X79 mobo reliability? Asus P9X79 vs MSI X79A-GD45 Plus vs Gigabyte GA-X79-UP4

Wilkie

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I am looking for the most reliable motherboard for a non-OC 4930K that will run at 100% (all cores) nearly 24/7, cooled by NH-D14 in a Fractal Design Define R4. Would like five years of service. Will have 32GB or 64GB non-OC 1866 RAM, a low-end video card sufficient for running a 1080p monitor, 1 SSD + 1 HDD, PSU will probably be Seasonic G or X series. Not anticipating expansion, but the most likely would be addition of more HDD (SATA 2 is okay).

The following relatively inexpensive boards appear to fit my needs, and I would appreciate your input as to which is likely to be most reliable for me:

Asus P9X79
MSI X79A-GD45 Plus
Gigabyte GA-X79-UP4

The MSI X79-GD45 (8D) shows very good thermal performance at http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/x79-extreme4-dx79to-p9x79-benchmark,3138-20.html. Can I expect the same from the "Plus" board?

Should I not consider the Asus P9X79 LE because it is only 6+2 phases?

I was originally interested in the Asus Sabertooth X79, because of the 5-year warranty, but I would prefer not to have a chipset fan.

I don't see any strong reason to go with a board more expensive than one of the above, but, if you think another would be more reliable, please let me know.

Apart from reliability, are there any differences in how Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte honor their warranties? Is there someone who has dealt with many boards from each, or aggregate data?

Thanks for your help.
 
Just for your own information, Don't forget to download the bios for the board you choose. I don't think either of those three would just work out of the box. From experience the P9x79 did not boot with this cpu until after the bios update, had to use the bios flashback to get it to boot. The reason I'm leaving this here... I ended up without a working computer and no bios to update to in my haste..
 
Thanks for the tip. It's okay if it won't work out of the box. Asus' Flashback is certainly more convenient than flashing the others would be, but that would be a secondary consideration for me after reliability.
 
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