Well, I'm not the hippest on all this, but a systems tech guy I know who really knows his hardware (and software for that matter) buys Asus boards for himself. His claim is that they never are the first to market a board with new chipsets or other subsystem goodies, like integrated audio or networking. They come out months or so later with allegedly a superior product since they've taken the time to work out any possible major bugs.
I have bought and used MSI and DFI myself and am totally happy with the systems I've built on them. They work flawlessly and give no hint of trouble. Of course, you have to do a little bit of snooping around (harder than a lit search for a paper or proposal since you don't really know what sites or sources are reliable or if they are, to what degree) to see what components (CPUs, RAM sticks, CDROM drives, what have you... ) work optimally with the mobo.
The problem, though, is in the nature of electronics manufacturing and the nature of electronic devices themselves. A case in point would be CPUs; often the clock speed grades differentiate among the "best" of a lot cut from a wafer if they are the fastest while the slower are the "less than perfect" ones from the lot. Thus, it may be possible on something as complex as a motherboard to get lemon... more than once, even on an acclaimed model.
Topic: What are the best vendors around at the moment? (Read 4255 times)