My Formal Decision

[Cutless009]

After all of the issues I've had with Formal Black's hardware, from this day forward not only will I not support or condone the use of ANY ATI product, I will DISCOURAGE IT, at ALL cost. Why?

Reasons:

Performace - Sub-Par per $
Reliability - Non-Existant, very finicky.
Drivers - Horrid, installer sucks, MANY hardware conflicts.
Customer Support - Useless, from both AMD and the company who made the card.


Asus also makes this list.

Reasons:

Two bad motherboards in a row.
Shitty bios (wtf no voltage setting for PCI-E? Seriously?)
Unstable (killed a stick of my ram)
Customer Support (useless, and refused to replace the stick of ram their faulty board fried)


These two companies can go take a stick and shove up their nose till they labotomize themselves, they'll be doing the world a favor.

So to Asus and ATI, here's to YOU :bird::bird::bird::bird:

[LowBrowser]

That's pretty fair. Taken a look at the DFI x58s? The colour scheme isn't for everybody, but I'm pretty partial to the T3eH8's looks, and Fitseries is getting some impressive DDR3 overclocks on his T3eH6.

[Cutless009]

Well I already ordered the parts for my next build, for now its an EVGA X58, but this is my personal build, my next pro build will most likely by the Gigabyte UDP Extreme. The DFI's are really good, but I just cant get past the horrible neon gimmicky look.

[LowBrowser]

Each to their own. It's the way I felt about every other board TBH, especially Bloodrage. Apart from the EVGA classified board. PURE SEX!!! Good luck anyway, I hope it treats you better.

[Septim]

The DFI's are really good, but I just cant get past the horrible neon gimmicky look.

there is always permanent marker pens if the board's a keeper...

[Baleful]

I've never had problems with either, PEBCAK?

I have 2 4870's at work, 2 Asus Maximus II Formula, and several other Asus boards and have never had any of these problems.

I'm not trying to be an ass, and I'm sorry to hear all the troubles you've had, but you're either one unlucky mother fucker, or you fubared the hardware yourself.

I've equally had problems with NV, and EVGA. It doesn't necessarily mean that both NV and EVGA are crap, but nothing is perfect.

[TedShred]

Did Sapphire tech support really say "huh... that's strange" when you contacted them about your aggro?

I'm still laughing (in a nervous kind of way) about that one. Crazy.

I tried contacting Asus ages ago about some mobo issues and I might as well have put a message in a bottle and chucked it in the ocean.

[Cutless009]

I've never had problems with either, PEBCAK?

Im not sure what PEBCAK means, but if its anything like PICNIC (Problem In Chair Not In Computer), then I dont think thats it, I have horrible luck in general, and I've been building computers for over a decade and never faced this many issues with hardware. That being said, nobody is infallable.

Did Sapphire tech support really say "huh... that's strange" when you contacted them about your aggro?

I'm still laughing (in a nervous kind of way) about that one. Crazy.


DO-NOT-REPLY@sapphiretech.com to me show details 5:57 PM (6 hours ago) Reply

That is odd.

To create a new topic please go to the link:
Link: Create New Topic.

Thank You

Sapphire Tech Support


Direct copy of the email.

[Kayin]

I'd say your issues with ASUS are right on, but your issues with the card are more a known Sapphire thing than anything else. I normally buy HIS if going ATi. MUCH better support.

Go read your reviews, the Sapphire stuff is always saying if you get a working one, the rest are pretty much happy.

[Ricey]

Being using Asus every generation (except for some deviation to old Abit) since Pentium 200 Mhz lol I do alright with Asus and no worse than any other company.

[zlojack]

I had pretty good luck with Asus with the Maximus Formula. Very solid board.

The P5K was decent, though it eventually died (I probably killed it :D)

The Rampage Extreme gave me a lot of headaches with RAM issues. Very finicky, though apparently it has calmed down with the more recent bios updates.

Now I should have a P5Q in the backup rig, so we'll see how that goes.

Overall, I have been happy with the Asus products that I've owned, but I went to Gigabyte because it was supposed to be a good board then sold that to go to EVGA for space compatibility in my case. EVGA's track record for support didn't hurt.

As for ATI, I owned the Asus 3870 X2 in CrossfireX and had very few issues. I also had a 4870 X2 from VisionTek and it was great, though I ended up switching to nVidia for folding purposes when I moved to i7.

So overall, I feel your pain, but I can't share your sentiments towards those companies. I'm sure there are horror stories like yours with every company. Asus probably has more stories floating around because they are the biggest company.

[Cutless009]

I have no problems with the fact that I was unlucky and had a bad experience with not one but two of their boards, it was the lack of service and support that did it in the for them. Their hardware caused my hardware to die, therefore they should foot the bill for the new hardware. They refused my RMA even until I went higher in the company. They gave me nothing but hell.

Again with sapphire, it was their complete and utter lack of support that got me. At one point that same guy told me I needed two crossfire bridges to connect my cards, and then blamed it on the motherboard when he was out of script answers.

[Kayin]

I'd say you nailed your biggest problem there. Support from most companies sucks ass...

[Cutless009]

A product is only as good as the support behind it when it comes to this hardware. Especially with graphics cards, they didnt even do crack to design it, all they did was PRODUCE IT, which means other than overhead, the only other thing they have to spend money on is CUSTOMER SUPPORT. If you make a product, you have to support it, period.

[zlojack]

I can't argue with that, Cutless.

Hence why my rig is full of EVGA, Mushkin and Corsair, three companies with a very solid support track record.