Gigabyte Motherboards - Quality?

[Ghastly]

I bought my first (and last!!!!) Gigabyte motherboard about 14 years ago - to say that it was "problematic" is to say that the Pacific has "a little water".

I was considering doing a new build, and while my last few Abit boards were not so hot, Asus has always been good to me. However, the P5Q(x) boards seem to be problematic - so much so that I'm tempted to try the Gigabyte GA-EP45T for a DDR3/1333 build.  It's cheap, has all the features I need - but I get hung up on the name.

Generally, have you folks been having good luck with Gigabyte boards over the last few years?

TIA!

[Vulcan]

Last few gigabyte boards I've had have been trouble-free (mostly AMD Athlon XP/ Athlon 64 chipsets).

[ImADot]

I've got a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P in the machine I built at the end of November last year.  Have had zero problems with it.

[alskahawk]

 My Giga EP45-UD3R board works good. Actually got a little better 3dmark score with it v a XFX LTi board.

[llama]

Most of the top-tier mainboard manufacturers have had the occasional "dud" board once in a while, but you need to look at their success rate overall. Generally, I wouldn't have any particular issue with anything from Gigabyte, Asus, Abit, and a few others.

The thing to do is do a google search and newegg search for the specific board you want, and start checking out the overclocking forums and newegg user comments and ratings. In just a few minutes you can get a very good sense of whatever odd problems a particular board may have (and trust me - EVERY board has at least one weird little problem. No board is perfect.) One of the nuances of my gaming PC's mainboad is that the voltages are a little low compared to their BIOS settings when overclocking, and this is easily compensated by going a little higher in the BIOS then you think you should, or somehthing called the "pencil trace trick."

-Llama

[Getback]

Most of the top-tier mainboard manufacturers have had the occasional "dud" board once in a while, but you need to look at their success rate overall. Generally, I wouldn't have any particular issue with anything from Gigabyte, Asus, Abit, and a few others.

The thing to do is do a google search and newegg search for the specific board you want, and start checking out the overclocking forums and newegg user comments and ratings. In just a few minutes you can get a very good sense of whatever odd problems a particular board may have (and trust me - EVERY board has at least one weird little problem. No board is perfect.) One of the nuances of my gaming PC's mainboad is that the voltages are a little low compared to their BIOS settings when overclocking, and this is easily compensated by going a little higher in the BIOS then you think you should, or somehthing called the "pencil trace trick."

-Llama

I think Abit is out of business.

[TilDeath]

I use that board in a lot of builds ROCK solid

[Dragon]

I use that board in a lot of builds ROCK solid

One of those builds was mine, absolutely no problems with it.  I picked up the DDR2 version for my last build and also had 0 problems with it.

[BaldEagl]

I haven't used one personally but they are very highly rated boards by consumers and a lot of people on this forum are using them.

[Anaxogoras]

Mine works fine but I've only had it for a month.

[comet61]

On NewEgg, there are many comparisons concerning ASUS and Gigabyte that are almost equal. I believe that GB MB's rank near the top as does ASUS from my experience and others. I've always been an AMD/ASUS guy (still am), however, a few of my friends have gone over to Gigabyte with great results. Intel/AMD boards were pretty much 50-50. I almost bought a GB board, but instead bought 2 ASUS boards: M4A79 (AM2/AM2+[AM3 Compatible] and a M4A78 Plus (AM2/AM2+). The M4A79 board will have a Phenom II 940 x4 and the M4A78 Plus will have the Athlon x2 (Kuma) 2.8Ghz. I don't think you can go wrong with a Gigabyte if that is the route you want to go. Good Luck!

[CRYPTIC]

I know a couple of builders and they swear by gigabyte. One said ASUS comes out with the technology and gigabyte makes it better just tweaks it ASUS stuff.I bought one Gigabyte board and did the auto update to the bios and boom fried never worked again. I stick with ASUS from then on.

[Ghastly]

Thanks gents - that's what I needed to know.  I'll move forward with the recommendation then. (It's for my step-son - I'm still using my last build - watercooled AMD 4600+/7800 GTX, which is getting a bit long in the tooth, but plays what I play fine.)

You sure get a lot more bang for the buck these days.

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