Question Is there a particular motherboard manufacturer to avoid or not ?

[sargan]

I am not familiar with manufacturers trends.
Been googling around there seems to be a lot of ‘don’t buy from this manufacturer’
Particularly on Reddit where there seems a lot of venom against ASUS and to a lesser degree Gigabyte.

Should I avoid these brands … and only consider ASRock or MSI, or are they all good makes.

 

[Lafong]

It's always a bit of a dice roll.

I'm not aware of any formal study of the issue.

As you noticed, the Internet is loaded with anecdotes. No doubt, many people will be driven by them even though they have minimal statistical relevance.

Yes...Asus is getting bad-mouthed more than it did 10 or 15 years ago. I've read why, but can't recall.

I think Asrock may have improved its ranking among the anecdotes in recent years. May not be valid at all, that's just an impression I get. Same with MSI. Maybe that's just because Asus has fallen. It's not like there are 25 brands to choose from as you might find in automobiles.

More than anything....you need to buy the features you at least you think you need and cross your fingers. Maybe give some attention to warranty and return privileges with your vendor.

Customer service is behind a lot of the disappointments you may read about....I would NOT expect to have a happy experience with any brand name in that regard.

The only brand I've had NO issues with is Gigabyte....signifying nothing at all. I'm just another anecdote.

Reddit would rank quite low on the objectivity scale, I'd think. But I don't know where you'd find anywhere that ranks high.

It seems that Asus is the most common "on sale" brand I see in my daily New Egg email alerts. That might mean that there is noticeable resistance to their suggested retail prices, possibly due to the negative comments you have seen.

 

[Phaaze88]

They've all got their share of blockbuster and lemon products through the years, so I'd say there isn't one to strictly avoid.
Customer service is hit and miss.
Gotta factor in some degree of luck too...

I figure the reason Asus and Gigabyte complaints are the loudest is simply because they're being bought more than the others - popularity doesn't necessarily equate to quality though.
Asus products are often more expensive than the other brands, and they might not be proportionately better quality for the amount invested. Heck, they all go through the same OEM/ODMs with some of their products.

 

[CountMike]

I am not familiar with manufacturers trends.
Been googling around there seems to be a lot of ‘don’t buy from this manufacturer’
Particularly on Reddit where there seems a lot of venom against ASUS and to a lesser degree Gigabyte.

Should I avoid these brands … and only consider ASRock or MSI, or are they all good makes.

Depends on the platform but also particular segment of MB from same manufacturer. For Ryzen for instance, at first, MSI led the field in high and middle segment and Asus for top segment but for Zen4 they dropped the ball in favor of ASrock and Gigabyte. Not in quality but in support with BIOS and features. Overall, customer support in form of help and warranty all flunking big time, specially Asus with it's latest warranty scams.No more Mr Nice Guy and Customer is always right. That ship has sailed some years ago.

 

[drea.drechsler]

I am not familiar with manufacturers trends.
Been googling around there seems to be a lot of ‘don’t buy from this manufacturer’
Particularly on Reddit where there seems a lot of venom against ASUS and to a lesser degree Gigabyte.

Should I avoid these brands … and only consider ASRock or MSI, or are they all good makes.

It can vary considerably with the CPU socket. Also whether you're looking in the high-, mid- or low-end of the market.

In AM4 boards Asus is generally considered to make a terrific high and ultra-high end board but their mid-market boards are lacking in features (like exposing all essential voltages and temperatures for monitoring) which you can find even in other mfr.'s low-end lines. But you'll also pay for them as Asus commands premium prices.

But also, now that the CPU and chipset SOC's have taken over so many functions the drama of older boards has been remarkably tempered in that you see much more closely balanced performance across all mfr's and comparable lines. Even VRM's present far fewer problems, mainly because today's CPU's have so little overclocking headroom but also because almost all modern CPU's and VRM controllers have robust built-in safety protections. There are way fewer occurances of people literaly burning up their mid or low-end board when pushing it too hard.

I think the biggest problem is how mfr's handle BIOS updates, which seems to be even more risky than it used to be, if that were possible. Asrock is the quirkiest, along with MSI in their 300 and 400 series motherboards in particular. And updating BIOS is essential in today's world, with new CPU-level threats that require a microcode update to mitigate coming along with alarming frequency. So the old maxim of "don't update unless you have a problem to fix" doesn't work anymore.

Otherwise, the only mfr. to absolutely avoid in my opinion are one of the no-name Chinese boards that filter onto some of the online stores from time to time. You have absolutely no idea what you are getting when you buy one, and even less idea what info it's sending back home for monitoring.