Aorus Or TUF Motherboard?
Posted by GuidanceSmall3802@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 39 comments
I'm building a new computer and I'm switching from Intel to AMD. Ive been looking at motherboards, and I've determined I'm going mATX, and I don't know whether to go with an Aorus or TUF motherboard. Ive seen lots of complaints about ASUS and RMA, but positive feedback about their motherboards. For Gigabyte, I have seen less of those issues, but more complaints about BIOS' being difficult to navigate/use, and generally having less features.
PokerLawyer75@reddit
Why are you not considering MSI?
GuidanceSmall3802@reddit (OP)
From the boards I have seen they seem to be a bit more expensive
PokerLawyer75@reddit
1) Do you live near a microcenter?
2) I have found MSI both a bit more reliable than the others, and they honor their warranties no problem.
GuidanceSmall3802@reddit (OP)
Yes. I live 20 miles from one.
I did see that about them though, no complaints about warranty.
PokerLawyer75@reddit
I would suggest the MSI combos, but you're heartset on mATX I realized this morning.
Luckyirishdevil@reddit
I second this. I've had all the brands, liked Aorus the least, currently have an Asus Strix X670e-i, but my first preference was MSI. They have been rock solid for my last few builds. I had a Z690i Unify that I loved until the Intel voltage problems
Tlentic@reddit
Never Gigashit
GuidanceSmall3802@reddit (OP)
Might I ask why?
Tlentic@reddit
They don’t honour their warranties. Every RMA I’ve ever had with them has been a complete shitshow. Literally had to sue them to resolve my last RMA with them. Just isn’t worth the potential hassle
PokerLawyer75@reddit
That's funny, I had the issue with ASUS.
ywgflyer@reddit
Weirdly enough though, when I bricked my X870 board last year by fucking up a BIOS update (my fault), they RMAed it no questions asked.
It may have helped that I brought it into their Toronto office in person, but still, it was a seamless process. New board in hand only about 6 or 7 business days after dropping the dead one off.
PokerLawyer75@reddit
So years ago, back when AMD created the Athlons...I had 2 baords...one on Slot A, and one on Socket A. Both boards failed under warranty.
The Slot A board...Asus begrudingly replaced. The Socket A? Which also had defective UDMA/33 ports from the day it was purchased (but I didn't need because I had a PCI UDMA/133 card)...when it failed, they refused to honor the warranty. Mind you I was an undergrad aged kid, and didn't know about consumer protection laws back then..
Stayed away from Asus mostly I got to law school...during 2012-13, I had an Asus laptop after replacing an HP. Got it at MicroCenter because "we repair Asus products." And when that one was overheating and having a USB port fail, I was told that MicroCenter could not work on it...they required I ship it to California. First time , they paid for expedited returned shipping. Came back...and 2 weeks later, the USB port was failing again. This time, Asus refused to pay for shipping and refused to expedite the repair. Micro Center stepped in and let me exchange it.
So at this point, I started hating on them but figured, we'll see. When 802.11ax routers first came out, I bought their first big model taht looked like a spider - ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000. At the time it was $450. And for about a year...it ran fine. Then, I went to put in a smart door lock...which saw no Wifi signal. I ran a signal tester, and if you went 20 feet from the router...signal fell to 0. The testing software even drew the graph...complete collapse of signal past 20 feet. And Asus tech support tells me nothing is wrong with it.
So now last year, I have to replace a defective TP Link router. I go to Best Buy and get the ROG Rapture GT-BE98, Come home and start coniguring it, and ...it's not working properly. There's greyed out areas in settings that should be working, the dashboard isn't responding and loading at times...something is wrong. And there's no manual, and since I can't get on the INternet, I can't download one from Asus. I call their tech support. And the person on the phone was a complete moron. Not only barely spoke English, because of course we use India for the call center, but they literally had no answers for the questions that were basic and were about what you should see right in front of you. Had to return it to get a Netgear Nighthawk.
Asus can burn in a fire.
Tlentic@reddit
Most of these hardware companies aren’t great to deal with when it comes to RMAs but Gigashit is in a whole league of its own.
I’ve done a lot of RMAs over the years for work but Gigashit is consistently the bottom of the barrel. It got to the point that we just straight up banned their hardware in some departments because it just wasn’t worth the effort/time. Any cost savings had up front are immediately lost the moment one part dies.
They make the process as slow as possible in hopes that you just give up and replace it out of your pocket. The last RMA I had with them included four counts of mail fraud on their end. GPU was sent back multiple times and those fuckers never even opened it (I put new tamper stickers over the screws they’d need to open it). They managed to loose the GPU. Oh, snd they had a major security breach of their RMA system that they didn’t disclose to anyone. You shouldn’t need to sue a company in small claims court to get them to honour their warranty
RosexLuna23@reddit
Shitty support/RMA I can guess is the main thing, if something goes wrong with it good luck getting them to fix it, along with apparently system instability or even security risks?
GuidanceSmall3802@reddit (OP)
Wasn't this also an issue with ASUS?
PokerLawyer75@reddit
Yes it still is.
RosexLuna23@reddit
Yeah, honestly tho, can't go wrong with an asrock, I've got a b850m-x and it hasn't given me any problems
aminy23@reddit
Generally I've been a big fan of Asus but also Gigabyte. I went from a B550-XE STRIX to a Z890 Aorus Master and have mostly been impressed.
For a B850M - it really breaks down to VRMs (comparable 12 primary stages, doubled/tripled), PCB Layers (hopefully 6), WiFi (hopefully not MediaTek), Ethernet (probably Realtek 8125 2.5GBE), Audio (Probably Realtek 1220), and USB.
GuidanceSmall3802@reddit (OP)
Why exactly does wifi/ethernet matter that much? Currently (from what I have in my system) I have intel wifi, so I wouldn't have any experience with either
aminy23@reddit
You have Intel WiFi which is the best in the world and why it's not an issue. Today most of what we do on a PC is online.
If you have WiFi that's high latency, stuttering, dropping connections, etc it'd be annoying and make an otherwise premium PC feel like cheap garbage.
Prior to 2022, almost all AMD WiFi motherboards used Intel WiFi and didn't have issues. For example with B550 both TUF and Aorus originally used Intel WiFI and proudly featured it in the titles of the boards:
https://www.asus.com/us/motherboards-components/motherboards/tuf-gaming/tuf-gaming-b550-plus-wi-fi/
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B550-AORUS-ELITE-AX-rev-10
Around 2022 AMD wanted their boards to stop having Intel written all over, so they pushed for garbage MediaTek WiFi. Many motherboard vendors got tired of customers returning boards, so they started exploring Qualcomm/Realtek alternatives resulting in many versions of these boards.
But yeah - if WiFi is great then it just works and we don't notice it. If it's a problem, we notice it.
Many people will get a $1,200 computer before getting a $120 router.
GuidanceSmall3802@reddit (OP)
Is ethernet any different? I don't use wifi unless I have trouble with windows recognizing my ethernet, which I think is just an issue with my router.
aminy23@reddit
Ethernet - most boards use the same Realtek 8125 chip which is fine.
MSI uses a newer 5 Gigabit Realtek chip which is occasionally problematic.
Marvel LAN is found on premium boards and very good.
Intel LAN is usually between Mavel and Realtek, but the i225 was initially problematic, but mostly fixed with driver updates now.
Numerous-Loan-8008@reddit
Better to look at the specs first
WIFI 7 or 6?
How many power phases? And what is their amperage?
Any serious bifurcation issues? (Bifurcation is when parts of the motherboard share the same resources, most notably when PCIe slots or USB slots get turned off because you plug in extra SSD drives; it's called out in the PCIe and/or SSD sections of the motherboard's online documentation)
Any known issues?
If you think they're equivalent, I'd go with the Gigabyte Aorus.
If you go with the ASUS, I'd find ways of turning things down a touch (like lowering EDC by 10% if you're going to use PBO) in order to avoid frying the CPU (an alleged problem with ASUS boards & X3D chips, but maybe just BS claimed by people who were overclocking tf out of their CPUs & then turned around and acted completely innocent when their $450 CPU got destroyed.)
GuidanceSmall3802@reddit (OP)
Both wifi 6E. The TUF is 14 +2 +1, and the Aorus is 12 +2 +2. I don't know much about bifurcation, but if it helps I would be using the 16x slot, and the two closest m.2 drives, with my boot drive being the closest. I would be using a 9850x3d, and I've seen those reports about exploding and dying x3d chips. Personally I do not have much experience with tuning in BIOS, so I would lean slightly to whichever I would have to tweak less, minus PBO and EXPO.
Numerous-Loan-8008@reddit
Sounds like both have good VRMs
What motherboard models?
Why MicroATX? (Not saying they're bad in general, especially since these boards have good VRMs, which doesn't seem particularly standard on mATX motherboards, although it might become a concern with a 9850X3D + whatever GPU.)
What case are you planning on using? Something that supports a 360 AIO?
GuidanceSmall3802@reddit (OP)
Gigabyte B850M AORUS ELITE WIFI6E ICE, ASUS TUF Gaming B850M-PLUS WiFi.
I want to get a smaller case because I plan on eventually taking it to college, and space will be valuable in my dorm.
I intentionally chose motherboards with chunky VRM heatsinks.
I will be using a 9070xt.
I intend on using a Lian Li A3 Mini. Currently I have an ARCTIC Liquid Freezer iii 360, but I have seen that with most motherboards it doesn't fit with IO Shields and VRM heatsinks, etc. I planned to purchase the 280 pro version of the same AIO.
Numerous-Loan-8008@reddit
https://i.postimg.cc/XnF3vnQv/image.png
You see how the graphics card slot is even with the screw on the Aorus, but it's below the screw on the ASUS?
ASUS is using a lower PCIe location, which may cause problems in an mATX if you're using a good graphics card or plan to put case fans below the graphics card.
On the spec sheet, the ASUS looks a little better, but for this reason, I'd go with the Gigabyte.
Even if your graphics card could technically fit in the ASUS, it might be rather starved for air... could raise the temps 10-15°C, if it fits at all. The ASUS would certainly require a SFF or rather slim card.
Example: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71B8kxAev0L.jpg
The ASUS motherboard would be smashing that graphics card against the bottom, if it fit at all.
GuidanceSmall3802@reddit (OP)
Thanks. My only concern now is cooling. According to PCMAG you cant mount a 280mm radiator because of the 12v connectors getting in the way, so i would need a 240. Is that adequate for a 9850x3d? I could just mount the radiator on the side, but then that makes the GPU and CPU fight for air.
Numerous-Loan-8008@reddit
You'd be much better off asking people who've actually built in the Lian Li A3... there are plenty of them here: https://www.reddit.com/r/mffpc/
aminy23@reddit
The bifurcation is primarily on X870/X870E and not a concern with B850.
For WiFI - Intel > Realtek > Anything Else > MediaTek
Mr_Henry_Yau@reddit
Did you consider the Gigabyte B850M Gaming X WIFI6E as well?
If you're currently in the US, it's cheaper than Aorus and TUF Micro ATX motherboards there as of time of writing this comment and has good VRMs as well.
GuidanceSmall3802@reddit (OP)
I did, but the 10 +2 +2 seemed a bit under adequate for a 9850x3d.
Mr_Henry_Yau@reddit
Every motherboard that's mentioned in this post as of time of writing this comment have VRMs that are more than capable of handling a Ryzen 9 9950X without thermal throttling.
If you doubt my claims, you can check out Hardware Unboxed's B850 motherboard roundups for the details.
GuidanceSmall3802@reddit (OP)
Im sorry, I don't know too much about VRMs. My motherboard has 16 +1 +1, and I haven't had any issues, so I just assumed more power stages = better
Mr_Henry_Yau@reddit
More power stages is better but 16 power stages is completely overkill unless you plan on heavily overclocking a Ryzen 9 CPU.
VersaceUpholstery@reddit
I’ve never had issues with either Asus or gigabyte
some bios’s might be nicer than others, but never saw one and was like “this is shit and literally unusable”
I’ve had every single motherboard manufacturer at this point. My last build of almost 5 years (10700k) was a gigabyte board, my 7800x3d now sits in an Asus board
rainydayparfait@reddit
I've had both and feel I've been able to do what I needed to do in their BIOS. Enable xmp/docp, turn on rebar, update, etc.
I slightly prefer Asus tuf/strix for no other reason than that they have felt 'easier' to me to work with (in my own limited experience with them) but you should pick based on the reviews you see about VRM, temperature, prices, number of usb slots and their speeds, thunderbolt, sata ports,m2 nvme slots, or maybe if you need to install an io shield or not.
I did decide not to go with an AORUS once because a review mentioned a large video card would have been blocked by the VRM heatsink somehow, so look out for that.
But generally, imo, you'd be fine with either. Just make sure it has the ports you need.
GuidanceSmall3802@reddit (OP)
Thank you!
rdy_csci@reddit
I run almost exclusively Asus boards and have never had an issue.