Biostar and ECS Motherboards

[IamTimTech]

I have been looking into lowering my overhead costs for my basic entry level PC. My standby for motherboards has always been Asus and Gigabyte. My grandfather on the other hand, who was a well merited computer technician stood by Biostar and ECS claiming to be every bit as reliable. While cleaning out his home I found many DDR and DDR2 Machines (Mostly AMD) running biostar and ECS boards that still booted and functioned. Most of these machine had no side panels and were covered in dust and cob webs and probably had been sitting for many years, however they still boot up just fine.

Does anyone have anything good to say about biostar or ECS? I am also under the impression ECS makes many of the boards used in big brand PC's that can be bought at big box retailers.

 

[cirdecus]

It depends. I believe back in the day, they were known to have solid motherboards. These were the days when Intel ruled motherboard reliability. Today, I think they've lost ground to ASUS and other prominent board manufacturers.

 

[boosted1g]

MSI. ASUS, and FOXCONN have been the ones most often used for OEM compuers.

Biostar has gone up and down over the years, a few years ago they made a bit of a comeback but have dropped agian. I would not build anything with either brand, nor use them in anything I was associating my name wiht. ASrock is the best "budget" brand.

I would say from best to worst:
ASUS
Tie between ASROCK and GIGABYTE (gigabyte wins in the high end section, asrock in medkum end).
MSI.

 

[IamTimTech]

I appreciate the feedback, and I expected as much. I have only ever considered major brand components like, as I said, Asus and Gigabyte. I have never really cared to delve into Asrock or MSI, but I may give them a shot, but so far they seem close enough in price to not warrant moving to them from my two favorite big brand boards. I offer a full 1 year parts and labor warranty with my machines, so parts failing prematurely isn't really an option.

However; just because I can I am going to build four entry level machines. 2 ECS and 2 Biostar and just see how they hold up. I will have 4 Asus boards ready to replace them just in case.