How the fuck does one find a good motherboard these days? By

Don't forget that Newegg and Amazon reviews are a poor sample pool. People are far more likely to make negative reviews, whereas a positive experience with a product likely won't let the person to make a review.

People are far more likely to leave a review if it didn't work than if it did perfectly, making it look far worse than it actually is. As long as it's mostly positive you should be good.

>>57978019
With the z170 especially almost all of the complaints are summed up by idiots that don't flash the bios.

Mobos failing are extremely rare.

The only thing failing is the tech illiterate user.

>>57978063
>Mobos failing are extremely rare.
Not at all. I've had a couple now where some USB port stopped working after a few years.
Also general instability/random shut downs.
And with old ones especially failing caps were not uncommon.

CPUs pretty much never fail. When RAM fails it's easy to troubleshoot and replace it. Same with storage.
But mobos can be a real bitch.

>>57978019
If you know nothing about it do like wine and buy the third cheapest one from your favorite brand.

>>57978106
That's a user issue or you're buying low quality shit.

Anyone that deals with tech knows dead USB issues can be summarized up as a user caused fault.

>>57978019
>Google potential motherboard choices
>Pick review from AnandTech et al.
>Skip to conclusion
>Make own judgement based on price/aesthetic appeal

>>57978019

Talk to enthusiasts on forums like HardOCP, Overclock.net etc... pretty much. Look at reviews from reputable sites and whatnot. As others said don't trust Newegg/Amazon reviews too much -there is a negative bias there where people are more likely to write a review if its negative experience. Any mobo can individually have a bad unit/fail eetc.. and users can of course fuck it up (bending pins).

That said, I'll make it easy for you. For Z170, I assume you want something stable and with good overclocking features and performance. Only buy from Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte. These tend to be the current 'high tier quality" mobos. Each of these have several "family" groups for performance and features. It can get confusing but typically "numbered" boards are from the lower family but can still be quality, "named" ones are higher end, and "named ones from a named family" are highest tier. You want the best? If you're going to overclock and game, then "Asus ROG Maximus VIII Hero Alpha" is one of your best bets.

>>57978045
>>57978042

That's interesting, because it's exactly the other way around with music albums. Those most likely to writer reviews are fan fags who masturbate over how great a given album supposedly is. This way the average music album is way overrated. Those who didn't like it just move on to something else rather than going to a website and bitching how they didn't like it.

>>57978629
Yea. If the album has 5 stars it's probably good, if 4.5 it's ok, if 4 it's' mediocre, and if 3.5 it's probably shit. You hardly have albums on Amazon that have less than 3.5 stars.

>>57978176
But it's way too expensive for what it actually gives. Go with the cheapest mobo from one of these brands, as long as it has all you need.

Basically: find a brand, look at what you need, get the cheapest that has all you need. The end

>>57978019
The one in the Picture it the Sli

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012N6EW6G

I bought the GA-Z170X-UD5 a few days ago because it was around the same Price as the Msi Krait X3, and Asus Z170-A. ($149)

UD5 & 3 had good overclocking reviews. I went with them because they had more Choke/Mosfets for Phase Changes, for Safer overclocking long term.

this sites search function links to other peoples reviews
http://proclockers.com/

I bought a used ASUS ROG Formula IV for my AMD Phenom II X2 and the thing works fine. In BIOS you turn off the 'Republic of Gamers' logo during startup and you actually get useful information. Don't have a window on my case so it's like having a normal mobo.

>>57978019
I bought an evga z170 ftw after my assrock died and took my 6600k with it. Fuck assrock. I was in the same boat, all the negative reviews, and I didn't know which brand to buy. I looked around and the evga had less bad reviews, and evga rma is great from what everyone says. You can't say that about ANY of the other brands.

>>57979165
EVGA mobos have been pretty bland since nvidia got out of the game. Good warranties but nothing else to make them better.

>>57979206
Bland is not bad.i just wanted something that werks. With a Intel nic.

I bought GA-Z170-HD3P like few months ago and I constantly see negative opinions about it right now, like "it cant overclock" or "it died within few weeks" and such.

Im scared.

www.logicalincrements.com

Z170?
Z170 obsolete
buy Z270

>>57978019

I have had good luck with ASUS for 4 upgrade cycles. I think the most important part is looking at caps they use and the chips for other components (USB, bluetooth, NIC, etc) so you know what OS support you will get.

I would also go and look at past history on firmware updates for the various MB manufacturers (see if they release updates past a year or so). Check what revision an MB is at, I usually don't buy the first revision so the bugs are worked out but thats just a preference.

>>57979510
The Z170 boards from major brands are being updated to work with Kaby Lake.

Though are there even any Z270 boards out yet?

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>>57978019
honestly i feel like half of the complaints about any component being DOA is to claim a fraudulent warranty, or because they couldnt figure out how to install it
i've never had a component be DOA
my mobo was rated 3/5 on newegg, still got it, works fine, good for overclocking

>>57978106
stop buying ASRock and Biostar then, faggot

>>57978019
If you want something that will just work, then get a barebones H110/B150 motherboard.

Heck I use OEM Asus H110M-K motherboards (They come in a big box and bagged instead of individual boxes) all the time in the shop and haven't had any fail yet.

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i had nothing but issues with gigabyte for both z170 and x99 with ram stability.... at stock. xmp profile is atrocious and their default timings for the other timings are pretty awful.

>pic related
my current x99 setup. same identical ram kit, processor, everything except the motherboard. the gigabyte is the x99 ultra gaming with the latest bios, beta f6a, and the other is the asus x99 strix with its latest 1401 bios. as you can see huge performance differences with the SAME ram kit... and not only that but on the asus strix i noticed my ram kit not only just has one xmp profile, but a SECOND 2666mhz xmp profile. a profile the gigabyte board didn't even detect... and yes, both ram kits are on BOTH qualified list.

i had this same issue with my z170 gaming 7 from gigabyte as well when i had my 6700k with a dual channel 3000mhz kit from both corsair and gskill.

>>57978019

why would you buy a motherboard now with PCI-Express 4.0 coming soon™?

>>57978019
Using an Asus Z170 E and just made my buddy a computer with a Z170 AR and have had no problems

>>57978019
Or you could be me and my friends still on AM3+ with a 970A-UD3P Gigabyte and literally zero complaints or problems between all, oh, about 5-6 of us with the same board lol.

>>57979510
The ONLY difference is optane support
And optane ssdram isn't even close to existing at the moment

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>>57982859
S O O N

>>57982859
>>57983072
My dad is working on the PCIe 4.0 interface, it's still quite a ways away, not close to being finished even on the manufacturer side, companies like sandisk, Intel and hyundai are still trying to get the protocol right before they can even start making PCIe 4.0 compliant hardware, which even THEN will take months to reach a consumer level
Don't expect it early in the year, at all

>>57983119
I wasn't aware that Nintendo was working on PCI Express, good for them.

>>57978130
>tech
go back to >>reddit

>>57978063
>try to flash after booting into BIOS
>found server
>downloading files
>INTERNET CONNECTION FAILED
>every single time
That's what I get for buying ASROCK I guess.

>>57983072
>2GB/s
ayy ssd nvme memes will actually work at specified speeds!

>>57983255
P E R L A N E
E
R
L
A
N
E

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>>57983072
>current 2.0 x16 gpus will be able to work through 4.0 M2

>does it have all solid caps?
>is it made by asus?
there, it's that easy

>>57978063
Most likely reviews when they 1st came out, check Amazon's reviews

>>57978063
>Mobos failing are extremely rare.
Pretty much this
Mobos are to a large extent just static circuits with static components. Not much can go wrong in a couple of capacitors and resistors

every motherboard has bad reviews because every motherboard is chinkshit
Just get a Z170 with the slot speeds you need and don't spend too much

Gigabyte, it's simply the most reliable in the long run.

I've only had one issue with a mobo and it was a MSI one. The cpu pins were already bent when I took the black cap off.

>>57983337
>every motherboard is chinkshit
that's my impression as well.
well, either some blingy gaymur shit made by a taiwanese company or a bland server board with no features.

>>57983254
No that's what you get for not downloading the Instant Flash BIOS to your USB drive and then having UEFI find it locally to install.

I JUST flashed my Z97 Extreme4 from v1.30 to v2.50

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>>57983757
>>57983254
I just downloaded some gigabyte program and pressed "update bios"

>>57983254
Try a different server, that worked for me.