The specs and reviews look really good. I wounldn't think about MSI as a first choice, but that bias is from experiences over a decade old, so I should give them more consideration. I'm impressed with this board.
Motherboard manufacturers dont "make" video processors. Its not a cost effective process. What they do is buy the chips, just like they do for the motherboards and integrate them into their own product boards, which are generally speced out by the GPU manufacturer. This allows them to tweak memory and various other card features. Maybe thats what you guy already meant.
As for "asian", I professionally do not think it is synonymous with cheap. Its way to general a statement, especially since just about everything is fabricated overseas (Phillipenes, Tiawan, Singapore, etc etc). This of course includes MSI. Cheap is in the design, implementation and materials and that is possible anyware. (no I'm not asian).