I've been building computers for 16 years, started with gaming boxes in the early 90's, now mostly servers and workstations, with a few gaming boxes sprinkled in here and there.

I've used boards and video cards from most major manufacturers, including Gigabyte, MSI, ECS, EVGA and the list goes on.

in the desktop market...

ECS just plain sucks, i refuse to use their products any longer, they fry if you look at them wrong and their RMA procedure is non-existent.

Gigabyte, there video cards are good, however, i've had exactly 3 Gigabyte motherboard that haven't come back at me, all 3 are recent boards, made since they stepped up their game and decided to challenge ASUS, i generally view their boards as a liability.

MSI again good video cards, their boards are reliable, for about 18 months, after 18 months, they drop like flies.

Asus rules the roost, i've seen people complain about their customer service, i cant comment on that too much, 16 years of using their products, i've called customer service once, and it was recently, this month actually, and in less than 15 minutes on the phone we determined it was in fact a bad board and not the ram like i suspected and they issued me an RMA number, which i elected not to use, RMA'd with newegg instead. This board was the 4th, count them 4, Asus boards i have RMA'd over the years, i've used well over 1000 of their boards, i pretty much buy them exclusively now.

In the server world, its another story, i've used a few Asus server boards, never had any fail on me, but they've seemed a little rough around the edges. so i stick with Tyan, they make the best server boards hands down...

I sell Asus products for a living. Of course I sell other products as well but that's not as profitable as selling Asus.

The reason being that Asus products simply return to the store a lot less than any other notebook brand in my experience. We have been through: HP, Acer, MSI (worst, worst, worst, worst!!!!) Fujitsu, LG (actually not as bad as I thought) and Toshiba.

Now for corporate use we sell Lenovo and we have no hassle selling those, but it's unfair to compare that to a consumer product.

HP is absolute crap from beginning to end. Nice shiny machines that a lot of people like to look at but you better have a heap of people working in you RMA department if you are going to sell it because you will have to deal with a lot of unsatisfied customers that are waiting to get their HP notebook back for the 3rd time.

Bottom line is that we are sticking (almost) 100% to Asus notebooks when it comes to consumer models, anything else is just too much of a hassle.

I do agree that Asus is lacking a company driven support forum, but I have had nothing but good experience here in Denmark when calling their support hotlines. I wait about 1 minute max on the line and I've been helped in a professional manner.

I think most of you are missing the point here, especially the one about the support forum. You are talking only about support and unless you work in a place that traffics hundreds of Asus products how would you know anything about the reliability? Also, bad support? Call the hotline instead and see what they can do for you.

Recommending Acer if fair enough, I simply cannot agree.

Idea that Mainboard is worth more than $100 is Created by eye candy wording. In fact there are so many Good as any other $35 Mainboards to break, only parynoid be concerned about difference.

With fast change technology what was $400 main, which needs opteron & ECC/Reg, just to start up its near thous, stupid people buy such junk & there plenty of brands out there.

After ruining 3.4.5.6 or more mains, you'll realize, not only do they make GREAt Walldecorations you've learned lot for reasonable cost. Most broken mainboards simply need new bios.

Bring badie to tech, they keep old main break new main & ruin most of rest. HATEING to let your peepers see world thru rose colors.

BE Cheap, Be Smart. Refresh Your Main cpu at least every other number up. once system is up, new $35 Bugger w/ same cpu like holiday towel or Text book/ Do with it as You Like, its NOT BIG Loss. Mainboard once conquered has infinite potential. Every New cpu Combo best to start @ #35 late in game, when transition is on, maybe once perkie main, as mentioned above for 1/3 of its' original, just to understand theres' NO Difference, except in most minute special ways, almost of NO consequence,

cpu & acc hardware are still operating in same limited parameters. bREAKING TWO $35 MAINS TO STATISFY hOW tO pecularities,by leaning to avoid breakage point is much more educational than crying to retailer your crap broke my entire system. When its ALWAYS Compound Failure.

TV Ad Sponsored By Drashek

I do mainly budget builds, however I have used a few Asus motherboards. I though nothing special of them. Personally, I have a special place for PC Chips and ECS EliteGroup. I have found that they are remarkable for their price.

As far as laptops go, I stick by my recommendation of Acer. I don't use pre-built desktops.

I don't think so.

I've build my fair share of computers for friends/office over the years.

All I've had is headache with ASUS mobo's. Not all of them were faulty though.

I've never had 1 Gigabyte board fail on me for the 8+ years I've been assembling stuff.

So Gigabyte gets the nod from me.

Dell is completely missing from that "survey". Makes you wonder...

I have bought ASUS for the last 8 years... Never had any problems! My last laptop is 4 years old and has been running almost 24/7 and is still going strong. I recommend ASUS to all my friends and family - and they are pleased as well.

I have been an overclocker for 5 years and my asusm2n-32sli deluxe has lasted for three of them. I first had a 4200 X2 in that thing that ran at 2.8ghz(stock 2.2). After that I had my 5000+BE(@3.15ghz and that ran for about a year and a half before I upgraded to the phenom II X3 720 BE. I'm currently running a stable 24/7 overclock at 3.8ghz on air. All i have to add to that is I have a zalman 9700.

I have to agree with Olie here. "ASUS and reliability" is about as oxymoronic as "military and intelligence". The two words should just never occur in the same sentence. I mean seriously, we are talking about a company that does not even have a company run support forum?!?! ASUS has got to be about the worst company at support I know of.

Because their Customer Service SUCKS!!!!! It's non-existent!

If you believe Asus is the most reliable PC, I have a bridge for sale that you might be interested in.