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Mass Motherboard Review
Niscenus writes "The folks at AnandTech are buzzing about this article originally posted here at CS. It's an extensive comparison of motherboard manufacturers, which is great for people who want to build their own system."
All the biggies look to be here. Good timing for me since I'm planning on
building a system in another month or so.
As a Retail level tech i spend most of my days answering questions, Some good, and as you would expect some i just roll my eyes at and walk away. It's good to see someone out there has done a pretty comprehesive review of ALL mobo makers. I personally use Asus and MSI. I've had the best experience with both, not to say i've never RMAed a board by either (1 to each company) but as i see it in the years i've been doing this i've installed well over 5,000 mobos. As with any product the makers of mobos do run into issues, like certian runs of a problem board, i've seen at least 1 bad board by every one if theose companys listed, some i've sent them all back (see:Soyo), so it's good judgment to do a little asking around before you buy. Don't jsut listen to one opinion you'll hate that friend, co-worker, relative later for giving you bad advice. I do agree with most of the findings in this article I'd personally rate MSI a bit higher, and shuttle a bit lower but then again that's just my opinion/experience..another word to the wise.. Where you get your board will have a great effect on your buying experience. Stick with well known companys with good return policies. You will one day get a bad board, trust me when i say this, what happens after you figure out the board is flawed and needs RMAed means alot. Some companys will tell you that your SOL and need to send it back to the maker for replacment which is all fine and dandy but can take some time. (around 6-8 weeks)where as the supplier can get you a ned board in a week. Someone now needs to do a comprehesive write up about the suppliers and we'll be all set.
Just Limin' Mon
I have very bad experience with Epox boards: a friend of mine bought one, and even the parts that were on board had interupt-conflicts with each other. Really horrible design.
But come on, let's be honest: Something that works for me (with my hardware) doesn't have to work for you and vice versa. This review is purely useless!
What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
>the Abit KT7 in my dad's machine is the most twitchy and unstable board I've had the misfortune of using
again, more anecdotal evidence, abit motherboards are popular and I too own one and I can just as easily say I go 6 month without rebooting.
It's easy to blame the motherboard for other problems such as a cheap unreliable power supply or bad ram or a misbehaving pci (ahem, sound blaster live) card. Some boards/chipsets are more sensitive to these problems than others. (In your case, the 80 ECS K7S5As are from a different manufacture and they have a different chipset)
I personally believe in buying name brand hardware backed by a good tech support and a good return policy. A lot of times it's the luck of the draw and people end up with bad boards. But I like the fact that ABIT is frequently releasing new BIOS revisions to add new features and bugfixes to their boards. I know the KT7 has had at least 10 bios releases in the past year. And of course, buying it from a store that you know and trust is much better than buying from some shady, cheap place just to save $10. I mean, who knows where they get their crap.