So , what are your opinion!

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Computechnix

"Your One Stop Computer Needs"

In my opinion, Tyan makes the most reliable motherboard hand down and Soyo and Asus is pretty impressive also.

I'd have to say
MSI
they have some of the most stable boards around, with out sacrificing lots of performance

I dunno... I like Abit because they usually have good overclocking features and their boards are relatively stable. IWILL is good too, i especially like they're packaging

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SystemLogic.net - Editor

2 Pentium III 1 Ghz 2 Alpha HeatSinks with 38 CFM Delta Fan | Abit VP6 | 512 MB PC-166 | Antec SX1030B with 4 High Output 80mm Sunon Fans | 2 30 GB IBm 75 Drives in RAID 0 | Plextor PlexWriter 16/10/40A | Mitsumi 40x CD-ROM | Generic 3.5" Floppy Drive | VisionTek Geforce 2 GTS 32 MB | Sound Blaster Live! Value | 3com NIC | Diamond Supra Modem | 19" Sony Monitor | Klipsch Promedia V.2-400 Speakers | PcMods.com Sound Sensitive Blue

"No more yankie my wankie. The Donger need food!"

More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.

A person's a fool if they follow one brand motherboard manufacturer just because they are THAT BRAND.

For example:

Favorite DDR board: Biostar M7MIA
Favorite KT133A board: Asus A7V133
Favorite KT133 board: MSI K7TPro2A
Favorite PII board: Asus CUSL2....

...and so on.

Note any name brand favoritism? Fact is, every brand has it's shining star and it's flop. A company should not have it's entire product line judged either way on one sampling.

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Hey. What kind of party is this? There's no booze and only one hooker. -- Bender (Futurama)

You mean PIII right.

I'll tend to agree with you somewhat about shinning stars
by each motherboard maker.

But the question was a fair one. The average user don't get to
see and use as many boards as you or I might.

The average end user opinions are based upon their experiences with one or two MB makers. Therefore, bias to one of those makers.

But even with people like us, you have to admit, there is
a "favorite" that stands out above the rest.

For me it used to be the ASUS AMD based boards.
iWill has started to win me over with their KK and KA
series boards.

So count me as a iWill fan!

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Serious Soldier

Yeah. I meant PIII. Favorite PII would be the ol' P2B.

Anyhoo... I'm concerned because I see so many people shoot themselves in the foot by sticking with "a brand they know".

People that had good luck with an Asus K7M or A7V want to upgrade and they get the A7A266. Who cares if it's slow and has issues... DAMMIT! IT'S AN ASUS.

Why does someone HAVE TO make a mistake BEFORE they heed the advice of someone in the industry... and I'm not talking about review sites because they often always get cherry picked samples.

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Hey. What kind of party is this? There's no booze and only one hooker. -- Bender (Futurama)

That's where I think forum's and hardware review site
should be must reading for anyone thinking about
upgrading or building a comp.

Your best advise usually comes from a forum just like this
one.

The old saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". This holds true for alot of folks.


I would drop iWill in a heartbeat if some new super board
came out that beat all other boards.

I have no brand loyalty, just favorites.

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Serious Soldier

There's also the list of motherboards to avoid at all costs. Some manufacturers have their boards put on that list every time they come out with a new one.

yea I agree with you guys on this. it really all comes down to the individual motherboards. I'm into SMP machines so I'll be more attracted by the brands with the dual mobos. Since Abit came out with the BP6 which was a great innovation, I've been more inclined to look at their motherboard offerings, namely the VP6. I've heard issues with other dual mobos that compete with the VP6 but really haven't heard any problems with the vp6 itself. It's a good price, has RAID onboard, so decided to get it. The performance was great while it lasted but thanks to my renegade power supply the board is no more...

I guess if you have a good experience with a certain motherboard manufacturer you assume their other products would provide the same experience. I guess that's true for anything you buy though. People always have preferences based on their own experience or word of mouth from others. Brand names are powerful though... if a company has had a good reputation, a few bad apples won't do much to tarnish their glory unless all they have is bad apples.

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SystemLogic.net - Editor

2 Pentium III 1 Ghz 2 Alpha HeatSinks with 38 CFM Delta Fan | Abit VP6 | 512 MB PC-166 | Antec SX1030B with 4 High Output 80mm Sunon Fans | 2 30 GB IBm 75 Drives in RAID 0 | Plextor PlexWriter 16/10/40A | Mitsumi 40x CD-ROM | Generic 3.5" Floppy Drive | VisionTek Geforce 2 GTS 32 MB | Sound Blaster Live! Value | 3com NIC | Diamond Supra Modem | 19" Sony Monitor | Klipsch Promedia V.2-400 Speakers | PcMods.com Sound Sensitive Blue

"No more yankie my wankie. The Donger need food!"

More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.

*Cough* PC CHIPS *Cough*

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"And knowing is half the battle!"

Call the doctor!!! Cutriss has a "CHIP" caught in this throat!

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Serious Soldier

Yeah, and it's making me want to throw up...

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"And knowing is half the battle!"

I would have to say that Tyan makes the most impressive high-end 266 athlon boards, but I also agree that ASUS is definately a contender

It depends on what you want, who your target market is. For my own system, Abit has come out with the best boards the past few times around, lots of features, stable, and great overclocking ability. ASUS makes great boards too, but their high price hasn't justified my purchase of them in recent times, as other boards equal in performance have more features and cost less.
Boards I've recently used in building systems have included the Iwill KK266 (which I thought was a great board, and it's CMI onboard sound was the best onboard I'd ever heard) and the ECS K7S5A, which I've become impressed with as a low-cost but well made budget board for the user who wants an inexpensive system, but is smart enough to look beyond the mass retail market. I used to use AOpen boards a lot too, they may be less noticed in the industry, but are very stable, and have a good price point.
I'm not doing much with Socket 370 boards anymore, and haven't done a P4 system yet for anyone, I just can't justify the price of Intel's CPU's when AMD can equal/beat them in performance and compatibility for a lot less. I'd probably use ASUS for S370 boards, I'd wait for a Pentium 4 setup until I see some i845 DDR setups.

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AMD Athlon XP 2000+ aircooled
ASUS A7V8X-RAID mobo, Enet, SATA, 1394, USB2.0, all dat junk
512MB Crucial DDR
AOpen HX-08 case, Enermax 430wPS
80GB WD Spedial Edition 8MB cache
(all SCSI) Plextor 40x CD, Yamaha 8x4x24 CDRW, Seagate DDS2 DAT
Visiontek Geforce3 Ti200
Adaptec 2930U2 SCSI
ATI TV Wonder
SB Audigy MP3+