AsRock motherboards

[ComputerGeek30]

I see more and more people on YouTube starting to use AsRock motherboards and I'm wondering if AsRock is moving up in the world? I personally think there a decent brand but they can get pretty expensive. What do you guys think?

[camerongray]

I imagine they have been getting better recently but like MSI they have a bad past.  I would still always stick with Gigabyte or ASUS, the price difference is minimal.

[DaveLembke]

I have to agree with Cameron here... I have very little trust in Asrock, MSI, and Foxconn.

My rank on boards that I would buy from budget to serious builds are:

Biostar - for low cost builds (* I buy many boards from biostar because they have been solid running systems even though usually they have lower quality parts in their construction such as electrolytic caps vs solid state caps, as well as I have found english typos in the text in their BIOS menu's although the boards run perfectly fine otherwise, as well as their VRM's almost never have heat spreaders and so overclocking is at the risk of cooking the VRM's ( although I have been running a 10% OC for 9 months with no issues 'yet' that is. ))

ASUS - for mid range builds (* Most of the boards I bought of this brand though have been 2nd hand from friends who are selling their prior gaming systems cheaply because they bought newer, but even after 3 years of hard gaming etc they keep on chugging without issues. )

Gigabyte - for serious gaming builds that I build for others in which I have to support them and I know that the motherboard will not give me any troubles. ( Gigabyte has lower cost boards available as well as premium boards )

[patio]

You're BioStar recommendation makes me cringe...

[Geek-9pm]

You're BioStar recommendation makes me cringe...

Please elucidate your insight.
Curious minds need to know. 

[camerongray]

While I do own a Biostar board in one of my machines (this is a super cheap HTPC where the requirement for the board was to have a built in CPU and HDMI and be cheap) I wouldn't ever call them a quality brand and would dare to say that MSI and AsRock would be better.

Biostar still use electrolytic capacitors on loads of their boards which is almost unbelievable by modern standards.  Other than "the boards run perfectly fine" which would apply to any motherboard brand, you have listed nothing but flaws with them.

I would then say that Gigabyte and ASUS are pretty much on par.  I would use them in a PC at any price point, nowadays the price difference between Biostar, MSI.etc and Gigabyte and ASUS is very small, at the time of posting, on Newegg the cheapest Gigabyte B85 motherboard was only $5 more than the cheapest Biostar.

[patio]

Please elucidate your insight.
Curious minds need to know. 

Personal experience...

[Geek-9pm]

About electrolytic capacitors. Something bad happe4nded some time ago that gave electrolytic caps  a bad precipitation. Now  they have performance and life expectancy that make then suitable for most applications.
Reference:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/How-to-Identify-Japanese-Electrolytic-Capacitors/595

[camerongray]

About electrolytic capacitors. Something bad happe4nded some time ago that gave electrolytic caps  a bad precipitation. Now  they have performance and life expectancy that make then suitable for most applications.

Yes, there are plenty of high quality electrolytic capacitors out there but that does not mean they are suitable for motherboards, they are still common to use in power supplies however the quality difference between different capacitor brands is important to note.  On modern motherboards it is now seen as standard to use solid capacitors.

Besides, at least on the Biostar board I own (NM70i-847) uses 'OST' branded capacitors, not seen as one of the good electrolytic brands.