Best Brand for PSU and Motherboards.

Motherboards ..... at the top end, I think Asus has more to offer than the competition..... performance, features, BIOS, aesthetics, etc.... at this time I am buying Asus MoBos from the top end down to the $220 price point (Gene). The Asus Maximus VI Formula is my current fav .... an I use the Sabertooth in more workstation oriented builds.

In the middle tier, MSI has got it completely locked up this time around, offering a component quality, performance and price ratio that is currently unmatched with the G45 and GD65 series. Reviewers are tripping over one another trying to sing the praises of the boards in this price range and they sit at the top of most performance tests. I don't do many builds below that $150 price point but when I do, I like the Asus budget line, thought not opposed to Gigabyte.

As for PSU's forget choosing by brand name.... For example, Corsair makes some great PSUs and they also make some stinkers.....same with most of the well known "quality" brands.

Their best line is the HX series but even within that line the 1000 and 1059 watters were dogs. The AX series is more efficient but rather than the 19 cets Id save each month, I'm more concerned about the lower voltage stability and increased ripple as compared to the HX line.

Seasonic makes some great ones, also make some so so ones .... Delta made the best PSU I have ever used....was sold by Antec as the CP-850. Peeps often laud Corsair because many if the PSUs are made by Seasonic but the fact is that the current premium line (A series) is made by F;extronics and most of the HX series was made by Channelwell .... Seasonic made the 450 thru 650's while Channelwell made the 750 and up.

For big builds....SLI w/ water cooling foir example.... I use strictly the Seasonic X-1250.

Those are the great (10.0 jonnyguru rating) ones.... the very good ones (9.5) include the Corsair TX V2 (drop anything with an M suffix) series, XFX Core Edition, Antec HCG and HCP series) and some others but lot of the others have very good ones at some wattages and so so ones at others.