Hows your experience with Asus Motherboards?

[ditzilla]

I've never been let down by an Asus board. Abit and MSI have let me down in the past. Sadly, I've never owned a DFI board. I really think DFI lanparty boards are the best around, from what I read. Asus would have to take second place in my mind. Asus has put out a couple fluke boards along the way. But nothing to indicate that the brand was indeed bad. I see Abit as being #3 in the mobo race. I am temped to test out Abit again sometime in the future....but I'm more interested in DFI.

I'll agree with you that any company can put out a bad product now and then - it happens. The bottom line though, for those of us stuck with these bad boards is what to do now? I didn't build this computer, and I wouldn't know where to start. So it's not like I can just say forget it, and put in a different board. I'm stuck with this thing.

 

[Dan_D]

I've never been let down by an Asus board. Abit and MSI have let me down in the past. Sadly, I've never owned a DFI board. I really think DFI lanparty boards are the best around, from what I read. Asus would have to take second place in my mind. Asus has put out a couple fluke boards along the way. But nothing to indicate that the brand was indeed bad. I see Abit as being #3 in the mobo race. I am temped to test out Abit again sometime in the future....but I'm more interested in DFI.

I've found DFI boards to be picky, and irritating to work with. They seem to be hit or miss and here lately DFI hasn't had much going for them. ASUS has generally been consistant but they've had a few bad models here and there. abit is also hit and miss. Some models are great, and others aren't.

 

[madgun]

I have owned both MSI and ASUS motherboards and both gave me no problems. Back when 875P was king of the hill I bought a top of the line MSI 875P-NEO FIS2R that was really stable and a rock solid performer. Then I shifted to AMD and owned an ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe which proved to be a gem, apart from the southbridge fan problem.
And last but not the least I owned a P5B deluxe which could easily overclock my conroe to 3.6 on air. So i have had good memories of all my mainboards.

 

[Rock&Roll]

I've found DFI boards to be picky, and irritating to work with. They seem to be hit or miss and here lately DFI hasn't had much going for them. ASUS has generally been consistant but they've had a few bad models here and there. abit is also hit and miss. Some models are great, and others aren't.

I've heard DFI's can be picky as well. Not as easy to tune and tweak as others. DFI puts a lot more options in the bios. One I'd like to have is a control for RAM drive strength.

 

[Brahmzy]

ASUS is all I buy - my last 8 or 9 boards have been ASUS boards and I've built 50-60 machines for people almost all ASUS boards.

I used to be an ABIT fan way back but switched and love it.

My new P5E kicks some serious ass.

 

[farfromhome]

I've found DFI boards to be picky, and irritating to work with. They seem to be hit or miss and here lately DFI hasn't had much going for them. ASUS has generally been consistant but they've had a few bad models here and there. abit is also hit and miss. Some models are great, and others aren't.

Out of curiosity, what do you think of MSI and Gigabyte as of late?

 

[SmokeRngs]

I've had an A7V133, A7V266-E, and A7N8x-DLX. KT133a, KT266a and nForce2 chipsets. I've never really had a problem with them for the most part. For me they were good performers and decent overclockers. The only real letdown was that my A7V133 and A7V266-E boards died on me and I had to RMA them. Neither board took more than two weeks total time to be RMA'd which includes somewhat slow shipping to them and not that fast of shipping back.

I've had a rather positive experience with Asus boards. There are only two exceptions to this. The already mentioned website is horrible and slow. I dread having to go anywhere near it. The other problem is with the BIOS. It seems like it takes Asus about 5 or 6 BIOS revisions to get a good one out. That said, they usually do get a great BIOS revision out eventually which is not something I can say for all motherboard manufacturers.

I ended up selling my A7N8x-DLX board with CPU to a friend and picked up a DFI Lanparty nForce2 Ultra-b and an AthlonXP-m. The DFI board could be finicky on getting everything setup right, it was rock solid and fast until it slowly started to die. First the PS/2 ports went out, then USB ports starting working erratically and finally it would no longer boot up. I really missed that board.

Since then I picked up a Gigabyte P965-DS3 which has been great for performance and with no problems. I recently grabbed a Gigabyte MA69GM-S2H AM2 micro-ATX board and it has been rock solid with no trouble so far with a 4000+@3Ghz. In some instances it actually feels a bit peppier than my C2D setup although that could be due to having a newer install of OSes even though the hard drive is a lot slower.

For my next board I'm probably going to go with another Gigabyte. These last two boards have been great so far and as long as I don't see any bad reviews on the next Gigabyte made for my uses, I'm going to grab it.

 

[Dan_D]

Out of curiosity, what do you think of MSI and Gigabyte as of late?

MSI boards are ok, but their memory slot color coding pisses me off. Aside from that they are decent. They aren't the best overclockers and the layouts sometimes kind of suck. Gigabyte is guilty of some terrible layout decisions from time to time but they are generally pretty good. They are top notch overclockers and they seem reliable. A little more than a year ago I would have said pretty nasty things about them but they've really turned around. Now I'd actually consider using a Gigabyte board in my own machine which is the highest compliment I can really give a board company.

 

[Impulse]

My A8V has been rock-solid for about three years now I think (with the OC listed in my sig), glad I got it despite my reservations about buying a VIA-chipset board when I had other options.

I'm glad it hasn't crapped out too because I hear ASUS support is terrible. My BFG 6800 and the Crucial RAM both failed within a year (and it took two RMAs to get a working 6800 at the time) but both of those had good lifetime warranties and the process was excellent with both.

I've actually been considering a P5N-E for a new system... That 2nd ATA controller would let me keep a couple IDE HDDs I don't wanna chuck, and it's not much more than an EVGA 650 SLI... I've heard EVGA's support is decent though. Hrm.

 

[trilegdog]

I purchased the A7V133 when it was first released. It's still running and never had a problem. My new build in Sept of 06 was with the M2N-SLI Deluxe. No problems yet.

 

[Dan_D]

I purchased the A7V133 when it was first released. It's still running and never had a problem. My new build in Sept of 06 was with the M2N-SLI Deluxe. No problems yet.

The A7V-133 was a badass board. I had the A7V-133A and mine ran for quite a while without issues. I used another A7V-133A in the construction of a customers machine and after 5 years it was still running strong.

 

[ijozic]

ya, I am considering going back to MSI because of the X-Fi problems.

I would say that the ATI chipset might bet the probable cause of these problems, not the Asus specifically. X-Fi works ok on other chipsets.

Interestingly enough, the X-Fi supposedly also doesn't work on the latest Asus M3A32 motherboard (ATI RD790FX).

 

[Manny Calavera]

ASUS is on fire right now, they really have some great intel based boards, no gimmicky cooling solutions or aything, love my p5k.

Agreed,and for all my complaints about after sale support,none of the many Asus mobo's I have owned,have ever died on me.Most have been very stable.I would say they also have some great AMD boards right now as well.My ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe WiFi runs well.

 

[Yourself]

I used to purchase Asus boards exclusively, but recently, starting with the P5B boards I've had a rash of bad boards from Asus. I purchased 5 P5B's for my builds or friends builds and 1 was DOA and 1 failed shortly thereafter. I recently had to return a P5K-e board back to Newegg that was DOA.

I've had good luck with Gigabyte as of late, but I think these things just move in cycles. My opinion is that nowadays, motherboards are just hit or miss regardless of the manufacture.

 

[Dan_D]

I used to purchase Asus boards exclusively, but recently, starting with the P5B boards I've had a rash of bad boards from Asus. I purchased 5 P5B's for my builds or friends builds and 1 was DOA and 1 failed shortly thereafter. I recently had to return a P5K-e board back to Newegg that was DOA.

I've had good luck with Gigabyte as of late, but I think these things just move in cycles. My opinion is that nowadays, motherboards are just hit or miss regardless of the manufacture.

To a degree. I think some manufacturers are more consistant than others. There were a few problem P5B boards, and the Striker Extreme/P5N32-E SLI pretty much sucked but otherwise ASUS is usually a good bet. Gigabyte has done a great job over the last year or so but there was a time where if a system came into the tech shop I worked at and it had a Gigabyte board in it, chances are it would have needed replacement. I replaced many Gigabyte boards due to faulty voltage components or a whole host of other issues. Gigabyte has since really turned around and this last year it's been one success after another. I just wish their color schemes weren't so hideous.

ASUS sometimes gets a bad reputation for issues like vdroop but I've got to be honest, even with the vdroop being as bad as it is I've never had an issue getting outstanding overclocks out of their boards. Though their tech support may blow I still think that ASUS has some of the best boards out there. The stability has been second to none for 99% of the boards that I've tested. Their largest failures being the P5B and the Striker Extreme. Though in all fairness the P5B eventually became a great board once the BIOS matured for it. The Striker Extreme is one of the worst 680i SLI boards on the market today. I said it before and I stand by that statement now.

 

[nissanztt90]

OP i have the same board and i dont really like it, its stable, but i cant get the FSB over 347ish, when i read in a few revies of guys getting it up to 490+. I tried SLI and that sucks too IMHO, so in retrospect i wish i would have bought a DS3 or something.

 

[zombiebeat]

I've never owned an Asus motherboard, so don't really have anything to bring to this thread but seeing as there's quite a few Asus owners in here I thought I'd ask something that's been bothering me for a while:

Do you ever find Asus's mobo naming strategy a little confusing? Right now I've got a page open for a site where I purchase my [H]ardware and I'm seeing:

P5K
P5K S
P5KC
P5KPL-VM
P5K64 WS
P5K3 Deluxe
P5K3 Premium
P5K WS
P5KPL
P5KR
P5K-VM
P5K Deluxe
P5K-E
P5E
P5N32-E
P5N32-E SLI (NF680i)
P5N32-E SLI PLUS (NF650i)
P5E3 Deluxe (no wifi)
P5E3 Deluxe (WiFi)
P5B-MX....
+ many, many more but you get the drift, enough with the P5 already ffs!

 

[farfromhome]

A7x = AMD K7 CPU's (socket A)
K8x = AMD K8 CPU's (socket 754)
A8x = AMD K8 CPU's (socket 939)
M2x = AMD K8 CPU's (socket AM2)
M3x = AMD K8/K10 CPU's (socket AM2+)
L1x = AMD Quadfather platform
P4x = Intel P4 (Socket 478)
P5x = Intel P4/Core (Socket LGA775)
where the x can be...

General:
N: NVIDIA chipset
A: AMD chipset
R: ATi chipset (Radeon Xpress)
V: VIA chipset
S: SiS chipset

Intel Chipsets Only:
P: 845P/G, 865P/G (sockets 478 and 775)
C: 875P (socket 478)
G: 915P/G (sockets 478 and 775)
A: 925X (socket 775 only, from here on)
L: 945P/G
W: 955X/975X
B: 945P/G or P965
K: P35/G33/G31/P31
E: X38

Suffixes:
-E: all-solid capacitors, often more features
WS: Workstation (often has PCI-X slot, for example)
C: Combo Memory (DDR+DDR2, or DDR2+DDR3)
3: DDR3 (as opposed to DDR2 or Combo; P5E vs P5E3)
32: Two (or more) full x16 PCI-E lanes
D: Dual (thanks Dan!)
VM: Micro-ATX (thanks again, Dan!)

Not sure what the R, L, 64, or MX suffixes mean; perhaps more of an ASUS expert can say. There is a method to the madness, though!

 

[Dan_D]

P5x = what CPU it will accept (P4 + Core 2, as opposed to just P4)
where the x can be...

N: NVIDIA chipset
A: AMD chipset
R: ATi chipset (Radeon Xpress)
L: 945P/G
W: 975X
B: P965
K: P35
E: X38

Suffixes:
-E: all-solid capacitors, often more features
WS: Workstation (often has PCI-X slot, for example)
C: Combo Memory (DDR+DDR2, or DDR2+DDR3)
3: DDR3 (as opposed to DDR2 or Combo; P5E vs P5E3)
32: Two (or more) full x16 PCI-E lanes

Not sure what the R, L, 64, MX, or VM suffixes mean; perhaps more of an ASUS expert can say. There is a method to the madness, though!

D Usually means dual, and VM has only ever been applied to Micro-ATX boards as far as I know.

 

[zombiebeat]

P5x = what CPU it will accept (P4 + Core 2, as opposed to just P4)
where the x can be...

N: NVIDIA chipset
A: AMD chipset
R: ATi chipset (Radeon Xpress)
L: 945P/G
W: 975X
B: P965
K: P35
E: X38

Suffixes:
-E: all-solid capacitors, often more features
WS: Workstation (often has PCI-X slot, for example)
C: Combo Memory (DDR+DDR2, or DDR2+DDR3)
3: DDR3 (as opposed to DDR2 or Combo; P5E vs P5E3)
32: Two (or more) full x16 PCI-E lanes

Not sure what the R, L, 64, MX, or VM suffixes mean; perhaps more of an ASUS expert can say. There is a method to the madness, though!

Thanks for the info farfromhome!

I know we're all into our hardware on here but bloody hell I've had to revise less for exams at Uni!

 

[zombiebeat]

D Usually means dual, and VM has only ever been applied to Micro-ATX boards as far as I know.

Thanks to you to Dan for your input, what I don't get is they also have motherboards called Striker Extreme and Maximus Formula, now those are motherboard names

 

[farfromhome]

Thanks to you to Dan for your input, what I don't get is they also have motherboards called Striker Extreme and Maximus Formula, now those are motherboard names

They reserve actual names, as opposed to codes, for their top-of-the-line motherboards. They usually only have one or two for each chipset, if that. Added more information to my previous post also.

 

[Impulse]

Now what does the SE on the P5K SE stand for? I don't think I've even seen that one listed on ASUS' site ('least not on their comparison tool).

Judging from NewEgg's pics it's a much much cheaper variant of the P5K/P5K-E (between those two the -E has Agere vs VIA Firewire, ADI vs Realtek audio, 2x more SATA off the SB, and 1 more eSATA off JMicron, oh and a 2nd Gb LAN port I think). It's really confusing how many different versions of the same basic model/chipset they have sometimes.

Of the P5K they have those three variants plus the workstation version w/PCI-X, the DDR2+3 version, a P5K-E WiFi AP (which NewEgg sells for the same as the one w/o, go figure), and like three different Deluxe/Premium variants on top of that... Plus the republic of gamers named editions, heh. So much price overlap too...

 

[farfromhome]

Gigabyte has a metric ton of P35 motherboards too, but I think their naming convention for Intel chipsets is better. You know exactly which chipset it is as it's in the name. And as for features: S2 < S3 < S4 < S5 < Q6. It may be a bit confusing to know what they mean, but it's pretty safe to say that a S5 will be better than a S2. You gotta know that the D stands for all-solid capacitors, but with the way they market it, that's not usually a problem. Everything else is a minor variation that's pretty obvious (C for DDR2/DDR3 combo, T for DDR3-only, R for RAID, L for Light, etc...). That's not to say which motherboard is actually better than the other, but I do tend to prefer Gigabyte's naming schemes. MSI's naming schemes are pretty good too, IMHO, but they can be less complicated as they make fewer varieties of motherboards.

 

[Dan_D]

Now what does the SE on the P5K SE stand for? I don't think I've even seen that one listed on ASUS' site ('least not on their comparison tool).

Judging from NewEgg's pics it's a much much cheaper variant of the P5K/P5K-E (between those two the -E has Agere vs VIA Firewire, ADI vs Realtek audio, 2x more SATA off the SB, and 1 more eSATA off JMicron, oh and a 2nd Gb LAN port I think). It's really confusing how many different versions of the same basic model/chipset they have sometimes.

Of the P5K they have those three variants plus the workstation version w/PCI-X, the DDR2+3 version, a P5K-E WiFi AP (which NewEgg sells for the same as the one w/o, go figure), and like three different Deluxe/Premium variants on top of that... Plus the republic of gamers named editions, heh. So much price overlap too...

Special Editions as of late have included hybrid water block/heat pipe cooling solutions.

 

[AP2]

love asus! but i really really hate my current flaky motherboard (p5n32-e).

 

[Impulse]

Yeah, that one's definitely not a Special Ed tho. Looks like a very stripped P5K and is priced like so... Hard to tell from the specs what changed, but it's a good 2" shorter and it has wimpier set of HS on it.

 

[Dan_D]

love asus! but i really really hate my current flaky motherboard (p5n32-e).

Well that board has the 680i SLI chipset. That's whats wrong with it.

 

[JSpecGC8]

I ran ASUS boards since I began building PCs, I was stationed in Japan and they have all the boards and all the specs and how well they are known to OC on the shelfs. The even had the boards set up in plexi glass cases so you could get a good look at em. I love the ASUS boards I have never had a problem with them ever. They even would help you OC your system if you brought it in!!!!

I recently switched to MSi for my last build and though it performs well, I still wish I would have went with ASUS.


(Though I think the [H] forums may have me convinced of going a different route.)

 

[RangerSVT]

I previously had an Asus P4P800-D and it was great, never had a problem with it, but I replaced it with an Abit board, this was awhile back, can't recall why I replaced it, but something comes to mind the bios. Maybe I didn't like the Asus Bios.

 

[maverick212]

Seems impossible to take any opinions really on this kinda thing. You always get practically the same amount of people who always say I totally stopped using "insert company here" or haven't used anything else since 1999. Whether its Asus, Abit, Gigabyte,...

 

[SmokeRngs]

The A7V-133 was a badass board. I had the A7V-133A and mine ran for quite a while without issues. I used another A7V-133A in the construction of a customers machine and after 5 years it was still running strong.

I never heard of the A7V133a. The A7V ran the original KT133 chipset which wouldn't actually do 133FSB. Then VIA came out with the KT133a chipset which did do 133FSB. The A7V133 was heads and tails better than the A7V even though the A7V was not a bad board. At the time, the only thing to give Asus boards any competition were the Abit boards as far as performance and overclockability were concerned.

I would be interested to see some type of link for the A7V133a board as I have never heard of it.

The funny thing is that I ended up selling off my old A7V133 and A7V266-e boards. The A7V266-e board is sitting here running an AthlonXP [email protected] and the A7V133 is also sitting here with a T-Bird 1.2 but isn't up and running yet. It's funny how these boards have come back around to "haunt" me. I'm not going to complain since I got them back at no charge and with a free XP1700+ in the case of the A7V266-e. I loved the A7V133 back when I ran it as my main system. I was able to take a 1.33 T-Bird up to 1.57Ghz on air cooling at 157FSB with no trouble from my AGP or PCI peripherals which included a SB Live Value card and running RAID. Either I'm the luckiest bastard in the world with that setup or I just happened to have a good board which had none of the SB Live problems.

 

[kiajoon]

Speaking of quality, can anyone tell me how to RMA a Asus board in UK now that the reseller does not take it back after 12 months?

 

[Dan_D]

I never heard of the A7V133a. The A7V ran the original KT133 chipset which wouldn't actually do 133FSB. Then VIA came out with the KT133a chipset which did do 133FSB. The A7V133 was heads and tails better than the A7V even though the A7V was not a bad board. At the time, the only thing to give Asus boards any competition were the Abit boards as far as performance and overclockability were concerned.

I would be interested to see some type of link for the A7V133a board as I have never heard of it.

The funny thing is that I ended up selling off my old A7V133 and A7V266-e boards. The A7V266-e board is sitting here running an AthlonXP [email protected] and the A7V133 is also sitting here with a T-Bird 1.2 but isn't up and running yet. It's funny how these boards have come back around to "haunt" me. I'm not going to complain since I got them back at no charge and with a free XP1700+ in the case of the A7V266-e. I loved the A7V133 back when I ran it as my main system. I was able to take a 1.33 T-Bird up to 1.57Ghz on air cooling at 157FSB with no trouble from my AGP or PCI peripherals which included a SB Live Value card and running RAID. Either I'm the luckiest bastard in the world with that setup or I just happened to have a good board which had none of the SB Live problems.

In all honestly, I may have it wrong. I know I had a newer version of the A7V133, but I thought it was called the A7V133A. I'm not positive on this though. That was many years ago.

In any case I had a SB Live! Value and RAID working on mine as well without issue.