Which Mobo Manufacturers Have the Best Driver Support?

[Appletax]

I have an Asus Max VI Formula (Z87) board that I bought for $300 in early 2014. Asus has only released one version of Windows 10 drivers for this board and has not updated any of the software to support Windows 10, such as the AI suite. The WiFi driver is in beta forever.

This is very frustrating given that the board is relatively new and I paid a lot of money for it. I basically have to buy a new mobo from them if I want Windows 10 drivers that are better optimized and work better with Windows 10.

Which motherboard manufacturer do you think provides the best driver support?

Which one keeps their drivers up-to-date even on "older" boards like the z87 chipsets?

Given EVGA's stellar reputation with their GPUs, I wonder if their boards are top-notch with great support and reliability?

Asus sent me this message on Facebook:

Hi Appletax,

To best allocate our resources, we concentrate mainly on current or the newest products to provide customers with the best products. Older products beyond two years old generally do not get updates if working drivers exist, so the wireless beta drivers you mentioned will probably be the last driver update for the Maximus VI Formula.

ROG Global Team

 

[brandonkick]

I have only built two machines so far in my life, for my own use anyways...
I don't get a ton of feed back on the ones I've built for other people, so
I take it that they have been working quite happily.

Back in 2005 I built my first machine, featuring an AMD Opteron 165
processor on a DFI Lanparty nF4 UT board which was very finicky about
hardware but I had zero issues with driver support. For most of it's life,
it was an XP machine. It's getting a bit harder to remember, but if it had
Win 7 on it, it was towards the end. I retired the machine in July of 2010.

The machine I currently run features a ASRock X58 board. Not a bad board,
I really can't fault it for anything. The first generation of i5/i7 chips had a strange
issue with the chipset where basically the machine might fail to cold boot every
once in a while. It happens maybe two or three times a year, and when it does
the only thing that fixes it is shutting it off and waiting half an hour. I don't think
I've ever had it fail to boot the second time, after waiting. I don't think it's a fault
of the board.

Generally I think the ASUS boards are really good, but all in all, what it seems like your
asking for are motherboards which exception legacy support. I don't know that your really
going to find that. If I were ASUS, I wouldn't care much about making my five + year old
Mobo support windows 10.

 

[Appletax]

I have only built two machines so far in my life, for my own use anyways...
I don't get a ton of feed back on the ones I've built for other people, so
I take it that they have been working quite happily.

Back in 2005 I built my first machine, featuring an AMD Opteron 165
processor on a DFI Lanparty nF4 UT board which was very finicky about
hardware but I had zero issues with driver support. For most of it's life,
it was an XP machine. It's getting a bit harder to remember, but if it had
Win 7 on it, it was towards the end. I retired the machine in July of 2010.

The machine I currently run features a ASRock X58 board. Not a bad board,
I really can't fault it for anything. The first generation of i5/i7 chips had a strange
issue with the chipset where basically the machine might fail to cold boot every
once in a while. It happens maybe two or three times a year, and when it does
the only thing that fixes it is shutting it off and waiting half an hour. I don't think
I've ever had it fail to boot the second time, after waiting. I don't think it's a fault
of the board.

Generally I think the ASUS boards are really good, but all in all, what it seems like your
asking for are motherboards which exception legacy support. I don't know that your really
going to find that. If I were ASUS, I wouldn't care much about making my five + year old
Mobo support windows 10.

But it's only two years old, which is why I am frustrated with it. 5 years is totally understandable but not 2 years when the board cost $300. Plus, Windows 10 is a pretty huge deal for the PC industry so companies should be cranking out the drivers for us.

 

[myleso]

Not a fan of asus boards myself, we do a lot of customs and generally use msi, asrock or gigabyte. We have not yet run into a problem with windows 10 drivers on any of our builds but it sounds like we might in the future if your running into issues with your asus.

 

[brandonkick]

To be fair, Windows 10 was just released. That board was manufactured and
put out into the wild well before that. I can understand why your frustrated,
and you want to see support since it's not all that old, but I can understand why
it may not be fully compatible at least right now.

 

[Appletax]

To be fair, Windows 10 was just released. That board was manufactured and
put out into the wild well before that. I can understand why your frustrated,
and you want to see support since it's not all that old, but I can understand why
it may not be fully compatible at least right now.

Why do you not like Asus?

 

[MDD1963]

Do the beta wireless drivers in question work?

 

[frase]

Gigabyte, when I build a system I make sure all components are via same manufacturer. Though yes PSU RAM and HDD are not. Same chipset + GFX card.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

I believe its gigabyte that provides best driver support. I'm not personally a fan of their boards but I believe they do put forth the most effort in listing new drivers for their boards.

 

[ChrisTech]

I believe its gigabyte that provides best driver support. I'm not personally a fan of their boards but I believe they do put forth the most effort in listing new drivers for their boards.

+1 although I've found that their boards are at least as reliable as other main brands.

 

[cypress]

I really like Asus boards and the machines I have put together have been with that, but on the other hand Gigabyte has come a long way.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I'm not a big Asus fan either. A lot of folks love them. Put it this way though, I've worked on a couple of machines with higher end Asus boards that had trouble. I get almost all my parts from my local Microcenter, and remember walking in there, stacks of Asus boards with stickers indicating that they were returned from vendor. But just like any manufacturer, they have good products. I'm just not a fan. Personally I like Gigabyte also. I've used quite a few of their boards, even their low end boards seem to be good and run generally what I ask of them. Just my opinions though.

 

[Digital Micro]

Not a fan of asus boards myself, we do a lot of customs and generally use msi, asrock or gigabyte. We have not yet run into a problem with windows 10 drivers on any of our builds but it sounds like we might in the future if your running into issues with your asus.

During the time I built a lot of desktops I used MSI a lot. I laugh when a certain YouTube builder says they are bad quality and only recommends Gigabyte boards because they are the best. I have tried Gigabyte three times, all three times the board was DOA. I know that's not a enough to base much of a verdict on, but three in a row is it for me. Outside of those the only other DOA board I ever got was 2 ASUS boards.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

During the time I built a lot of desktops I used MSI a lot. I laugh when a certain YouTube builder says they are bad quality and only recommends Gigabyte boards because they are the best. I have tried Gigabyte three times, all three times the board was DOA. I know that's not a enough to base much of a verdict on, but three in a row is it for me. Outside of those the only other DOA board I ever got was 2 ASUS boards.

Honestly I agree with you. I've always thought gigabyte boards sucked, they always sucked before and then all of a sudden people started raving about how good they were. I remember the first time I saw praise on a gigabyte board was an old toms hardware article which really surprised me.

I do like MSI I don't think ive had physical issues with MSI boards but I have had some bios issues in the past.

A lot of folks love ASUS because they use to be awesome.....that ship obviously sailed but the reputation remains.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I guess everyone has their preferences. I've used an MSI board or two, and found those to be good. Personally, I've always had good luck with Gigabyte, so don't change a good thing right?

I know with gigabyte boards, a lot of times if I get especially an AMD board for someone, like if I get a 990FX for them, I show them the heatsinks over the VRM's that their board typically didn't have that they bought. Asus always had a good name, some people have kind of suggested they went down a little when they diversified into computers. They have some good products no question, but I like dealing with gigabyte, evga, etc where that's their primary business.

 

[TechLady]

I'll say this, I'll never buy another ECS (EliteGroup) mobo as long as I live after what I went through with one of their boards years ago.