Question about quality

Dave65

Gawd
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Nov 30, 2006
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I been watching a lot of GPU and MB repairs on YouTube and the ones I watch seem to talk down about Gigabyte quality.. They go after a few others for other stuff, but Gigabyte, from what I am understanding the PCBs are not top quality. Now, I have always bought Gigabyte products and never had problems but I haven't had one since AM4 came out, I got the Taichi instead, was cheaper.
I'm just curious what you guys think or have you had any problems out of the normals..
This is not a flame on any manufacturers, I am going to upgrade to AM5 soon and was going back to Gigabyte..
Not meant to inflame anyone.
Thanks
 
I been watching a lot of GPU and MB repairs on YouTube and the ones I watch seem to talk down about Gigabyte quality.. They go after a few others for other stuff, but Gigabyte, from what I am understanding the PCBs are not top quality. Now, I have always bought Gigabyte products and never had problems but I haven't had one since AM4 came out, I got the Taichi instead, was cheaper.
I'm just curious what you guys think or have you had any problems out of the normals..
This is not a flame on any manufacturers, I am going to upgrade to AM5 soon and was going back to Gigabyte..
Not meant to inflame anyone.
Thanks
The truth is every motherboard manufacturer cuts corners to keep costs down. ASRock tends to use older VRM designs, cheaper PCB's and other things. MSI tends to build pretty nice stuff but it never reinvents the wheel. It doesn't innovate on VRM's and instead copies whatever other companies (mostly ASUS) are doing. Their designs are never cutting edge even at the highest pricing tier. They are good VRM's, just not as advanced as others. Again, it keeps costs down. ASUS cheaps out with some of its additional ASICS like USB hubs and things like that. Sometimes it goes cheap on even premium models with voltage controllers.

Where the rubber meets the road some of the best and worst boards I've ever worked with, reviewed and owned had came from GIGABYTE, MSI and ASUS.
 
I been watching a lot of GPU and MB repairs on YouTube and the ones I watch seem to talk down about Gigabyte quality.. They go after a few others for other stuff, but Gigabyte, from what I am understanding the PCBs are not top quality. Now, I have always bought Gigabyte products and never had problems but I haven't had one since AM4 came out, I got the Taichi instead, was cheaper.
I'm just curious what you guys think or have you had any problems out of the normals..
This is not a flame on any manufacturers, I am going to upgrade to AM5 soon and was going back to Gigabyte..
Not meant to inflame anyone.
Thanks
What is worse GB seems to be denying warranties for people's GPU that popped playing the Diablo 4 beta. With the entire PSU scandal last year it shows GB doesn't stand behind their product. While I never personality had a issue with them (I have a x570 master MB) they are still off my list of trusted companies to buy from.
 
What is worse GB seems to be denying warranties for people's GPU that popped playing the Diablo 4 beta. With the entire PSU scandal last year it shows GB doesn't stand behind their product. While I never personality had a issue with them (I have a x570 master MB) they are still off my list of trusted companies to buy from.
Yes, one of the repair guys is in Germany, i'm sure most of you know who I mean, he got some flack for the AMD driver thing but he is very good at what he does. One thing he has reoccuring with Gigabyte is refusal of warranty, one was legit cause the owner put wrong pads on the gpu, the others were just no reason to not fix it from Gigabyte. Warranty in Germany is nothing like here in USA of course.
 
The truth is every motherboard manufacturer cuts corners to keep costs down. ASRock tends to use older VRM designs, cheaper PCB's and other things. MSI tends to build pretty nice stuff but it never reinvents the wheel. It doesn't innovate on VRM's and instead copies whatever other companies (mostly ASUS) are doing. Their designs are never cutting edge even at the highest pricing tier. They are good VRM's, just not as advanced as others. Again, it keeps costs down. ASUS cheaps out with some of its additional ASICS like USB hubs and things like that. Sometimes it goes cheap on even premium models with voltage controllers.

Where the rubber meets the road some of the best and worst boards I've ever worked with, reviewed and owned had came from GIGABYTE, MSI and ASUS.
So pretty much a mixed bag then. I may go ASROCK again since this Taichi has been a tank for me since x570 came out, but will see. Thanks for the input it is much appreciated.
 
MB in general are tough. All companies have good and bad board around the entire price spectrum. I hear a lot of AM5 Asus boards are having issues while the ASRock Tachi is pretty damn good.
 
MB in general are tough. All companies have good and bad board around the entire price spectrum. I hear a lot of AM5 Asus boards are having issues while the ASRock Tachi is pretty damn good.
Yeah, I was always down on ASROCK but I can say this Taichi x570 has been a rock for many years now, other than the chipset fan when it was new, but ASROCK sent another without question..
 
Motherboards and power supplies are the 2 most important things in a build. I build my pc around those 2 things. I have used Asus since the 90's and they have never let me down.
 
Yeah, I was always down on ASROCK but I can say this Taichi x570 has been a rock for many years now, other than the chipset fan when it was new, but ASROCK sent another without question..
I have had more trouble out of ASRock boards than all other brands combined. That being said, given the sheer number of boards I've reviewed, systems I've built and worked on for friends that's still not a lot of issues.
 
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AsSRook.... nope, notta, no way, 'jose... I bought 2 of them a few years back & regretted it every step of the way.... the VRM on the 1st one blew smoke the 1st time I powered it up, the 2nd one booted up but then constantly BSOD'd over & over again.... when I did finally manage to get it to boot all the way into windows, I had to repeatedly troubleshoot it's constant freezes & lock ups....I RMA's both of them & then sold the replacements they sent me the minute they arrived in my mailbox :D

Asus: I had a few of their mobos here & there, no real problems but nothing to write home about either in terms of quailty....

GB & MSI have always been solid quality for me, but the last ones I owned were Z390/490's, so perhaps their quality has gone downwards since then... and my work rig is has a GB mobo too, and it's been great for over 3 years now :)
 
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It all sounds like every major manufacturer has its share of issues of one kind or another. ASUS, I'm looking at you here for your awful RMA experience, even though I have used a lot of ASUS boards with great success.
 
Every brand has good boards and bad. Those of us doing this a long time have trends we notice - and they don’t always agree with others experiences. I haven’t used many asrock consumer boards, but I’ve seen solid results from folks here. I tend to default more to ASUS in general, and I’m twitchy with any Ultra Durable branded Gigabyte board (I’m literally at 50:50 success rate with them - two that have been perfect (z170 Gaming MX, sTRX designaire), one that is twitchy (x299 Designaire 10G), and one that was the worst board I ever owned (990FX-UD7)). I also don’t buy low end MSI bords without solid research.
 
It all sounds like every major manufacturer has its share of issues of one kind or another. ASUS, I'm looking at you here for your awful RMA experience, even though I have used a lot of ASUS boards with great success.

You say that, but I've only ever RMA'd one motherboard. It was an Asus AM3+ board, and the RMA went as smooth as could be expected. Honestly, I've rarely had motherboards die on me that were inside of the warranty period.
 
You say that, but I've only ever RMA'd one motherboard. It was an Asus AM3+ board, and the RMA went as smooth as could be expected. Honestly, I've rarely had motherboards die on me that were inside of the warranty period.
In the past several years I've RMA'd a board from all the major brands, Asus was the worst.
 
You say that, but I've only ever RMA'd one motherboard. It was an Asus AM3+ board, and the RMA went as smooth as could be expected. Honestly, I've rarely had motherboards die on me that were inside of the warranty period.
I've had to do two RMAs with ASUS. One in warranty, the other not in warranty. Both times, it took too long for the turnaround. In one case, the replacement board also didn't work right. However, to your point, the process of creating the RMA was smooth, IIRC.
 
Gigabyte can choke on a fat one. Worst motherboards I've ever used, bar none. They always have some stupid issue like USB ports not working, Asus and MSI seem to just plain work out of the box and even ASRock is pretty good these days. Just last week I was trying to update the BIOS on my friends X370 Gaming K7 and it got to like 48% and just shut off. Killed the board an his 1800X.
 
I think if you’ve been doing this long enough, you realize every brand has quality control issues regardless of price.

What I will say differs is the rma process when issues arise. That sets a company apart from another.

Asus RMA’s have been hell for me in the past. But I’m just a small data point.
 
I've had a better experience with Gigabyte boards over the years than ASUS, but their software is garbage. That said, I'm eyeing a MSI X670 board for possibly upgrading to a 7800X3D next month.
 
I say do due diligence if at all possible. Because it truly can vary from MB to MB, even ones that appear to be "small" variants, model wise, of one another from the same vendor. One may be great and the other a lemon.

Edit: Also, we need "you" to test out the "newest" and "lastest" and "greatest"... so we know if it's "great" or a "lemon"... thank you.
 
I say do due diligence if at all possible. Because it truly can vary from MB to MB, even ones that appear to be "small" variants, model wise, of one another from the same vendor. One may be great and the other a lemon.

Edit: Also, we need "you" to test out the "newest" and "lastest" and "greatest"... so we know if it's "great" or a "lemon"... thank you.
The issue is that reviewers only tend to get the models that manufacturers send them or make available to them. These are often the models that are projected to be the most popular or they are flagship products. Even then, we have a sample size of one in most cases. I generally tell people to pick two or three sources you trust and look at all the opinions before taking the plunge on a board.
 
Beyond Gigabyte's potential quality issues (I honestly can't comment/don't know), their software division is horrendous and I'm pretty sure their tech support team just uses Google translate for everything. They could make the best piece of hardware out there...and they might, but I'd be wary of buying it. I have a 4090 from them and I'd trade that thing for another OEM's if I could.
 
Beyond Gigabyte's potential quality issues (I honestly can't comment/don't know), their software division is horrendous and I'm pretty sure their tech support team just uses Google translate for everything. They could make the best piece of hardware out there...and they might, but I'd be wary of buying it. I have a 4090 from them and I'd trade that thing for another OEM's if I could.
Please be a ROG, please be a ROG!!
 
I had broken board by all three except Gigabyte, but there were BIOS problems on the GB.

I went back to buying Asus, but I would not RMA a board, I'd just get a new one. So I buy their medium priced one, e.g. Asus Prime.

Having said that, most of my stuff except my gaming machine is Supermicro. They have been solid except 2 boards that bricked on a bad BIOS download.
 
Yeah it seems like a hit and miss with all boards, I guess ill go with best price and options for my AM5 build. Maybe ill go with MSI since I haven't used one for ages. Thank you all for the opinions, it is greatly appreciated..
 
Yeah it seems like a hit and miss with all boards, I guess ill go with best price and options for my AM5 build. Maybe ill go with MSI since I haven't used one for ages. Thank you all for the opinions, it is greatly appreciated..

MSI has worked extremely well for me the past 2 generations. I have two MSI Z690 boards right now and they're by far the best bang for the buck I could find with all the features, solid VRM and no unnecessary RGB (both are Z690-A Pro boards).
 
I had broken board by all three except Gigabyte, but there were BIOS problems on the GB.

I went back to buying Asus, but I would not RMA a board, I'd just get a new one. So I buy their medium priced one, e.g. Asus Prime.

Having said that, most of my stuff except my gaming machine is Supermicro. They have been solid except 2 boards that bricked on a bad BIOS download.
Supermicro has only Intel motherboards, for us regular users. :eek:
 
My younger brother is still using my old P55 Gigabyte board I bought back in 2009.... (/w an overclocked Xeon that I popped in later from AliExpress)

I understand their quality has gone wayyyyy downhill since then tho.

- Very happy with my B450 MSI board at the moment. ZERO issues *knocks on wood
 
My younger brother is still using my old P55 Gigabyte board I bought back in 2009.... (/w an overclocked Xeon that I popped in later from AliExpress)

I understand their quality has gone wayyyyy downhill since then tho.
I don't think it's wise to generalize like that. I don't see any real evidence that Gigabyte is sub-par or going downhill across the board, at least the hardware, and I don't care about their bloatware (or anyone else's). Every board maker has had some hits and misses over the last few years; take a look at the lower end MSI X570's, for just one example.
 
My younger brother is still using my old P55 Gigabyte board I bought back in 2009.... (/w an overclocked Xeon that I popped in later from AliExpress)

I understand their quality has gone wayyyyy downhill since then tho.

- Very happy with my B450 MSI board at the moment. ZERO issues *knocks on wood
I've had no issues with any Aorus branded kit so far - although there was the thread here on boot issues with the x570 Master (finally fixed with bios patches I believe). Have 2-3 of them in use right now, all work great.
 
Motherboards and power supplies are the 2 most important things in a build. I build my pc around those 2 things. I have used Asus since the 90's and they have never let me down.
asus is just as much a mixed bag as well.. they've been cutting a lot of corners lately and have had a ton of QC problems with their higher end boards on x570, x670e/70 along with z690.

personally i've had nothing but problems with asus products but that's just me, asrocks been fine but i hate their bios update process with a passion. haven't had any issues with gigabyte personally but their AMD 300/400 series boards had a lot of issues. i tend to find their mid range boards are better than their high end boards for price/io options. e.g. x570 elite/ultra same exact board minus a couple NVME heatsinks but the elite got an intel NIC while being 75-100 dollars less. have never bought a single MSI product so can't comment about them.
 
asus is just as much a mixed bag as well.. they've been cutting a lot of corners lately and have had a ton of QC problems with their higher end boards on x570, x670e/70 along with z690.

personally i've had nothing but problems with asus products but that's just me, asrocks been fine but i hate their bios update process with a passion. haven't had any issues with gigabyte personally but their AMD 300/400 series boards had a lot of issues. i tend to find their mid range boards are better than their high end boards for price/io options. e.g. x570 elite/ultra same exact board minus a couple NVME heatsinks but the elite got an intel NIC while being 75-100 dollars less. have never bought a single MSI product so can't comment about them.

I second that, I had problems with more expensive Asus boards, but the cheaper ones have (as far as I remember) always worked for me. Right now I like their Prime sub-brand.
 
My Aorus Elite X570 has been rock solid with a 3600x since day one fwiw

same, had a 3600 on the 1.0.0.3ABB bios, never had an issue so i saw no reason to update the bios again until i got my 5900X. best 200 dollars i've spent on a board. had the x370 taichi before this one.
 
I don't think it's wise to generalize like that. I don't see any real evidence that Gigabyte is sub-par or going downhill across the board, at least the hardware, and I don't care about their bloatware (or anyone else's). Every board maker has had some hits and misses over the last few years; take a look at the lower end MSI X570's, for just one example.

Everyone says that but I have an MSI X570-A that just refuses to die. The VRMs are below par but the board was fine otherwise. It just runs hot with 12 and 16 core CPUs.

That board's lackluster reception is why we got the X570 Unify and MSIs other really good low end boards.
 
asus is just as much a mixed bag as well.. they've been cutting a lot of corners lately and have had a ton of QC problems with their higher end boards on x570, x670e/70 along with z690.

personally i've had nothing but problems with asus products but that's just me,
Can you elaborate on ASUS' QC problems? I had an ROG X570 Strix-e and now an ROG X670 Strix-E, and no problems. Have I been just lucky?
 
Reading comments in this thread, is it fair to assume that most of the posters here are professionals who build and support PCs as a business, as opposed to guys like me who build one system every few years for their personal use only.

I think that the combined experience of many professionals is very useful, better than those "reviews" on websites that never seem to find any real flaws or negatives.
 
Out of hundreds of builds Supermicro is the only RMA for me. Wasn't DOA, design flaw or something.
 
Reading comments in this thread, is it fair to assume that most of the posters here are professionals who build and support PCs as a business, as opposed to guys like me who build one system every few years for their personal use only.

I think that the combined experience of many professionals is very useful, better than those "reviews" on websites that never seem to find any real flaws or negatives.
Yes there are alot of builders here (me included) so you can weigh their advice in whatever manner you wish, but having said that, the experiences of average joe pc users (which we all were at one time) are still valid when viewed in the appropriate context....in other words, if 20 avg joes are saying that they have seen essentially the same issues pop up with the same kit, I usually lend more credence to that than when it is only 1 or 2 people....

As for reviews, IMO they are best taken for what they (usually) are, which is mfgr-sponsored mini/subliminal adverts...since most of the hdwr is provided to the reviewer free of charge, then the reviewer gets to keep it afterwards for whatever purpose they want...

So when reading them, and they only point out all the good stuff, but leave out any potential flaws/shortcomings, and rate everything with a "recommended buy" or "editors choice", this is a red flag IMHO...
A fair and balanced review should include ALL the facts in an objective, non-partisan manner, if they don't seem willing to do that, then it's time to look elsewhere for moar info :)
 
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