Cheating on ASUS

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fdiaz78

2[H]4U
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Oct 6, 2007
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Yes I admit i've been extremely loyal to ASUS motherboards but I think its time for me to have an open relationship with other brands especially after seeing so many great reviews for Gigabyte products.

Basically I just wanted some feedback from any Gigabyte users here especially if you have used ASUS motherboards in the past and now use Gigabyte.

What i'm looking for in my next build:

1. Intel i7 860 but welcome any recommendations
2. Stable
3. Mild overclock
4. Can fit an H50 cooling comfortably.
5. Great looking PCB a plus. ;)

Oh and I plan on mainly doing some gaming, surfing and some photo and video editing.

Thanks!
 
I CANNOT recommend the X58A-UD3R Rev 1 or Rev 2, unless you can live with

1) Coil Whine with the wrong PSU picked
2) With the right PSU picked, slow POST times
3) No Coil Whine but have to disable power management features in BIOS (i.e C1E)

Don't know about anything else, but after everything I've researched after I noticed my issues and the RMA process with Gigabyte, I am most likely going to switch TO ASUS!
 
i have the opposite story for you- asus has treated me poorly in the past (like P4 socket 478-era) and most builds since have had gigabyte or DFI boards in them, but i decided to give asus one more shot since its been several years, and picked up a P6X58D Premium. i have to recommend it. its expensive but extremely nice. my opinion on ASUS' awful customer service is the same- hopefully i never have to RMA this thing, however the build quality is exceptional.
 
In the end all manfgs have hits and misses in production and repair.

I never buy a "brand".
 
Buy whoever is making quality, throughout the various years that has been countless brands. For me, right now, for high end Intel, I'd be buying Gigabyte or MSI. ASUS is a perfectly good choice, I've just never had any luck. I know it's been a long time since A7V Armageddon but I simply can't let go. ABIT was my choice in the past but they're gone (and many of their parting products felt like blows below the belt).
 
I wouldn't recommend the Gigabyte X58A either. You do need the right PSU for no whine. And it does take a while to cold boot and does have cold boot issues with overclocks failing and stuff. It's also ridiculously picky about memory. One of the worst/pickiest motherboards I've had in a long time though at least it works fine while it's up and running with the right PSU (I recommend the OCZ Z series PSUs with it).
 
Grrr. I bailed on Asus after my P5K experience. My next two mobos were from Intel - and then, when Intel's BIOS engineers got "drunk", I switched to Gigabyte - and now, the X58A-UD3R whine issue has left me in the lurch as to where to go next. MSI? eVGA? (Mine whines less than most, but I could still occasionally hear it.)

And yes, all X58 motherboards do produce some coil whine. It's a matter of whether you can hear this whine over the cooling fans in the system.

However, the OP stated that he wanted an i7-860. In this case, he needs a Socket LGA1156 motherboard (most likely with a P55 chipset).
 
Ok first why all this talk of an X58 board when the CPU he is looking at right now is an 1156 part? How does some apparent problem with the X58A-UD3R have any relevance here?

And then you go on to say that with the right PSU you will have slow post time? What the hell are you smoking man? How on earth can the PSU slow down the post process?

OP I use Gigabyte boards almost exclusively and for over 6 years those systems have been powered by Seasonic PSU’s. I have not had any problems or ended up with a system that has coil wine but have not used the board mentioned and neither will you if you go with an 1156 like the 860.

I used Gigabyte in almost all my personal builds in the past 15 years. I had an ECS K7S5A at one time that I had a lot of fun with and I used an Asus nForce2 board for quite awhile for a gaming rig. And right now I am using an EVGA X58. At one time even though I used Gigabyte in almost every one of my computers I sold my friends and family Asus, since I considered them the best and worth the premium.

But I hit a point 6 years ago where the 3 Asus boards I got in gave me nothing but problems. Part of the problem ended up being a change in power circuitry that didn’t play well with the PSU I was using. But by the time Asus figured that out the boards were returned and the Asus image was tarnished. No longer were they worth the premium to me and I have had no reason to look back.

Now I don’t RMA boards since I don’t want someone else’s “repaired” board. If a board dies a brand new board goes in. I refuse to spend the time tearing down a PC to put in a motherboard of questionable quality. Rumor has it that Asus has better support and RMA then Gigabyte but I never needed Gigabyte support and Asus support left me hanging for months. And like I said RMA isn’t something I will do for a motherboard.

Anyway I am sure you can find a Gigabyte board that meets your needs with ease. For that matter you could get a board from basically anyone but Intel that will meet your needs. So pick something that appeals to you and then have a look at what people who own one have to say about it. Just be sure to take some of it with a grain of salt.

I can’t recommend any 1156 boards to you because the ones I am looking at are all Intel based so no overclocking. I would also probably go with the i5 750 if I was looking to build an 1156 quad core for your needs and put the savings in to a better video card.
 
Did this thread title have anyone thinking it was in reference to the old ASUS hacked drivers? The ones that they released years ago that let you see through walls in Counter-Strike...lol

Nostalgia :)
 
TGA said:
Ok first why all this talk of an X58 board when the CPU he is looking at right now is an 1156 part? How does some apparent problem with the X58A-UD3R have any relevance here?
Click to expand...

This is what I have known all along (judging by all of the previous replies in this thread).

TGA said:
I can’t recommend any 1156 boards to you because the ones I am looking at are all Intel based so no overclocking. I would also probably go with the i5 750 if I was looking to build an 1156 quad core for your needs and put the savings in to a better video card.
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Actually, the Intel-branded 1156 motherboards do have some overclocking settings. However, they (at least the Media Series versions of these motherboards) do not have fine enough increments on their clock or voltage settings for the overclocking features to be of much use. And many of the 1156 boards in that series have no provision whatsoever to manually set the memory latency settings; the memory settings are permanently stuck in the auto-detect SPD mode. This makes these particular boards poor choices for overclockers. (As in, you just bought yourself DDR3-1600 CL7 memory that could only run at DDR3-1333 CL9 settings.)
 
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All X58 have coil wine? Really? I just cut my vid card fan and unplugged the rest for a moment and I hear well nothing. And I am usually rather sensitive to such things.

But again the X58 has nothing to do with the OP’s question. If you want to discuss this I am willing to do some testing to see if we can make my board wine but not in this thread.
 
My top 3 Choices in motherboards are as follows.

1. Gigabyte. Been running these since I made the switch to Intel CPU's. Been rock solid, stable and fast.

2. EVGA. The next board I buy will likely be from EVGA due to their kick ass support after the sale. Plus their boards are sexy and I hear quite good.

3. MSI. Back when I was an AMD man I almost exclusively ran MSI boards. They've always been rock solid stable for me. Their new Intel boards look to be pretty damn nice with great features.

I won't even consider ASUS. Their support is nightmarish.
 
I had a lot of problems with ASUS back in the AXP days. I don't recommend them to friends or family anymore, and I build Intel machines exclusively. I'm now a big Gigabyte fan, as you can see from my sig.
 
I have the GA-P55A-UD4P and I absolutely love it. I haven't found any quirks yet with this board - it is very stable - quite a contrast with the EVGA 780i sitting in my other rig. My dad has an ASUS board (P7P55D LE) as well and after overclocking with both P55 boards I prefer the Gigabyte BIOS because it is more user-friendly.
 
Heh, I've been using Gigabyte for the past couple years and have finally had it with their crap products. Yes their boards are very feature-rich and very well priced, and even work great out of the box. But a year or two goes by and things start to go south. I've ruled out all other parts on the machines that have failed, and it always comes down to the motherboard (which is Gigabyte). Unless things have drastically changed in the past year at Gigabyte, I'm still skeptical. ASUS boards have yet to fail me, and cost a little bit more money, yes, but you get what you pay for. At least they last longer than two years.

It sucks too, because I really want to like Gigabyte boards, but I have yet to come across one that doesn't fall apart after a couple years. Please don't mistake me for a fanboy, I'm just going with personal experience here. And ASUS has been the best to me so far.
 
If you ever do get a Gigabyte board, remember the name hicookie. The man literally sleeps with these boards.
 
After having so many issues with my P5Q-Deluxe I'm staying away from Asus for at least next couple upgrades...
 
Jon55 said:
Heh, I've been using Gigabyte for the past couple years and have finally had it with their crap products. Yes their boards are very feature-rich and very well priced, and even work great out of the box. But a year or two goes by and things start to go south. I've ruled out all other parts on the machines that have failed, and it always comes down to the motherboard (which is Gigabyte). Unless things have drastically changed in the past year at Gigabyte, I'm still skeptical. ASUS boards have yet to fail me, and cost a little bit more money, yes, but you get what you pay for. At least they last longer than two years.

It sucks too, because I really want to like Gigabyte boards, but I have yet to come across one that doesn't fall apart after a couple years. Please don't mistake me for a fanboy, I'm just going with personal experience here. And ASUS has been the best to me so far.
Click to expand...

Personal usage:

I've got a bunch of Gigabyte boards coming up on the 2 year mark soon (EP45-UD3Rs, EP43-DS3L, and a G31M-ES2L) with no problems whatsoever yet. Fingers crossed your experience isn't a trend. I can't find any other complaints with these Gigabyte boards yet.
 
requiem99 said:
Personal usage:

I've got a bunch of Gigabyte boards coming up on the 2 year mark soon (EP45-UD3Rs, EP43-DS3L, and a G31M-ES2L) with no problems whatsoever yet. Fingers crossed your experience isn't a trend. I can't find any other complaints with these Gigabyte boards yet.
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And I hope so as well. I really do. They're great boards, and there's a high chance I've just had bad luck with them, but it's my personal experience nonetheless. I hate to say it though, but one of them was an EP43-DS3L. :(
 
Jon55 said:
And I hope so as well. I really do. They're great boards, and there's a high chance I've just had bad luck with them, but it's my personal experience nonetheless. I hate to say it though, but one of them was an EP43-DS3L. :(
Click to expand...

I've had just the opposite; horrible experience with anything ASUS, great experiences with anything Gigabyte. Luck of the draw, I guess.
 
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