I was settling on the P8Z77-V PRO and then read horrible RMA stories...advice on a choice?

I was hoping for some help here; I have my build almost complete save for a motherboard and a CPU cooler, and right when I was feeling like I had it down to maybe one or two selections on the motherboard, I read several threads on rather horrible RMA stories.

Now, I grant that all companies have bad times and good times, and that not all MOBO's fail, and that I'll likely get a good one and be fine for years. Although, I hate that feeling of dread that I won't be ok and I'll be out $200 and the use of my computer, maybe more cash if the RMA fails. I also am tired of waiting to build my computer, so this is rather frustrating.


I hear bad about lots of companies but the one standing out now is ASU; am I seeing this correctly?
I like the built-in wifi, dual CPU fan support, fan xpert2, advanced turbo mode for the ivy bridge, and the looks of the board, but the customer service sounds aweful. Problem is-- I'm not sure what board I could turn to that would be quite as nice and I really don't have the experience to weigh the risk against the benefit in this one.

I literally was going to buy the motherboard tonight since I have read reviews that it's a good board but I don't want to get screwed. Any advice to help me along? I read that EVGA is good on CS but I found one Z77 board and it's $100 more = no-go.

ASRock Extreme 6 looks great and I think a zalman single-fan CPU cooler would look great, but then I wanted motherboard-controlled fans on the case, so I don't have to throttle them myself. I don't know much about the MSI or Gigabyte competition yet, I haven't gotten that far.
I do know that the ASRock and ASUS bios tend to be better, that's also important. User-friendliness (I'm not building this to keep forcing me to research as it gets confusing, I'd like it to work and make sense as much as possible)

That's part of what I've been seeing, although it sounded like ASRock had a decent yet slightly confusing BIOS, they don't offer great fan control.


From what I see (and what little I know about various components, it looks like ASUS has good offerings, at least better than ASRock. I'm reading a n AnandTech review on the main boards I've been looking at (it's the reason I picked these boards).

So far the ASUS seems to have what I want, and that's wireless and good UEFI that will support easy and mild overclocking (doubtful I will go there anytime soon but in the future perhaps, and why not since I did get the 3770k?)

I'll further consider the other boards but if I factor in the cost and setup of a wireless card and the loss of easy fan control for the main fans I would perhaps be less satisfied. I love that BIOS has finally become less boring and simple looking and the smart temp controls is a major plus.

I DO have a fan controller built into my NZXT phantom 410, but at $100 for the case I don't consider not using ti to be a big waste and I can still use it to throttle some fans if I need extra airflow I assume.
I might have to brave the ASUS, I'm sure there must be lots of good experiences with their RMA process, that just aren't reported online?

I suppose primarily, what exactly is the likelihood and cause of a MOBO failure after 30 days? Overclocking? other causes?. If I have to I'll let my PC fold or process for hours as much as possible to test the circuits in that 30 days, if that is a good idea.

Thank you, I'll be buying from Amazon due to taxes and shipping bumping the cost of Newegg's offerings up. I did buy ram from them but surprisingly (to me) I was able to get all my other components aside from the ram and my monitors on Amazon and I get 2-day shipping or even overnight for only $4...

I've searched and found reviews about equal on either retailer so I'm going to go with Amazon most likely. I'll try to make a decision on the mobo tonight and then buy the CPU cooler in one swoop and have it by Saturday night to finish building on Sunday or thereabouts.

Thanks again for your help and I appreciate any and all opinions. My threads tend to be short but I feel like I'm getting good replies. Thank you all so much.

Haha, I was wondering what was going on here. I glanced at Biostar but have yet to see it pushed into the running with the p8z77-v pro.

awesome to hear. I'll give it more thought and read some more reviews on the ups and downs but for my first build I think as long as the board is ok in that 30 days it sounds like a good option. I can't speak from experience that ASUS is horrible in CS so...I suppose I can give them a chance. If anything in the future I can help fight for better RMA claims if I must (or just bite the bullet and put a few days work into another, better board).

Any opinions still appreciated, I'm feeling less distressed and I can likely pick one by tomorrow.
Edited by Figit090 - 8/16/12 at 6:47pm