Choosing a motherboard manufacturer

[Seeboooo]

I've been out of the pc hardware game for a while but I need to start thinking about changing my PC has it's getting a bit old now. I tried to look at motherboards but there seems to be a lot of hate for pretty much every manufacturers on forums. What's this all about? Is there any good board manufacturer out there? What info or spec should I look for or avoid when comparing boards?

 

I'm not sure on the CPU manufacturer yet but it's going to be between the i5 / ryzen 5 if that information matter. 

[Lurick]

EVGA and Gigabyte are pretty solid.

MSI isn't bad either.

[themctipers]

whatever is cheapest with what you want and good VRMs.

 

asus here because im a asus fanboy, coming in with an asus 760, asus monitor and a asus motherboard , with an asus laptop lol

[Colin Donoghue]

Get a ryzen 5 and an asus or gigabyte b350 motherboard you could go for a x370 because it has more features you might use but it is more expensive

[jado]

I like Gigabyte and Asrock's higher end boards. 

[DnFx91]

Asus all the way, only boards ive personally used, where the manufacturer provided software actually gives you full control over the board. MSI boards have too many bugs for me, and the fan profiling software is garbage. Never used Gigabyte. Asrock are shit, but Asrock Rack (a different branch of Asrock) are awesome.

[Daniel Z.]

BTW get ryzen 5.

I dont really have a preference for motherboards but for B350 i would get the PC MATE or gaming3 if you have the money. For X370 the msi boards are good and not too expensive. 

[racer243l]

Gigabyte, MSI and Asus would be my recommendation, though I´m a bit dissapointed with my current Asus one

[Seeboooo]

Thanks to all who replied to far. 

 

It seems that it's still kind of a flip of a coin as most common manufacturers board seems to have supporters and haters. I've been using ASUS for a while on a few components and I've not been let down yet so I might stick to that (unless another major brand board comes up a lot cheaper at the time of purchase).

 

I'm also leaning toward a Ryzen 5 cpu as they seem to be very well priced for the spec. Currently using an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8 GHz cpu and it's still running fine (no overcloaking done) so I can't complain about AMD products there.

[Seeboooo]

1 hour ago, themctipers said:

whatever is cheapest with what you want and good VRMs.

 

 

How does one check or evaluate the quality of the VRM? What's good or bad VRM?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Seeboooo said:

I've been out of the pc hardware game for a while but I need to start thinking about changing my PC has it's getting a bit old now. I tried to look at motherboards but there seems to be a lot of hate for pretty much every manufacturers on forums. What's this all about? Is there any good board manufacturer out there? What info or spec should I look for or avoid when comparing boards?

 

I'm not sure on the CPU manufacturer yet but it's going to be between the i5 / ryzen 5 if that information matter. 

 

None of them are the best or offer the best Asus for example is supposed to be number 1 but their boards were causing failures on ryzen and actually breaking the CPU's. MSI is using NIKO VRM which is crap compared to something ASUS is using but with the heat-sink most MSI B350 boards have MSI is seeing lower temps then Gigabyte which seems to have the hottest VRM. Anything over 100C stress tests on the VRM is asking for trouble and yeah gigabyte boards are hitting that at stock! 

 

Biostar terrible bios support throughout the years but their boards are starting to actually get better. 

 

Overall Asrock has the best VRM solution on X370 for the money this time around with MSI having the best B350 boards with the carbon. 

 

If wanting a cheapo motherboard like the asrock pro 4 people will sacrifice things terrible Vdroop on voltage so crap motherboard for overclocking plus the VRM temps aren't that great like basically all other B350 boards. 

 

When looking at a motherboard things that matter the most 

IO connections (USB's, sata's what not) make sure they have everything you need

VRM quality+heat-sink coverage 4+2 phase is only good for modest overclocks with safe VRM temps under load like 1.2V 8 core max 1.3V 6 core max 1.4V 4 core max this is over amperage output. 

BIOS and future support is very important since AM4 is going to last to 2020

 

 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, DnFx91 said:

Asus all the way, only boards ive personally used, where the manufacturer provided software actually gives you full control over the board. MSI boards have too many bugs for me, and the fan profiling software is garbage. Never used Gigabyte. Asrock are shit, but Asrock Rack (a different branch of Asrock) are awesome.

As you can tell people have options Asrock isn't "shit" if anything they have the best AM4 motherboard. Things do happen Asus board was actually breaking CPU's by setting wrong voltages when overclocking linus and a couple of other youtubers even had this issue. Does this make Asus "shit" no things happen. 

 

Asrock has actually been faster then other brands when it comes to getting newer AGESA updates MSI For example took like an extra month to receive 1.0.0.6. 

 

MSI from a software bios standpoint seems great with me with Gigabyte probably being the worst. Gigabyte also has the hottest VRM on B350. 

 

My older M4A785-M bought 3 of them for family members every single one of them had memory issues and it was a known issue. Again that doesn't make ASUS crap. 

 

Asus is also probably the worst brand in terms of features per dollar. It's the apple of motherboards. Great product expensive cost. 

 

Best motherboard for AM4 has cooler VRM temps then even the VI

asrock x370 taichi

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157757