Opinion of MSI motherboards?

[Wabbit]

I am building a new C2D E6600 system with the P965 chipset mostly for gaming. I have always used Asus mobos (tried a Gigabyte one once and went back to Asus) and I know that is the enthusiest pick, but I don't plan to overclock and want reliability and performance (in that order). I was going to go with the Asus P5B-E until I saw this review: http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/11/13/shootout_at_the_core_2_corral/ .

Now I am strongly leaning towards the MSI P965 Platinum, but I don't have any experience with MSI. From some of the reviews, it appears this particular board had some issues that a BIOS revision fixed, and people seem generally happy with it.

So what I want to know is what people think of the quality, reliability and performance of MSI products. Thanks for any help!

 

[akhilles]

At stock msi boards are rock stable.

I was surprised to see that board came out on top in that review, beating the regular favorites.

 

[Talon]

Speaking from my own experience plus reading many reviews over the years I feel that MSI is a quality maker of mobos. They seem to be very stable/reliable gear.

MSI boards have never been "The choice" for overclocking or such things but usually are well featured and about as stable as any board you'd find.

If you intend to overclock I'd suggest looking at other options unless you're looking for a rather mild overclock. If you are just wanting a good reliable system without overclocking its a good choice of manufacturer.

 

[Crapola]

MSI was also rated very high at MaximumPC... If you don't plan to OC, you'll find that most Mobos are very reliable these days....

8O

 

[sailer]

Ok, my experience with MSI was a few years ago and maybe they have better quality control now. My first MSI board lasted 2 months before failure. The second board died in 2 days. I turned to ASUS and have had much better reliability, only loosing one of their boards in the past 5 years.

 

[dean7]

I have owned a lot of MSI mobos and have had extremely good luck w/ them. I heard they went through a dip in quality a little while back, but it appears as if they are making some good quality mobos currently.

 

[Wabbit]

Ok, MSI it is!
Thanks to all!

 

[djgandy]

I never had a problem with any of the MSI boards i bought (except for the KT4-Ultra which i either blew up by not step ocing, or the processor died). I switched to ASUS on Socket A to replace that, and it felt slower, things like hard drive access seemed a bit slower. CPU speed was fine just like my computer took longer to show drives etc, menus lagged. Rather annoying.

But yeah i liked all the MSI boards i had 😀

 

[brekehan]

My experience with MSI: 0 out of 2 boards had a working memory controller. they are now on my blacklist.

Gigabyte is also not trustyworthy in my experience.

Support from MSI and Gigabyte both sucked thus far.

Never had a problem with ABIT or ASUS and I've went through more than 15 boards over the ages.

 

[Blank2k2]

ive had 3 MSI mobos....

1st one was knackered before i even used it.
2nd (Replacement of 1st) one worked, but Live Update & things like that didnt reconise it as a MSI board.

3rd one Live update & lots of other MSI programs didnt reconise it as a MSI board. (also had 5 sticks of ram turn "faulty" on this board)

next build is gunna be asus.

 

[sirvent67]

I have had several over the years, and have never had any issues with them. I have had more isues with abit, or asus that with msi.