Never had any problems or quirks with them, even when I got into OC'ing with my 3000+ Venice (fully stable with a 600 MHz overclock with no Vcore bump) and Opteron 170 Denmark on a GA-K8NXP-SLI.

My Z77 ST is the first Asus board I've ever owned. I've had it since last April when IB first shipped and it's been flawless, as well.

My second Asus MoBo, a Z77 Gene, is shipping to me right now. I really hope it's a stable and long-lasting piece, because the only negative I've heard is if one must deal with Asus support/RMA services.

I just finished a build with a Gigabyte Z77 Sniper M3 and an i5-3570Kfor my parents, I put it through it's paces, and it came out with flying colors.

Even though Asus has been a fairly new brand to me, I don't have any reservations recommending either brand to anyone.
 
I've owned one of each.

Both have never caused me any problems.

Had the ASUS for 9 years now (GA-K8N-SLI), and my Gigabyte for 3 years (X58-UD3R)
 
I've had boards from most of the manufacturers, I find that Asus is pretty stable and safe bet, Gigabyte usually implements cool features, and is also fairly stable, but I find they push the envelope more, EG: this x79 GB board, has a feature to "skip" post after 10 successful POST / Power UP cycles, which decreases boot dime by a decent amount.
 
I've had blown capacitors on an older Gigabyte board (AMD). But I recently built a computer for a friend off the sniper series and it seemed pretty stable. As for myself I've always stuck to Asus for some reason or another. I don't have a problem with recommending either though. The one minor quirk I have about Gigabyte boards is they tend to have a lot of legacy ports and slot on their boards taking up unwanted space but everything else seems to be top notch as far as I can tell.
 
I have been a die hard Asus fan for years.
I have recently built 5 machines with Gigabyte boards. 2-fm1 boards, 2 AM3 boards and 1 1155 board. They have all been flawless. The last machine used the GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD4H board and I was extremely impressed with it.
I have also build 3 machines with Asus boards 2 FM1's and 2 AM3's. They have been solid as well.
I am still a Asus fan but Gigabyte is right their with them on many levels. The high end boards from Asus, like the formula series and the sabertooth series are crazy good but REALLY expensive. Lately I have been picking between the two based on reviews concerning quality and stability, features and price in that order. I don't think you can go wrong with either one. It is always a crap shoot with electronics but I don't think you can throw stones at either one of these two.
 
Gigabyte is pretty much the only game in town if you want to build a Hackintosh and have everything working.

My last Asus died but that was years ago. I've got a Gigabyte board coming in in a few days. I'm a bit bummed that manufacturers have dropped built in FireWire yet boards seem more expensive nowadays and often seem artificially crippled with only crossfirex and second GPU slot at x4 on budget boards.
 
kasakka said:
Gigabyte is pretty much the only game in town if you want to build a Hackintosh and have everything working.
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that's not really true. Yes, they have MSR multiplier unlocked but that can be fixed on other boards with a very simple BIOS patch. Writing this on an asrock h77m itx board that i got set up with mountain lion in less than an hour. everything 100% functional.

anyway, i've owned and run 4 Gigabyte boards in almost every gen since LGA775, very happy with all of them.
ep45-ud3l - has been running solid almost 24/7 since i got it
p55m-ud4 - rock solid, did a bit of overclocking but not much
h67n - minor issue with NIC slow to initialize sometimes when booting otherwise rock solid
h61n - boot loop issue when first setting up. possibly bad ground in my case. bought this used for 40$ just for gaming and htpc so i didn't mind. runs stable ever since.

trying out this asrock H77 now, happy with it so far but i'll definitely see what Gigabyte has to offer once Haswell comes out.
 
XcPNehVYlE4A3C said:
that's not really true. Yes, they have MSR multiplier unlocked but that can be fixed on other boards with a very simple BIOS patch. Writing this on an asrock h77m itx board that i got set up with mountain lion in less than an hour. everything 100% functional.
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The difference comes in community support. I currently have an Abit IP35 where everything works but sleep and I couldn't get much help at all trying to get it to work. There are so many people using Gigabyte boards for Hackintosh that it's always easy to find a solution for nearly any situation that might arise as OSX gets updated.
 
MSI's haswell board is looking mighty intriguing as well. I haven't messed with an MSI board since socket 775 but I really like the layout thus far in their sneak previews. If Gigabyte doesn't want to say goodbye to the PCI slots I might have to pass on them. So far Asus is just teasing us with pictures of M&Ms... I wish Haswell's release was tomorrow...
 
I'm as ASUS fan now for over a decade. My last computer mobo was a SOYO...one that I am not happy with, and I'm going back to ASUS now and what is not ASUS or Intel will be CORSAIR. I think ASUS puts out great boards and perhaps their Customer Service could be better but in this day and age (read Depression) they too have had to put some cuts in their budget. I am in now way apologizing for their service but I don't think you can buy a better PC Board. That brings m to my iNTEL Parts which I prefer over AMD and then I should just say that CORSAIR makes some very Remarkable Equipment Case = 650D, they have parts like DDR, SSD, all the way down to wireless headsets and mechanical actual programmable gaming keyboards...power supplies...nearly all of their equipment is top-shelf and remarkable by other manufactures even.
Okay, I'm as ASUS, intel and CORSAIR fan...
 
I used to love Corsair memory but lately I've been looking towards Mushkin again, my first love. But Corsair rams sets have been flaky for me lately and with Mushkin, I've never had ANY problems. G Skill is also a hit or miss lately. Speaking of which, i just RMA'd a set of Corsair Dominator GTs and the Corsair set that I have replaced them with (used from a member here) are also failing so I'll have to RMA these once the GTs come back. For my next computer Mushkin 100%.

Corsair's PSU is very good but only if you buy the more expensives ones, the lower end ones are garbage imo.

Corsair's Cases all have a very nice layout and design, I just hate all the heavy steel used to make them, once they make them all aluminum, I'd put Corsair above any, but I don't think they will ever...

Corsair's mechanical keyboards are very nice but their mouses are so so, I still prefer Logitech's G9X. I wonder if Logitech will ever produce a mechanical keyboard? Seems like they've just been absent all together for the mechanical "revolution".

Just my 2 cents on Corsair.
 
I always use ASUS boards in my builds. Probably gone through 20-30 ASUS boards total and only had a problem with 1 of them. I've hard ASUS customer service can be a bit sketchy but luckily I've never had to deal with them. I definitely feel like ASUS boards are the most consistent with regard to high quality.
 
I'm not happy with Asus. First and Last MB from them did not last very long at all. Might not have even gotten 2 years on it, no OCing. From what I saw of a link shared around [h] Asus has a higher than usual return rate.

On Gigabyte currently, So far so good *knock on wood* It does spend too long at the USB3 Gigabyte post screen, fairly moot since it is seen generally once every few months.
 
OP i agree with your anecdotal comments. Ive owned multiple of each brand from Socket A to current LGA1155 and I find I am more happy with the ASUS boards and their customer service a tad a better. For super budget builds, Ive found that MSI and Biostar have been pretty good too.
 
I've used ASUS and EVGA..The first computer I ever built was an ASUS board,can't remember the name but it could use 2 different types of memory.Had the P5B Deluxe and I think it was called the P5Q Deluxe still in working order..Now I have the Maximus Extreme IV that is just awesome..ASUS tech support is the worst from what I hear..Thanks god i've never had to use them..
Never had a Gigabyte board and probably never will..
 
WeaponX said:
I used to love Corsair memory but lately I've been looking towards Mushkin again, my first love. But Corsair rams sets have been flaky for me lately and with Mushkin, I've never had ANY problems. G Skill is also a hit or miss lately. Speaking of which, i just RMA'd a set of Corsair Dominator GTs and the Corsair set that I have replaced them with (used from a member here) are also failing so I'll have to RMA these once the GTs come back. For my next computer Mushkin 100%.

Corsair's PSU is very good but only if you buy the more expensives ones, the lower end ones are garbage imo.

Corsair's Cases all have a very nice layout and design, I just hate all the heavy steel used to make them, once they make them all aluminum, I'd put Corsair above any, but I don't think they will ever...

Corsair's mechanical keyboards are very nice but their mouses are so so, I still prefer Logitech's G9X. I wonder if Logitech will ever produce a mechanical keyboard? Seems like they've just been absent all together for the mechanical "revolution".

Just my 2 cents on Corsair.
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The statistics have Kingston as being the ram with one of the lowest return rates. I forget where they had Mushkin.
 
I've had 3 Asus (G41, H61, P67) and 6 Gigabyte (P45, 880G, X58 (x2), B75, Z77).

2 of the Asus (G41, P67) eventually had BIOS problems; the P67 I had to use a end-around method to re-flash the BIOS otherwise it would have been a dead board. The H61 is still running fine.

All 5 Gigabytes have/had 0 issues; P45 and 880G are still running strong, the 2 X58 systems were replaced by an SR-2, the B75 was returned in favor of a cheaper ASRock H61, and I love the Z77X-UD3H I just got.

At this point, every board I'll buy from here on out will be Gigabyte. They just run, first boot and beyond; total workhorse boards.
 
I've worked with all of them. ASUS has generally been the most consistent with quality and fewer headaches. Gigabyte puts out some gems and some boards are a little rough. Overall I'd use either. MSI's got some good ones too. I was really impressed with the Big Bang XPower II and almost chose it for my machine.

I've had issues from all board maker's products at one time or another.
 
Dan_D said:
I've had issues from all board maker's products at one time or another.
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Dan, out of all the current MoBo brands available, which one do you feel has been the most problematic in regards to build quality, operation issues, support (live and/or web site), etc?
 
DejaWiz said:
Dan, out of all the current MoBo brands available, which one do you feel has been the most problematic in regards to build quality, operation issues, support (live and/or web site), etc?
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I tend to get flamed for this but ASRock is. Their build quality is the worst of the bunch. Soldering and general component selction is OK. Some of their boards use really cheap chokes and capacitors. Most all of them outside of their higher end offerings use the thinnest and most flexible PCB's I've ever seen. Their website is fine, their support often sucks. (I've got a friend going through hell with her board.) Their boards have improved lately as the last several boards have all worked well despite questionable build quality. I haven't had too many quirks out of them this round. Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI have all been pretty solid as usual. Though some individual boards from MSI and Gigabyte could have been a little better. MSI's lower end offerings like the Z77A-GD41 wasn't all that great for example. ASUS is doing well. I haven't had any real issues with any I've reviewed. Though my personal Rampage IV Extreme's onboard audio stopped working after a month or so and I had to get a replacement board.
 
Somehow, I knew you probably going to say ASRock. :)

IIRC, Asus started ASRock so they could be a cheap, cookie-cutter brand to supply OEMs with, then they released ASRock from being a subsidiary allowing them to become an independent company.

After reading many reviews of ASRock MoBo's, I still feel they are too closely tied to their penny-pinching ways to ever be a viable option for me. Plus, and I'm sure you've seen me comment on this before since I have done so multiple times, one design aspect that bugs the crap out of me is their undying choice to keep 3-pin fan headers on even their flagship models when pretty much every other worthwhile brand has transitioned to a full compliment of 4-pin headers.
 
I feel your pain, I've had more than one gigabyte motherboard give me issues...

I've been using the Asus Maximus Gene III for my last build. It's worked out pretty well, however it has issues when the ambient temperatures get too high. When gaming and the interior gets too hot, I would get constant mini-freezes that would last about a second long. This would continue until it eventually crashed. I know it wasn't the GPU. I had tried 3 separate cards and all had the same issue.

I got a new case with an intake on the side and the problem never happened again.
 
DejaWiz said:
Somehow, I knew you probably going to say ASRock. :)

IIRC, Asus started ASRock so they could be a cheap, cookie-cutter brand to supply OEMs with, then they released ASRock from being a subsidiary allowing them to become an independent company.

After reading many reviews of ASRock MoBo's, I still feel they are too closely tied to their penny-pinching ways to ever be a viable option for me. Plus, and I'm sure you've seen me comment on this before since I have done so multiple times, one design aspect that bugs the crap out of me is their undying choice to keep 3-pin fan headers on even their flagship models when pretty much every other worthwhile brand has transitioned to a full compliment of 4-pin headers.
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Like I said ASRock is improving but they are hardly a match for the other big names in terms of quality. I think if your willing to take a chance on them you might get lucky and save yourself some cash. There is nothing wrong with doing that so long as you know what your risking going into it. It's not a gamble I'm willing to make but some others may find the savings justifiable. For the right amount of money it's pretty easy to tolerate a few quirks here and there.
 
I've never had any issues on any of my gigabyte boards, though their color/designs don't look as good as Asus imo.

On another note, DFI was a rock solid brand.
 
Dan_D said:
I think if your willing to take a chance on them you might get lucky and save yourself some cash. There is nothing wrong with doing that so long as you know what your risking going into it. It's not a gamble I'm willing to make but some others may find the savings justifiable. For the right amount of money it's pretty easy to tolerate a few quirks here and there.
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I agree that their price points can be attractive. For me, however, I don't ever compromise on such a critical component like the MoBo for the amount of time I spend on my computer and how long I typically keep them between upgrades. It makes more sense to me to spend the extra for a better MoBo since that expense only happens once every 5 years on average.
 
oneforspeed said:
I have been a die hard Asus fan for years.

The last machine used the GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD4H board and I was extremely impressed with it.
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This is exactly how I feel. I have always used ASUS and been a fan. My last ASUS board, an A7N8x-x, was used 4-12 hours/day from 2004'ish till last month and has been rock solid.

However over the last few years I have recommended Gigabyte boards to friends and the last 4-5 builds have been problem free.

My new dream rig (see sig) uses the UD4H and I'm very happy with it. ZERO problems. NONE. Installed win7pro x64 in like 10 minutes and no problems.

General advice would be to stay away from the low to low-mid range boards and if you go ASUS or Gigabyte you should be fine 99% of the time.

There are always going to be some sad stories from either/all camps due to the millions of possible motherboard/parts/BIOS/O-S/etc variations out there.
 
kindasmart said:
This is exactly how I feel. I have always used ASUS and been a fan. My last ASUS board, an A7N8x-x, was used 4-12 hours/day from 2004'ish till last month and has been rock solid.

However over the last few years I have recommended Gigabyte boards to friends and the last 4-5 builds have been problem free.

My new dream rig (see sig) uses the UD4H and I'm very happy with it. ZERO problems. NONE. Installed win7pro x64 in like 10 minutes and no problems.

General advice would be to stay away from the low to low-mid range boards and if you go ASUS or Gigabyte you should be fine 99% of the time.

There are always going to be some sad stories from either/all camps due to the millions of possible motherboard/parts/BIOS/O-S/etc variations out there.
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I think a lot of them sad stories like on NewEgg are from people who have no idea what they are doing but say they have a high tech level..
 
Dave65 said:
I think a lot of them sad stories like on NewEgg are from people who have no idea what they are doing but say they have a high tech level..
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- ASRock 1.67% (against 1.90%)
- Gigabyte 1.77% (against 2.17%)
- MSI 2.24% (against 2.11%)
- ASUS 2.34% (against 2.66%)

I had an Asus motherboard. It was the most short lived motherboard I've had in 2 decades lasting around 2~ years.
 
I tried NOT to ever buy ASUS but in my case I bought EVGA but always ended up sending them back except for the p55 SLI..I always ended up with ASUS even though I hated myself for it,but for me they have treated me the best as far as longevity and giving me no problems..but I despise the way they treat their customers..
Had one ASROCK board P67 but when the sata problem hit I sent it back and I did not want to wait so I ended up with the Maximus Extreme 4..
 
Dan_D said:
No it wasn't.
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People forget that a lot of this is is anecdotal as we experience it.

If you use 3 boards from somebody and admittedly even with a 3% return rate, very small chance that your board will die, and none of them do die then it's rock solid.

But if somebody else buys that same board, first time buying and it dies, that person is automatically going to distrust that company.

That's why I posted 2012 return rates for motherboards as the industries report it (versus anecdotal).
 
Fort_Major said:
People forget that a lot of this is is anecdotal as we experience it.

If you use 3 boards from somebody and admittedly even with a 3% return rate, very small chance that your board will die, and none of them do die then it's rock solid.

But if somebody else buys that same board, first time buying and it dies, that person is automatically going to distrust that company.

That's why I posted 2012 return rates for motherboards as the industries report it (versus anecdotal).
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While it's nice to see overall return rates for the major brands out there:
What kind of circumstantial data do those return rates include, though?
What are the motherboard model breakdowns for each brand?
Are more DIY users stressing their systems with incorrect settings on say, Asus or Gigabyte boards than on ASRock boards, thus more returns?
Are end-users utilizing inadequate/low quality PSUs that are causing the failures, but attributing it to a failure of the MoBo itself?
What about the return rates from the OEM and channel manufacturing segments for the brands?

I know we'll likely never know the answers to the questions above. And, until we do know those answers, even the figures you listed could be categorized as anecdotal, as well...in a manner.
 
DejaWiz said:
While it's nice to see overall return rates for the major brands out there:
What kind of circumstantial data do those return rates include, though?
What are the motherboard model breakdowns for each brand?
Are more DIY users stressing their systems with incorrect settings on say, Asus or Gigabyte boards than on ASRock boards, thus more returns?
Are end-users utilizing inadequate/low quality PSUs that are causing the failures, but attributing it to a failure of the MoBo itself?
What about the return rates from the OEM and channel manufacturing segments for the brands?

I know we'll likely never know the answers to the questions above. And, until we do know those answers, even the figures you listed could be categorized as anecdotal, as well...in a manner.
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No data is "complete" because of all of those unknown facets :) It does however, give you insight into what's happening.

Ultimately, doing your best research, which I did when choosing my Asus motherboard does not stop you from being the one or 2 in a hundred that have a bad motherboard.

IMHO, I'm sure Asus is a good mb maker, because the internet says so, but having a first time fail like no other hardware failure in the past has put them in a bin they will probably never come out of.
 
Fort_Major said:
People forget that a lot of this is is anecdotal as we experience it.

If you use 3 boards from somebody and admittedly even with a 3% return rate, very small chance that your board will die, and none of them do die then it's rock solid.

But if somebody else buys that same board, first time buying and it dies, that person is automatically going to distrust that company.

That's why I posted 2012 return rates for motherboards as the industries report it (versus anecdotal).
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I built a half dozen systems for different customers with DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-DR Expert boards during the height of Athlon 64 S939's popularity. All those boards had different quirks despite being the same model. One was DOA and most of the systems came back for motherboard replacements within 3 months.
People make excuses for them being "tuners" boards or whatever. The fact is that any board that isn't stable with very common and popular hardware from the same generation of components (or immediate preceding generation) at stock settings is a piece of shit. If I have to do anything but configure drives in the BIOS/UEFI of a board to get a stable system it's junk. That type of behavior demonstrates very poor quality control and QVL testing. And the funny thing is about half those DFI boards worked fine out of the box with the same or similar hardware. The other half didn't.

Any board I've ever given positive reviews of worked out of the box with little to no bullshit. DFI boards rarely did that for me with few exceptions.
 
Probably a huge factor to why DFI isn't a major player anymore. For me, there were too many horror stories of those LanParty boards having the constant need for settings being tinkered with and still not producing a stable operating environment. Add to that the relatively high price tag, it became one I crossed off my list when I built my S939 3000+ Venice system.

I pretty much just classified the DFI mobos as overpriced, gimmicky, and unstable.
 
DejaWiz said:
Probably a huge factor to why DFI isn't a major player anymore. For me, there were too many horror stories of those LanParty boards having the constant need for settings being tinkered with and still not producing a stable operating environment. Add to that the relatively high price tag, it became one I crossed off my list when I built my S939 3000+ Venice system.

I pretty much just classified the DFI mobos as overpriced, gimmicky, and unstable.
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Yep. Any I built using MSI and ASUS boards were fine. EPoX boards were initially stable for me but had reliability problems down the line. The most notable was failing PS/2 keyboard ports. I saw 3 or 4 EPoX boards do that.
 
Interesting trivia regarding Asus;

The name Asus originates from Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology.[6][7] Only the last four letters of the word were used in order to give the name a high position in alphabetical listings.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus
 
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