Quote Originally Posted by LoneWolf View Post
First off, I've bought ASUS and Gigabyte. Gigabyte is great stuff. ASUS is often decent, though I haven't bought as much from them recently due to pricing, and what I have heard from reputable friends on customer service experiences. Still, good boards.

I've owned ASUS, Intel, Gigabyte, MSI, Abit, and AOpen over the past fifteen years, starting with 486 processors. This Asrock board is my first by them --but it's every bit the quality those have been. Your "need to be cheap" comment implies that Asrock is still a budget arm of ASUS, which it is no longer. They have been spun off, and they make budget AND enthusiast boards, with features and quality to match.

The ASUS rep is correct in that PCIe 3.0 support is dependent on the processor. Every manufacturer has said in their documentation that an Ivy Bridge processor is required for PCIe 3.0, so I don't see what the issue is here. As for the "overclocked switches" bit, whether it is true or not, the comment sounds like someone trying to disparage their competition. PCIe 3.0 support is there, when the processors come out. Most informed buyers are choosing mainboards with PCIe 3.0 support not because of that feature, but it is a bonus on top of an already good mainboard.

I doubt I'll change your mind --but unless you own one, I don't think you have the ability to say whether their product is good or not, as you haven't experienced their product. I'm happy with mine, and wish you luck.
No you will not change my mind and I have every right to say what I feel even if I do not own one because I was going to buy one but they are still not a Tier 1 company and £200+ is too high for some added features using "overclocked switches" that others are going to do with simple Bios upgrade!

I seriously doubt the Asus rep would make it up as that would make them look bad and you even agree with him!

Right now there is no proper PCI-E 3.0 hardware or certs so nobody can claim official support for it!

Intel are ripping peeps of with 3 sockets in 3 years and these Z68 are basically hybrid mongrels adding PCI-E 3.0 (for now) and USB 3.0 support with add bolt on chips, at least 2 of the SATA 6Gbs ports are native now!

I remember the same long ago when Mobos had SDRAM+DDR slots and USB1.1+2.0 ports!

Every day I look/read and try hard not to upgrade for sake of it as I used to do till 2 years ago!

The Extreme 7 looks nice but lack of heatpipe in SB Chipset worried me as Vortex did review on Extreme 4 and says SB gets pretty hot!

I also have no need for the on-board video outputs (4 on one model) and would prefer Intel made CPU's that were not CPUGPU's where FSB/BLK could once again be clocked!

Any numpty can raise a multi and as you know OC'ing is a hobby.