X99 - should I wait or just buy? (Asus & Gigabyte bad comments)

[Evyatar]

Hi

I'm about to buy a new mother board and a cpu.

 

I went thru a few sites to check the motherboards of gigabyte, since I really like them... But I came a cross a few problems with their x99 motherboards, and here a few comments (new egg):
 

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Cons: - USB3 issues on X99 Gigabyte boards under Windows 8.1 64-bit
- UEFI setting entry is picky on hardware attached, and will fail if it doesn't like any of your attached hardware
- Overclocking limit is somewhat lower than Asus boards

Other Thoughts: USB3.0 issue on Gigabyte X99 boards is well known, it's my bad not to research more before buying. It caused intermittent disconnect on any attached USB3 devices (front panel included) and there's no apparent way to fix it. The NEC driver is also hard to find and not listed on Gigabyte website.

The board has issues overclocking and limit is lower than ASUS boards (probably the patented socket that Asus had) even using exactly the same physical piece of CPU.

 

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USB 3.0 issues, turn on and off whenever they want...
BIOS was faulty when it came out of the box...
Kept having random shut downs, after two months of troubleshooting and RMAing my other parts, turns out it's this motherboard... BIOS GUI needs much needed improvement... Ethernet driver company doesn't release a driver for their Ethernet product anymore. So, you have to use an outdated driver. Limited on overclocking voltages...

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: - No wifi module included
- No led backplate like the ATX version of this board
- Not an Intel NIC
- Lots of connectivity located on the bottom of the board, can interfere with PCI-E cards or SLI configuration.

 

 

And much much more bad comments...

Any ways, I went to search Asus's x99, which is costs MUCH more, and there's a bad reviews as well...:

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To be perfectly honest, I'm so tired of dealing with this motherboard that at this point I just want to take a sledgehammer to it, set it on fire, and throw whatever's left in the trash. I don't ever want to deal with it or Asus ever again.

This board has been a nightmare to say the least. When I bought it 6 months ago, there weren't the number of negative reviews up about this board as there are now. At first I started with an Asus X99 Pro. Had problems with it so I returned it and got a Deluxe. Surely there wouldn't be any problems with a more expensive board, right? WRONG.

After the first X99 Deluxe board died and I couldn't get it to work, I sent it back and got another one. It lasted for four months. But then suddenly for no apparent reason, it wouldn't make it past the BIOS. Every time it boots up it would go directly into the BIOS and nothing I tried could get it to do any different. I never overclocked it. Well, I tried, but that too didn't work either. So after four months it refuses to POST. I couldn't figure it out... spent many days on it.

The first PC I built was in 1987, but it's been a good 10-15 years since I've built one and I didn't want to deal with it anyway, so I took it too a local shop to have them get it running. After three trips lugging it back and forth, they ultimately couldn't get it running either. So I took it to another friend who has a repair business and has been building computers for 20 years and he couldn't get it running either. Then I spent 5 hours on the phone one night with another friend with 15 years in IT and he couldn't help... nor could another friend who works for Best Buy Geek Squad (I was trying to figure out the combined years of IT & system-building experience everyone has who has tried getting this to run, and I came up with 120 years of combined IT/system-building experience of the people who've worked just trying to get this system to work). And then when I call Asus to try to get someone to help, I'm just given quick (short) worthless advice that doesn't help from people who don't understand how much time and effort I/we have already put in to getting the board(s) to run. It seems like they just want to get you off the phone as quickly as possible.

This was turning in to a long drwn-out ordeal and I couldn't be without a computer, so I had to buy an HP -- just to have a working computer. Now I see all these negative reviews about this board and everything fall into place and makes sense... this is simply a bad board and never should have been foisted onto the public. Are there any attorneys reading this? This is definitely a class action just waiting to be filed.

If you are considering purchasing this board (and think you're very lucky), please keep in mind that while it has great features, none of that matters when the board won't even POST. And once you go past the time period in which you can return it, what you will get back from Asus if you send it in to them is a refurbished board which someone else has most likely had problems with (after you just paid full price for a new mobo). So the way it works is; you pay for a new board, and when it doesn't work, then you get a refurbished one that someone else has had problems with. And then there's the wait time in getting an email response back from Asus (up to 3 days) once you go through their telephone experience (which is a very frustrating ordeal in itself).

Oh, and did I mention I smelled smoke in the room it's in too? At the time, I couldn't figure out where it was coming from, now after reading all the other reviews here and on other sites about smoke and pops coming from these boards, I now have a very strong suspicion where it came from (haven't smelled it since it's been unplugged).

I am not going to keep throwing good money after bad trying to get this board to run. It's gone now and I'm SO glad it's out of my life. I never want to think about it again!

 

And this is just the first comment.

 

I want to build a new pc with 6 or even 8 cores (5930 or 5960) but I don't want to deal with these problems.
 

I do want motherboard with:

4 way sli support,

LOTS of USB 3.0/.1

Pci lanes,

As many as sata ports as possible,

Wifi built in,

Bluetooth built in,

and basically a motherboard with out any problem as these guy has.

 

What would you suggest to me to do? should I wait for the new x99s? (or 150 as a read on some site) or just go with some xeon motherboard and done dealing with these?

Thank you.

 

 

 

[runit3]

anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. For every 1 angry review there are hundreds of positive ones never posted. I was an early X99 adopter and got burned by a bad kit of RAM, but both my X99 Deluxe and Sabertooth are chugging along happy as ever -no issues with either board.

 

If you're going to be waiting for anything it would be the Broadwell-e release, the boards should remain relatively unchanged at this point.

[Neroglance]

I would say to the bad comments that no company is perfect and and when you sell large quantitys of something there will always be a few that are going to be bad it just happens that's why companys have rma's and warrantys.  I have had a X99 Deluxe board that a ram slot went bad but it happens and I still will buy another Asus board.  I think if you dig enough you will always find problems with some manufactors. 

[branden_lucero]

i'd probably wait. PCI-e 4.0 was suppose to ship as a standard with Skylake, and its rumored that in 2017 motherboards and graphics cards will start using it. again, rumored. i dont know why, but X99 boards are really expensive this time around compared to X79 at the time.

[Clyne]

It's not like everybody product is going to have a successful rate, i doubt there's a company that has never encountered any bad problems because no company will have some flaws.

Most of the time it's a lottery if you get a good board or not, some boards just barely pass through QA testing. 

If you want to get another X99 board that basically have the things that you want, then the MSI X99A Gaming 9 ACK meets your needs. 

[thekeemo]

Gigabyte asus and asrock all have bad support (in order from best to worst )

EVGA and MSI have good support

In case something goes wrong knowing this will be useful

[Evyatar]

29 minutes ago, runit3 said:

anecdotal evidence is anecdotal. For every 1 angry review there are hundreds of positive ones never posted. I was an early X99 adopter and got burned by a bad kit of RAM, but both my X99 Deluxe and Sabertooth are chugging along happy as ever -no issues with either board.

 

If you're going to be waiting for anything it would be the Broadwell-e release, the boards should remain relatively unchanged at this point.

 

27 minutes ago, Neroglance said:

I would say to the bad comments that no company is perfect and and when you sell large quantitys of something there will always be a few that are going to be bad it just happens that's why companys have rma's and warrantys.  I have had a X99 Deluxe board that a ram slot went bad but it happens and I still will buy another Asus board.  I think if you dig enough you will always find problems with some manufactors. 

 

19 minutes ago, branden_lucero said:

i'd probably wait. PCI-e 4.0 was suppose to ship as a standard with Skylake, and its rumored that in 2017 motherboards and graphics cards will start using it. again, rumored. i dont know why, but X99 boards are really expensive this time around compared to X79 at the time.

 

18 minutes ago, Bubblewhale said:

It's not like everybody product is going to have a successful rate, i doubt there's a company that has never encountered any bad problems because no company will have some flaws.

Most of the time it's a lottery if you get a good board or not, some boards just barely pass through QA testing. 

If you want to get another X99 board that basically have the things that you want, then the MSI X99A Gaming 9 ACK meets your needs. 

 

13 minutes ago, thekeemo said:

Gigabyte asus and asrock all have bad support (in order from best to worst )

EVGA and MSI have good support

In case something goes wrong knowing this will be useful

All of you guys are right, and I do agree with "mass production, probable some will fail", or even with "always there will be bad comments"... But, there's a good product and there's a great product. And I don't want to win or loss the lottery here... With expensive motherboards as these, I really shouldn't feel this way.

 

Any ways, I have a nosing problem with my motherboard, something electric and it's just a pain to use when it thinks so I really want to upgrade. Should I just wait for Broadwell-e(s) or Should'nt? 400$ for a motherboard isn't cheap, but does it worth it?

 

Thank you guys.

 

 

 

[thekeemo]

2 minutes ago, Evyatar said:

 

 

 

 

All of you guys are right, and I do agree with "mass production, probable some will fail", or even with "always there will be bad comments"... But, there's a good product and there's a great product. And I don't want to win or loss the lottery here... With expensive motherboards as these, I really shouldn't feel this way.

 

Any ways, I have a nosing problem with my motherboard, something electric and it's just a pain to use when it thinks so I really want to upgrade. Should I just wait for Broadwell-e(s) or Should'nt? 400$ for a motherboard isn't cheap, but does it worth it?

 

Thank you guys.

 

 

 

If you don't want to worry about it get the board from a bran that you can trust their support (see not Asus gigabyte or as rock)

[Neroglance]

35 minutes ago, Evyatar said:

 

 

 

 

All of you guys are right, and I do agree with "mass production, probable some will fail", or even with "always there will be bad comments"... But, there's a good product and there's a great product. And I don't want to win or loss the lottery here... With expensive motherboards as these, I really shouldn't feel this way.

 

Any ways, I have a nosing problem with my motherboard, something electric and it's just a pain to use when it thinks so I really want to upgrade. Should I just wait for Broadwell-e(s) or Should'nt? 400$ for a motherboard isn't cheap, but does it worth it?

 

Thank you guys.

 

 

 

I don't want to deter you from your new build but will you be using anything that takes advantage of the cpu on x99.  I ask because I have x99 and 5960x I have actually upgraded ever gen since 3930k to 4930k to now 5960x and main reason I kept going enthusiasts chips is for the pcie lanes and video editing and VM's but now I spend so much time at work I don't get to do it anymore and play games when I can and games perform better on the 6700k or 4790k etc and boards are cheaper.  Just a thought as I don't know your uses but just something to think about if you main use will be something to fully utilize the cores.