Best motherboard

[krazykev64]

I'm hoping to change my motherboard in the next year or so but I'm interested in knowing what is the best brand to go for.
my current board is around 5 years old now and runs like a dream. The board is an ASROCK P43D TWINS 1394. It has solid state caps fitted as standard although i don't know what make they are.

So what brands on the market at present have a good reliability record? I don't want a board that is going to fail after 2 or 3 years. even my last board which was an ABIT KG7R had no problems in the 7 years i owned it. it was still going well when i sold it. I'm looking for something that will give at least 7 years reliable service.

My requirements of the board is
2 PCI slots
3 PCI-x1 slots
1 or 2 PCI-x16 slots
6 or more SATA ports
6 or more USB ports or rear panel
Gigabit NIC
4 memory slots
Intel CPU
3 Internal USB headers
3 or more fan headers
Full ATX Format
At least 1 PS2 port (or combo PS2)

[Topcat]

Re: Best motherboard

Thats like asking a bunch of car guys what brand is best.......or a group of sugar fiends which soda is best..... Everyone will have their own opinion....and mine = SUPERMICRO.

[mariushm]

Re: Best motherboard

It would help knowing where you're located. Since you linked to ebay.co.uk in some other thread, I assume Europe.

Anyway, this would fit your description: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128714

Cheaper but should be fine: http://www.amazon.com/ASRock-Z97-ANN.../dp/B00LJ3GB78

[stj]

Re: Best motherboard

if your buying in the u.k. then check ebuyer.com first.
http://www.ebuyer.com/

[ratdude747]

Re: Best motherboard

My favorites:

Best: Supermicro and Tyan

Next Best: MSI and Gigabyte

Jury's out: Asus (their newer stuff seems decent but I've been burned too many times).

Disclaimer: I have't done a new build in ages... I mostly rock older workstations (mid-later 2000's)... But I've seen and heard things.

Remember: Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one and it's bound to smell like shit.

[Topcat]

Re: Best motherboard

The last NEW high-end build I did for myself was in Feb 2010, when I built 'supermama', my home system, built on a supermicro X8DAI. I bought the barebones supermicro case as well. Still going strong today, running 24/7/365. The only downtime caused by failure was when the AMCC BBU batt died, I powered it down to replace it. It will not allow write caching to be enabled with the BBU in non-operational state, and it performs like poo without it enabled. It will be 5 years old this February.....its just getting broken in. The other Supermicro workstations I have were pieced together from used hardware or new-old-stock I scored cheap. I've done some recent budget builds for other people lately, I'm with ratdude, MSI or gigabyte is best for these types of builds. Forget you ever heard the word 'ASUS'....

[Compgeke]

Re: Best motherboard

Honestly I've had good luck with Asus myself and really shit luck with ASRock. I've heard people who swear either way but as said before you'll never get an answer.

I would personally just go on newegg or whatever and start looking and then compile a list of what fits. After that go back through and trim it down by reviews (stuff like premature failures or random BIOS update issues), price, etc.

[krazykev64]

Re: Best motherboard

I'm not actually trying to find the best individual make and model. I'm more interested to know which makes is currently the most reliable and are getting the best reviews. The specs are basisly what i want on the particular board so it will meet my needs.
i aint into gaming and i dont want a top end board. im a more of a middle of the road sort of guy. in other words i dont want some basic £30 board and i dont want to pay over £250.
The board does not even have to have on-board sound or video although most boards now have sound and video is normally from the CPU. What I do want is a modern chip set that supports the latest CPU's.
The Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H looks like a good board

[Hondaman]

Re: Best motherboard

I've had good luck the last few years with Gigabyte. Also, IIRC, some Gigabytes have a higher maximum RAM capacity than some other brands.

[c_hegge]

Re: Best motherboard

What I do want is a modern chip set that supports the latest CPU's.
The Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H looks like a good board

The GA-Z77-D3H is two generations behind now and does not support the latest CPUs. The current model would be the GA-Z97-D3H, or GA-Z97X-UD3H (the difference being that the latter has a thicker PCB with more copper, a beefed up VRM and Japanese caps).

[kc8adu]

Re: Best motherboard

worry about this next year when you are ready.
its a moving target.

[BigTroll]

Re: Best motherboard

Ive had good luck with Gigabyte but have honestly bought lots of Biostar crap and allthough they seem to have a bad rep for OST caps if you replace them they last along time. also have had the best luck with intel boards but they have seemed to exit the motherboard business.

[shovenose]

Re: Best motherboard

MSI for consumer and Supermicro for server.

[Topcat]

Re: Best motherboard

MSI for consumer and Supermicro for server & workstation.

Fixed.

[ratdude747]

Re: Best motherboard

Fixed.

Seconded.

[dragos2009]

Re: Best motherboard

i would recommend you this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...tem=13-128-723 it has every thing you want but has only 1 PCI instead of 2 you wanted

[Majestyk]

Re: Best motherboard

I used to go with Tyan for ages until the company was sold about one or two years ago. Supermicro has always been the strongest competitor and today is #1 for me.
I buy any motherboard as long as there are absolutely no coloured slots, sockets or connectors on it - just green, white and black and I´m happy.

A very fine ATX board for workstations for me is the Supermicro X10SAE. Combined with a V3 Quad Core Xeon, a fast SSD and you are fine.

As for more more consumer level stuff I´d agree with the mayority here and go for Gigabyte.
I had severe problems with ASROCK arund 2006-2009 and therefore abandoned this brand.

[ratdude747]

Re: Best motherboard

I didn't know tyan had been sold. Damn. Luckily mine is a s2895 thunder K8WE from around 2006.

[Majestyk]

Re: Best motherboard

The S2895 is a heck of a board. During that period Tyan were still at their zenith.

I bought myself a S5365 (dual sossaman, low power) in 2006 for my mailserver. It´been running non stop till today without any issues.

After Tyan was sold, they got dropped by some distributors (at least in Europe) and today I would not even know where to order a Tyan board. On Ebay there only seems to be second hand stuff.