The Motherboard tier list

[Merreck]

Have had a recent bad experience with ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming Motherboards... not sure if i just got 3 bad ones in a row (poor finish quality, scratches, smudges, burns, weird finger prints, Standby power led blinking and not even turning on, dead USB Controller), and am wondering if there is another motherboard in same price range 145-160 euro (netherlands) that offers the same performance and stability.

i thought the best choice was the ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming, or just ASUS in general, part of me still does, but maybe i just need reassurance that my initial ASUS brand choice is good, if anyone can suggest another ASUS model that would also be appreciated.

Intel I5-6600K
ASUS GTX 960
8gb (2x4gb) LPX 2133mhz
Seasonic M12II evo
Plans to OC? not right now, and not for atleast a year or 2
usage, Games mostly.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Sounds like you're getting used or refurbished boards. ASUS "IS" a good, reliable brand in my experience. I try to stick to ASUS and Gigabyte boards, but will opt for an ASRock board if the price is right. I avoid MSI as I've had too many issues with their boards in the past and while they may have improved their quality control, I have a bad taste in my mouth from past experiences.

 

[Merreck]

Sounds like you're getting used or refurbished boards. ASUS "IS" a good, reliable brand in my experience. I try to stick to ASUS and Gigabyte boards, but will opt for an ASRock board if the price is right. I avoid MSI as I've had too many issues with their boards in the past and while they may have improved their quality control, I have a bad taste in my mouth from past experiences.

I have pictures to show you what i found on the 2 factory fresh motherboards... i thought the same about ASUS myself... till this crap happened... im getting my fourth board today, they said its fresh from a new batch of mobos directly from the supplier... not sure on how and where to post the pictures should you be interested in seeing then.... however i can guarantee 2 outta 3 were not refurbished or used units.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Then I think you just have extremely bad luck, and should write the following letter to God.


"Dear Motherboard Gods, why do you hate me.

Thanks,
Merreck."


Of course, aside from the fact that you're seeing physical issues on the boards themselves, I'd say that normally we'd be pretty sure that your problem is something OTHER than the board.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Your half page post was deleted. This is not the place for that. Start a thread and post it there. I'll PM you the contents of your post so you don't have to start from scratch.

 

[van Rhyn]

When will LGA 1151 be added?

I will be building several computers for friends soon, and I appreciate having professional and expert opinions on the tech I'm putting in their systems. Pretty much every system will be Skylake.

 

[Darkbreeze]

As I keep saying, if you read back a page or two, you'll realize that in all probability, it won't, ever.

 

[manleysteele]

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/asus-rog-rampage-v-edition-10-review,1.html

I really like the layout of this motherboard. Unless there's an issue I'm missing, this layout should be copied going forward. Also, the sata connections finally make sense compared to the horrible options that have been around for most of the present generation.

Update: BTW the thing costs $589, so it's not for everyone, including me.

Update 2: EATX 12 x 10.7

 

[ChumpBender]

I'm currently spending far too much of my time looking at motherboards and trying to decide what I want!

The setup I'm going to have will be something like:-

Intel I5-6600K
ASUS Strix GTX 1070
16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (Kingston Fury)

I'll be using it for gaming and would like the ability to OC (although I have no experience with OCing, so a board which makes this easier would be a bonus)

The motherboards I've got on the shortlist are Asus Pro Gaming Aura (to go with the AURA on the 1070) / Asus Maximus VIII Hero (to go with the AURA on the 1070) / ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7 / ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K6+ / Gigabyte Z170X 5.

My top choices would be either of the Asus boards to match the RGB on the GPU, unless there is a huge amount of difference on performance / features between the listed boards.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[van Rhyn]

If you head over to UserBenchmark and use their build comparison, you can choose your parts and put them against the other using the benchmark results of people who have those products. If you strictly want to know about overclocking capability then leave out everything but the motherboard and cpu. That will give you a larger pool of information to view. Keeping it to the two also avoids narrowing things down to where you can't find a comparable system with those parts. If you want to know how ram performs based on the motherboard you may try those two together as well.
Give it a shot.

 

[RedLine05]

Darkbreeze,
Please update this tier list. You are a mod, so you can edit posts, right?
Also Meteor won't care even if you update this list because he/she won't be visiting this site anyways.

 

[Seeking_Gamer_2]

Best guide, this is the reason why I like Tom's Hardware!

 

[Bungle11]

No AM4 list?

 

[alif_jamil]

I have a little question. What's the difference between 3+2 VRM versus 4+1 VRM?
Why is the latter considered better?

 

[Darkbreeze]

The number preceding the plus sign (4, 6, and 8 in those examples) is indicative of the number of phases dedicated to the CPU, thus a 6+2 phase power design will dedicate 6 phases to cleaning CPU power. The number after the plus is for other components, often RAM or HT (HyperTransport) for AMD. Just like the CPU, more phases to RAM will help control voltage supply and allow for greater overclocking, but the RAM phases are significantly less impactful than the CPU phases.

As a general rule, you can count the number of chokes flanking the socket to determine the CPU power phases. Eight chokes, in the instance of our MSI board in the video, corresponds to the 8+X phase power design.

So, depending on what you want to do with the board, for overclocking purposes a 4+1 is probably better since 4 phases will be dedicated to the CPU. Memory performance might be worse though, or other components might suffer, and in reality I personally would never bother with a board that had less than 6+2 phase power, even if I wasn't planning to overclock. I would want minimum of 8+2, preferably 10 or 12 phase, if overclocking was intended.

 

[alif_jamil]

@darkbreeze: Sweet. Thanks! btw, which thread is that quoted from? Unfortunately I can't quote anyone or use much features on this forum as I use ie11 to browse and it's a stub.

 

[Darkbreeze]

https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1229-anatomy-of-a-motherboard-what-is-a-vrm-mosfet?showall=1

 

[alif_jamil]

@darkbreeze: Super thanks!
PS: I skimmed through that article a few weeks back, but I guess I was overwhelmed by the blue+black color theme of that mobo; saved its image for reference and closed the tab 😛

 

[Darkbreeze]

Let's keep in mind, as I said before, this thread no longer has active support. What it is, is likely all it will EVER be.

 

[jankerson]

Here is a useful guide for those who are buying Z390 motherboards and plan on overclocking.

https://i.redd.it/6j8i71dbrxv11.png

And a video about the budget Z390 motherboard VRMS etc.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZcqw-K1drY&t=829s

 

[jankerson]

Here is a good MB tier list that is good and well thought out.

Motherboard Tier List (EOL)

newer version can be found here: Credit to: @Jurrunio @GoldenLag The following list is based on facts, ranked on power delivery and known problems. The list will include modern motherboards for both Intel and AMD chips From Asus, Asrock, Biostar EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, NZXT and Supermicro (chipsets ...

linustechtips.com