That is what is called a "false equivalency" argument .... Regardless of the general knowledge of the newegg board owners, the fact that the numbers differ so widely can not be explained away.... If lower scores just mean that those owners are less knowledgeable, then it must invariably follow that in the $200 - $220 price niche, MSI Gaming 7 owners must be less knowledgeable than Gigabyte Gaming 7 owners and that Asus Hero owners must be the least knowledgeable of the three. When we do read the reviews, we see that there are a lot of instances where user error is obvious, but when you do, you do NOT find that the Asus Hero, statistically, fared any worse or better than the others.
Reading the reviews can be very informative to see how consistent any problem was. I remember reading on the Titanium, the 1st 2 owners complaining came from guys who were having trouble plugging cables into the MoBo. Looking back I see:
-plugging in the 6+2 pin into the MoBo
-plugging 12 and 8 pin cables into the MoBo
-Bent pins that they didn't discover until after disassembly
-trouble downloading drivers off the CD and not having an "Application" to d/l the drivers off the web site
There were legitimate issues expressed about RAM compatibility but it shows that no list will be immune from peeps without the proper knowledge and experience.... but, if anything, these will have a larger impact when the number of dissatisfied users is small. If reading the reviews actually showed that the number of inadequately equipped builders were more prominent for one board than another, then I expect that data would have been posted ... as it wasn't, the false equivalency fails.
Unlike the Trumnp-ish "what I'm hearing from people", real data is valid and verifiable as it is drawn from a common sample base. "What I am hearing from people" is political speak for "if you fact check this, you will find no support for what I am saying". When they do political polls, they get smart people and they get dumb people and everything in between but claiming the results are valid for one candidate and not another is without any reasonable basis.
Going back to the "deflate gate" analogy, we get the same argument from sports fans when their team doesn't win, there's hundreds of reasons why they lost despite being the "better team". The Yankees won a bunch of World Series but that isn't helping them this year is it ? So arguing what the Yankees did in previous years irrelevant to this year. If I want to have a reasonable discussion about "deflate-gate" with a bunch of sports fans, I know I can't expect unbiased input from anyone in the room wearing Patriots or Broncos jerseys. Their bias is stamped right on their chest.
As I have been saying long before most THG members were here that
the only thing that the overall RMA rates prove is that there is no statistically relevant difference in quality between the 4 major players. Asus seems to have a love / hate relationship with this data source. When they finish at the top, they sened out press releases and made a big deal about it
https://www.asus.com/us/News/nchRhADbuZiy6v3c
ASUS today announced that it is has been independently verified as the most-reliable motherboard brand based on analysis of return rates conducted by LDLC subsidiary Hardware.fr.
I can't seem to find a press release for their 3rd place finish. Like Asus, we have posters whose view of this data source is similarly flexible. After repeatedly declaring the data irrelevant when Asus placed poorly, as soon as they had their turn at the top, it suddenly became incontrovertible proof, and links were included the link in their every post on the topic. Now that Asus is in 3rd place, it's suddenly irrelevant again.
As for the OC, the point I made was that if manual OC'ing is your thing, the Titanium may not be your board as initial BIOS was missing some important tuning features. Yes, enthusiasts will spend hours determining whether it' better to use one BCLK / Multiplier combination then another to get the same CPU speed. Enthusiast spend hours determining what, if any, impact cache speed had on performance. If you are that guy, as I said, the Titanium may not be for you (assuming newer BIOS didn't address the issues mentioned). The Titanium however has the best auto overclocking feature set that exists today. And while the tools for enthusiast OC are there in spades, the BIOS, at least the early one I spent time with, needed some improvements.
I didn't just pick up PC building late in life as a hobby. As one who has been responsible for corporate IT since 1983 and building for others (primarily engineers and gamers) since 1993, if there's one thing I have learned is that nothing is constant. Market leaders have come and gone ... like sports teams, no one maintains a dynasty. Like PSUs, brand name is not a reliable indicator of quality.
Going to the numbers, wasn't really a good idea ... not a strong point
1. Only 1 of the sets contains more than 30 samples so statistical reliability is low ...
2. Your numbers show that the 1-2 egg totals are,in order of statistical reliability ... 25% (57), 39% (28), 12% (26) 49%(17),
Here's some head to head comparisons from my previous post postulating that all manufacturers were seeing drops in quality
$150 - $200 - As when this was first posted, my argument was / is everybody has gotten worse ... and here the argument was not to say that MSI was better, but to show that the trend is not confined to a single vendor.
Z87 Asus Hero - 17%
Z97 Asus Hero - 25% (18% one egg) *
Negative reviews up 47%
Z87 GD-65 - 17%
Z97 GD-65 - 24% (12% 1 egg) *
Negative reviews up 41%
$250 - $300 - same here, the numbers are just too small to make any determination, but clearly there is no support to show that MSI is worse.
Z87 Asus Formula - 24%
Z97 Asus Formula - 44%
Z87 MSI MPower MaX AC - 18%
Z97 MSI MPower MaX AC- 18%
As I stated above, you can never expect one generation of a board to duplicate the quality of a previous generation. The Z97 boards clearly had performance issues, it would be inappropriate to claim the Z170 boards were somehow addled because of their Z97 performance.... new design, whole new ball game. Some things did carry over... the BIOS Clock freeze issue was one well documented on the Asus forums and one I ran into several times with both Z87 an Z97 . Have not heard of it with Z170 so I assume Asus has licked it. Believing that any brand or even any model will continue to be the best or worst year after year is simply naive. History proves otherwise.
-There's no better indicator of a company's ability to improve than Asrock. Asrock was created as a low cost budget outlet for Asus as they didn't want the lower quality / performance of the Asrock boards to darken the Asus name.... it was later spun off, then came back again with both operated under the auspices of Pegatron and now seems to be operating on their own again from all we can see. But they are no longer the bargain barrel vendor of yester year. They no longer have the substandard 1 and 2 year warrantees, they are no longer the vendor most known for bleeding caps, they are no longer the vendor known for paper thin boards. I can remember those days because I dealt with each of those problems. Today, while they still focus on cost cutting, they compete very well with the big boys in all areas .
-"Corsair makes great PSUs" was a common mantra on the THG forums ... but what always has been true is that:
Corsair makes some great PSUs
Corsair makes some good PSUs
Corsair makes some crappy PSUs
For a while there ... their lineup drifted more to the bottom of that list, but they have since made a considerable recovery. Before Z77, MSI was not in Asus' league... they made a decision corporate wise that they needed to improve quality to generate more sales. If Asrock can climb from a point where quality was such that they only offered 1 and 2 year warrantees, why can't anyone else ? When I was growing up, any discussion on quality included a statement that "Brand A is the Cadillac of ... " That statement has no meaning today.
While MSI and Asrock were improving their game, Asus made a corporate decision to increase margins, raising prices and cutting back on components a bit. MSI started garnering more awards and won more and more head to heads and then Asus took notice and made a comeback with Z170 . Prices are more competitive tho still maintaining a cost premium between comparable boards. Asus has some very decent boards above $150, below $150, the cheap audio solution makes all but 1 or 2 an anathema to knowledgeable gamers.
Why is it that Asus "goes cheap" on the audio solution in this price range ?
Why is it that nobody else does ?
Same thing happened w/ GFX cards.... Asus was the undisputed champ thru nVidia 6xx series ... 7xx was a wash, MSI and Giga owned the 9xx series and now we have everybody on pretty much even terms ... things change
Asus still has the best BIOS, their performance is edging the competition and with Z170 models above $150, they have many good choices.... but the "RoG Tax" while smaller still exists and it's is quite clear they have a greater number of dissatisfied users. And unless you can explain why these unknowledgeable users are picking one brand over the other, the data has to be taken at face value.
If we say that 20% of the users are idiots who don't know what they are doing our 2eggs or less goes from 36 Asus to 27 for MS to 22 for Gigabyte .... to .... 29 Asus to 22 for MSI to 18 for Gigabyte ... the order doesn't change.
When I look at the $200 price point ...
Giga has better feature set
Giga is the most popular
Giga has by far the least amount of dissatisfied users
Giga has the best aesthetics
Giga has the lowest price
Given the above, I'd have to choose the Giga ... it's not a big win but it's a win. It would go on my desk with the Asus monitor, Asus Mouse and MSI GFX cards because my goal is to get the best product that fits my needs, not to support "my favorite team". Data shouldn't be used only when it fits a predetermined bias and discounted it when it doesn't. Don't you see it as contradictory say a data source is unreliable and then immediately afterwards use it in support of a position ?
As for a popularity, if that's our measurement tool, I guess Kim Kardashian should be the candidate for Woman of the Year. That Gigabyte is the most popular Z170 board so should we stop looking ? The Sabetooth was never popular, but for Z97 it was one of Asus's best performers and most reliable board. So should we discount Asus' best board because it wasn't popular ? The Titanium is m ore popular than the Sabertooth so what significance does that have ? $250-$300 boards are never popular. As the previously quoted review stated, the release of the Sabertooth was a seminal event
Now and again a motherboard appears that is so obviously brilliant, and so affordable, that we wonder if anything will be able to top it. For a while that crown was held by the ASUS Sabertooth, both in X58 and then P67 variants.
Then he went on to say
Then MSI stole the crown with the Z77 MPower.
The problem is, it can't be argued that we have to disregard the Z77 MPower as this is one of those "unknowledegable web site reviewers and in the same breadth says he's brilliant cause he recognized the importance of the Sabertooth.
Like the Sabertooth and the MPower, the release of the Titanium was a seminal event.
-This coating method which makes the board so gorgeous is a 1st time thing which no doubt will grow in usage.
-The auto overclock features go to a level never seen before.
-The International Rectifier digital PWM w/ 60A integrated power stages was also the 1st time to my knowledge that this quality unit had been placed in a MoBo
-The re-drivers that strengthen signal strength for the USB 3.0 ports is also something not seen before.
-The Titanium has metal reinforced PCI slots ... as do other MSI boards
Each of these will be on the bulletin board in design offices of all MoBo vendors as new boards are designed.
As for aesthetics....
My son's college roommate was planning a build and asked about the Sabertooth Sabranco because he wanted to do a white build but was concerned ... It wasn't the fastest board but it was close to the top, it also had one of the lowest dissatisfaction levels.... he's very happy with it and the other builds I used it on have no complaints ... but still the most frequent comment I hear is about the aesthetics and how it doesn't look like every other black / red PC.
If you are doing water cooling, the Titanium allows one to make a very attractive build with nickel water blocks in a silver case. If that's something that appeals to the owner, that factor can not be discounted. And it goes without saying that the metal reinforced PCIE slots are a welcome feature to any water cooling enthusiast.