Best BIOS support for "medium to high-end" board

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x509

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Which vendor(s) have good or bad BIOS support, among ASUS, EVGA, MSI and Gigabyte? I haven't yet decided on AMD or Intel CPU, but I want to pick just one or two vendors to simplify the number of choices.

I'm starting to plan my next build. For maybe 20 years now I have used ASUS and I have been generally happy with their BIOS support.But last year a friend got royally, royally screwed over by ASUS RMA when his new board was defective. They blamed it on "bent socket pins." :censored:

So as much as I like ASUS BIOS support, I'm open to the idea of getting a board from another vendor. :) My friend ended up with a board from a different vendor. BIOS seemed OK, but the actual screens had very poor graphics and seemed hard to navigate.
 
owcraftsman

owcraftsman

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MSI bios are the best IMHO Asus can be a bit complicated and filled with things most folks never use. MSI has a simple and advanced bios mode of which I always use the advanced. That said updates are often as needed and well supported based on my experience.
 
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Mega6

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owcraftsman said:
MSI bios are the best IMHO Asus can be a bit complicated and filled with things most folks never use. MSI has a simple and advanced bios mode of which I always use the advanced. That said updates are often as needed and well supported based on my experience.
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Thanks, I have a couple old 990FX MSI boards that seem ok. No overclock, but the quality is good since one has been running mythtv 24/7/365 for like 7 years.
 
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x509

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owcraftsman said:
MSI bios are the best IMHO Asus can be a bit complicated and filled with things most folks never use. MSI has a simple and advanced bios mode of which I always use the advanced. That said updates are often as needed and well supported based on my experience.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I'll have to download the use manual for an MSI board that would be comparable to an ASUS board that I would be considering. Feedback much appreciated.
 
kirbyrj

kirbyrj

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I guess if I had to move away from Asus, I'd probably go with MSI over the others in your list. I have found ASRock to be a decent alternative. I've found the poorest support on Gigabyte (usually lower end boards though). You get maybe 1 or 2 updates over the life of the MB. Then again, I never had a problem that required a bios update either with a GB board (knock on wood).
 
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Aluminum

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Mega6 said:
Thats why u buy a socket cover,

I too am interested in a top end board that has decent bios screens other than Asus.
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Socket cover (which comes with every board, no need to "go buy one") doesn't mean shit if they lie about it, or help it out with a thumb.

The real lesson to be learned from the Asus RMA horror stories: take multiple high-resolution photos before sending a board in. Make extra sure to have good coverage of both the socket pins and any serial numbers / identifying marks.
 
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Mega6

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Aluminum said:
Socket cover (which comes with every board, no need to "go buy one") doesn't mean shit if they lie about it, or help it out with a thumb.

The real lesson to be learned from the Asus RMA horror stories: take multiple high-resolution photos before sending a board in. Make extra sure to have good coverage of both the socket pins and any serial numbers / identifying marks.
Click to expand...

If they are liars, then hi res photos and anything else you do don't mean shit either.
 
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Aluminum

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Mega6 said:
If they are liars, then hi res photos and anything else you do don't mean shit either.
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Actually, speaking from experience here, its about all you need for a credit card chargeback, payment fraud claim or similar move that sticks. Especially if your card is one that extends warranties - I can make a claim any time within 2 years.

Liars lose when you can prove it.
 
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Jandor

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owcraftsman said:
MSI bios are the best IMHO Asus can be a bit complicated and filled with things most folks never use. MSI has a simple and advanced bios mode of which I always use the advanced. That said updates are often as needed and well supported based on my experience.
Click to expand...
Well, why isn't MSI capable of making BIOSes able to run Ryzen 1000 and 3000 without retrieving Raid feature on 128Mb. All the other manufacturers do. Because of the unnecessary features in the MSI boards and probably some lack of competence... and all AM4 MSI boards do lack important features like ECC that Asus, Asrock and some Gigabyte boards support.

However bad the RMA are at Asus, Asus are the best boards with good enough support for their BIOS. If the board is okay, The BIOS support should be enough for the time there are new compatible CPU to put in. Asus do support fully B350 and even some A320 they launched in 2017 for Ryzen 3000 familly and I won't bet they may not support Ryzen 4000 too.
If you want to avoid problems with a bad motherboard, just buy it somewhere where you can return it by the time you can test it. Normally, Asus has good components and if the mtherboard doesn't have an assembly problem which is rare at Asus, once it's assembled and it works, it should work for a very long time. Don't buy your stuff and assemble it a couple of month later.
 
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Mega6

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Asus ROG bios has "simple mode" to hide the complexities and "advanced mode" with all the settings.
 
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