Asus brand perception/reputation

[catman]

Greetings everyone!

I have always used forums, including this one, to answer my many questions but this is the first time I have ever posted anything, so please forgive any mistakes I make. Thanks

I am looking to build a gaming rig (hopefully for Christmas) and I just about have all my items chosen but I wanted other peoples' opinion on one thing before I finalise anything (specifically the motherboard); how is Asus perceived as a brand? This may sound odd but I have always seen technology brands like Acer and Asus as the lower end, cheap, low quality manufacturers whose products are bought by people just wanting a basic computer and so have actively refused to buy anything they produce. I still think this about Acer, but after reading many a review and community discussions which praise Asus' products I am unsure about Asus. So I just wanted to get your opinions on this, as I have my eye on a couple of their motherboards.

Thanks in advance guys!

[scaryjim]

I've always sworn by ASUS, practically to the point of being a fanboy. Built tens of machines with their mobos without any issue at all, and my current rig rocks both an ASUS mobo and an ASUS graphics card.

The only bad thing about them is that their download servers suck serious amounts of booty - a lot of the time you're lucky to get more than 1KB/s out of it if you're downloading drivers. But the hardware is, in my exeperience, rock solid.

[Sputnik]

I always thought Asus were a good brand for motherboards, Even the budget brand ASrock (which I believe is a part of Asus) make some decent boards.

As you know Abit have dropped out of the motherboard market leaving less choice now.

I'd say your best bet is to post which CPU & Memory you have and your other requirements. Then someone will be able to tell you the best board to match what you need.

[mac124]

Can't go far wrong with Asus imho, used numerous of their mobo's etc in the past with only one failure, and you will hear of failure no matter which brand you go for.

[catman]

Wow, wasn't expecting such quick replies

I guess I was wrong then! Which is good since I really like a couple of theirs (and the only other motherboard I was looking at was a Gigabyte one, and that had a very high proportion of complaints compared to Asus).

What I'm looking at is:
Intel i7 950
Corsair Dominator 3x2GB 1600MHz (or the Corsair XMS3 of the same specification, but the Dominator looks so much better)
Gigabyte Super Overclock GTX 460 1GB (with plans to purchase another for SLI in the future)

After reading what felt like the whole internet researching, I've narrowed it down to the Asus P6X58D-E or the newer Asus Sabertooth X58 (and the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R before I read all the problems).

[kalniel]

Wow, wasn't expecting such quick replies

I guess I was wrong then! Which is good since I really like a couple of theirs (and the only other motherboard I was looking at was a Gigabyte one, and that had a very high proportion of complaints compared to Asus).

I doubt the proportion is higher - gigabtye sell a HUGE number of ud3rs! I went with them because the support provided seems great.

Asus are a great make, but as noted their website/download site isn't really up to the task. The support's not quite as good as ASRock or Gigabyte in my opinion either.

[catman]

Thanks for all the response, I've looked at the UD3R again and now I cant decide between it and the Sabertooth (dropped the P6X58D-E mainly due to lack of e-SATA support which I need).
The UD3R has another PCIe 2.0 port making SLI much easier (while leaving room for other cards), as SLI on the Sabertooth leaves worryingly little space for the top card to cool, but the Sabertooth is newer, gained high praise in reviews and looks much cooler (not such an important factor). Both have e-SATA and USB 3.0, but as you say, Gigabyte has sold much much more so there is richer community support in case anything goes wrong and is better at overclocking according to some reviews (something I will consider doing in the future to try to keep it up to date with the Sandy Bridge processors out in weeks).

So do you think it is a matter of preference of manufacturer or have I missed something owners of these motherboards can tell me from their experience?

[PC4Free]

I like ASUS all the boards are solid - The SaberTooth got fantastic reviews, but GigaByte is also a great brand.

However, I'm not having a great time with the ASUS support atm..

I highly recommend the motherboards

[catman]

Thanks to everyone who replied, you've told me things I never thought about.

While I now see Asus as a trusted manufacturer, I think I'm now going to go with the Gigabyte board due to the better SLI options and it being slightly cheaper. Just a shame it doesn't look so nice

Thanks again!

[Terbinator]

At the price the Sabertooth would be my choice, but in general, i would try and go with Gigabyte personally.

[c.ruel]

I like asus because of their Q connect thing or whatever it is called ... pretty small reason I guess to prefer them over gigabyte. Although I have also built as system using a gigabyte motherboard and I liked that board as well but I guess my next motherboard will probably be an ASUS.

[this_is_gav]

Other than the rather notoriously unstable A8R32-MVP Deluxe, I think the only other complaint I've had is that some of the higher-end boards don't like having extra SATA controllers. I'm talking fairly recent boards with 6 or 8 ports onboard, then you try and add a PCIe SATA/RAID controller, and they just doesn't let you use all the ports - as soon as you hook up drives to all ports you get resource errors during POST and/or frequent freezing in Windows when you're accessing drives on the add-in card.

I'd assumed it was just my 2 cards (different chipsets), but it seems it's a very frequent problem with high-end ASUS boards, so I've had to move away from ASUS for my own systems (not had much luck elsewhere mind!). It's a fairly niche problem (not many use that many drives concurrently) so it won't affect many.

[catman]

It seems that Asus make boards just as good as other well known manufacturers so I guess it is up to the buyer's preference for which you go for. You wont be making a bad choice if you go Asus. Great news!

[shaithis]

Went off of them about a year ago after a string of poor boards with various issues.

From cold boot issues, RAID cards not being seen if more then 1 PCI-E card is being used, screaming caps/vrms etc, I gave up on them and moved to gigabyte.

Haven't had a single niggle with any of the Gigabyte boards so far.

[catman]

It would seem there is no major reason not to go with Asus, people experience problems no worse than with other brands. It's just which you prefer from your experience I guess.

That's great, thanks everyone!

[patters78]

always brought asus motherboards not because they were asus but they were the best for my budget at the time