MSI-Awesome Manufacture??

[ZeAliOuS]

I started this thread to see what other people think about MSI (micro star international) I belive that they are the best Tiwanese corporation to date when it comes to quality. They have been around since 1986 but have become global in the rescent years. So far I must say that I think they have made a huge impact when it comes to performance and value. When I first looked at building my PC, I shoped around high and low for what brands would truely meet my needs as a heavy gamer/graphic artist, and what I came up with were boards from ASUS, ABIT, BIOSTAR, and MSI. It seemed like all the mobo's offered exactly the same quality. Basicly I had to chose between these boards, but I didnt know how; till one day... what I did is I began calling the various companies that I was intrested in and after hours of time cycling through those anoying automated answering systems I got extreemly exauhsted, but my search wasnt over yet. I had one more to call. When I first got the automated resopnse from MSI's main US head quarters in CA, I instantly thought "Oh man not again!) But just secounds later some body actualy picked up the phone, "hello, this is **** youve reached MSI, how can I help you today" I couldnt belive my ears, at the other places that I called it took nearly an hour to get some one on the line and here they just picked up like that. Maybe it was just luck, but I got to talking with this person and they convinced me to buy from MSI. Since then I am proud to say that personaly I will never use a main board from another company again.
MSI is at it again with there newest board featuring nforce2.
The K7N2


Beautiful. This board is simply amazing.
Check out its UT2003 benchmarks compared to the other NFORCE2 boards. see the rest of the bench marks
here

It out does the rest In almost all the tests!
SO what does everyone else think about MSI?

[Wiggo]

There's no doubt the nForce2 is champ atm but here's another roundup in case ya missed it, http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1759 ;)
<center>:cheers:</center>

[ZeAliOuS]

Im going to have to disagree with that article. I think that MSI's Suppourt is the best I have ever dealt with!

[kane2g]

I personally have really good experience w. Tyan boards. But they arent really main stream, more focused on the server or bussiness side than anything else, but they do build stable boards and i usually get their human support within 3min max.
But just because they have good support doesnt meant that they are the ONLY ones with great support.
As for purchases I do look at them first and then go down the list of companies that i've dealth with in the past and had good experience.

BTW its the features that will make you buy it, but its the service that will keep you coming back! Any company knows this so they try to please as many ppl as they can. But you can never please everybody.

Just my 2 cents

[Malabooboo]

here's another nforce2 mobo roundup:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,808175,00.asp

...and their conclusions:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,808411,00.asp

[G Smith]

In all the time I have had computers I have only ever had two motherboard failures... Both boards were MSI brand.

Nuff said.

[Suicide]

I used to buy MSI exclusively 4 and 3 years ago during the P2 and (early) P3 phase... They OC'd EXTREMELY well (had a celeron 366 oc'd to 733 running stable, temp was at 39 C) on an MSI 6153, and had that same 366 oc'd to 622 in a 6163 pro w/ a slocket adapter... Not to meantion, both those boards are still in active use today and running great. But, in the last year, I've sold around 500 msi boards, and rma'd 83 athlon boards, and 45 p4 boards, all msi (had to rma a couple (under 10) other boards (combined total)). MSI's quality from my experience, has dropped the past year at least. There was a year inbetween I didn't buy MSI coz I bought an asus cuv4x-d for my dual p3 rig and kept that for a year before upgrading. Personally, I wouldn't buy MSI again. And I don't sell MSI mobo's / vid cards unless someone SPECIFICALLY requests it and is being stubborn about it; then I charge an extra $20 on the board coz 'tis 'bout what it costs for shipping to send it back.

Personally, no MSI here, and not until they start making quality over quantity again. I've been buying Albatron and Gigabyte boards almost exclusively lately (unless again, someone requests different) for new machines. Loving those boards :)

[Wiggo]

Suicide[/size]]
I used to buy MSI exclusively 4 and 3 years ago during the P2 and (early) P3 phase... They OC'd EXTREMELY well (had a celeron 366 oc'd to 733 running stable, temp was at 39 C) on an MSI 6153, and had that same 366 oc'd to 622 in a 6163 pro w/ a slocket adapter... Not to meantion, both those boards are still in active use today and running great. But, in the last year, I've sold around 500 msi boards, and rma'd 83 athlon boards, and 45 p4 boards, all msi (had to rma a couple (under 10) other boards (combined total)). MSI's quality from my experience, has dropped the past year at least. There was a year inbetween I didn't buy MSI coz I bought an asus cuv4x-d for my dual p3 rig and kept that for a year before upgrading. Personally, I wouldn't buy MSI again. And I don't sell MSI mobo's / vid cards unless someone SPECIFICALLY requests it and is being stubborn about it; then I charge an extra on the board coz 'tis 'bout what it costs for shipping to send it back.

Personally, no MSI here, and not until they start making quality over quantity again. I've been buying Albatron and Gigabyte boards almost exclusively lately (unless again, someone requests different) for new machines. Loving those boards :)

Yep pretty much the same thing here with about 1 in 5 bein' RMA'd before I just had enough of them. :(
<center>:cheers:</center>

[mcgirk]

anybody have the new GNB-max mobo? i plan on buying this board for the new system i am building. Tom's hardware gave it first place in a recent roundup and it has all the features i'm looking for; agp8x, lan, audio, firewire

ne thoughts?

[revenant]

Here's another review of that (my :)) board, in which they overclock it to the max fsb setting, and it's stable

http://www.cluboverclocker.com/reviews/motherboards/msi/k7n2l/

[Morgan_Lander]

I think MSI builds solid boards for a good price. They're not the cheapest, but they don't cost an arm and a leg like Asus and sometimes Gigabyte (they've dropped in prices tho)

[revenant]

I have to say, I even really like the red PCB. It's catchy! Seems to have started a trend, too. :)

[ZeAliOuS]

Yes I like the red pcb design also. If i was a manufacture I would offer custom colored pcb for a few extra$$ direct from them manufacture to give case moders that extra edge.

[3dboiler]

I'm currently running my AthlonXP 2000+ on the MSI KT4 Ultra and after a couple bios updates I'm loving it. Without those updates I would have thrown the sucker out the window for sure though, haha. Anyway my last board was an ABIT and it died on me. ABIT is supposed to be good quality too, so in my opinion All manufacturers send out screwy boards.

I know others who RMA'd their KT4 ultras before the bios updates. But hey, Patients is a virtue. Well maybe in my case it was just the lazyness to have to pack the damn thing back up, haha. :)

[revenant]

Yes I like the red pcb design also. If i was a manufacture I would offer custom colored pcb for a few extra$$ direct from them manufacture to give case moders that extra edge

YEAH!! I want electric blue (you know, super, knock you out of your seat blue :)) PCB with back lit (red) transparent PCI/AGP slots, red Socket A socket, and red memory/IDE/Floppy connectors. Wooo! That would be slick... :D