Question What is the quality situation with motherboards in 2023?

[Photonfanatic]

Hi all, I'm trying to find a good motherboard. But it seems like everywhere you look there's quality issues. More than usual.

I've heard that Gigabyte and Asus have both exited their "golden age" of high quality, and have now entered a stage of lesser quality. Is this true? If not, what does that leave me with... Should I give Asrock a shot?

I've had to RMA 2 boards in two months, both were Gigabyte and Asus z790 boards. So I'm starting to believe all the talk about the quality of motherboards going downhill. But is it all just talk?

Thank you

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

i don't know which "golden age" you speak of.
i've been building custom systems for over 20 years and have always run into DOA, quick malfunctions, necessary updates before full optimization, etc, etc even with the highest-end options.

the only thing i see getting worse is the control software offered by the biggest names out there.
what may have been a simple application with a few windows of data have mostly become huge applications with 20+ processes taking up bits of system-wide usage but not offering much more than simple OC & LED tools.
many of them also starting to force users to run them for specific updates that for some reason do not get offered on the original product support pages anymore.

 

[Lafong]

I haven't seen anything but anecdotes....as opposed to a formal study from which you might legitimately draw conclusions.

If there is nothing but anecdotes, it's hard to not draw conclusions from them alone...even if not valid statistically.

My anecdote, signifying almost nothing:

I've had eventual failures with Intel and Asus boards...after 3 or 4 years.

I've had a DOA with AsRock. Currently using it's replacement which has been perfect for 7 years.

Gigabyte: owned only 1 and it was fine. Used it for maybe 4 years.

MSI: never owned one, but it will likely be used in my next build.

Get the features you need; cross your fingers; hope REAL HARD. I have no reason to expect the situation to improve. We are decades into commodity-land and all that implies.

In my experience, motherboards are the least reliable major component in a PC.