Whats the current reputation of EVGA mobos?

[Direfox]

My impressions of EVGA for mobos in the past (750i-790i, etc) is they have great customer service, but their boards often have issues. Normally not major issues, but lots of minor ones. If I recall correctly a bunch of the staff "defected" to Sapphire? Anyway, I love EVGA's customer support for video cards, and would like to give one of their 1155 mobo's a try, but would like some more impressions as how they are doing at this point. Gigabytes have done well for me over the years, and the one ASUS I had was fine- but EVGA's customer service has always given me the warm fuzzies (the few times I have had to use it).

So, how do they compare now to Gigabyte, ASUS, and MSI?

 

[xBanzai89]

They had great x58 boards, but as far as I know now their boards have gone downhill. I don't see many people recommending them these days for builds due to a higher price/regular quality/short warranty. For CS I can't say I've seen much in that area for their mobos anyway...

 

[MrCaffeineX]

My experience with EVGA's customer service for their video cards has been amazing. I have been similarly impressed with ASUS and MSI when it comes to support for their motherboards. I've had several bad experiences with Gigabyte's customer service for motherboards and video cards, but when their products work they're excellent.

That being said, I've noticed an odd trend with EVGA lately toward offering a shorter warranty on their products and then enticing you to buy a relatively inexpensive extended warranty when you register your product. Since their offerings are, in my experience, generally at the higher end of the price spectrum to begin with, it seems strange to go the route of the extended warranty, thereby raising the overall cost of an expensive product just to get some support. Do they do this with their motherboards, or is this simply with their video cards?

I'm generally not a fan of extended warranties because to me it implies that the company is not comfortable enough with their quality to simply factor it into the original price of what they are selling. At the same time, it is an obvious money-maker for products where the company knows they have a miniscule chance of failure, even within the extended warranty period.

I used to think that paying a little extra for better quality, whether it be a product or service, was worth it, and I didn't mind spending that extra money. Lately, I've become more cynical and I've just started assuming that everything is of lower quality, regardless of price. As a result, I've been making purchases based more on what features are available and assuming that the component will only last as long as the warranty before needing to be replaced.

 

[Direfox]

I'm also a disappointed with how many products are KR type versions. I was also noticing only one slot between the PCI-E 16 slots. Thats not good IMO, especially as EVGA has some pretty hot cards, like my gtx 480. I checked out the z68 mobo from Sapphire and it also only has one slot seperating them. Wonder why they dont follow the example of Gigabyte, MSI, and ASUS for that?