Are MSI Motherboards reliable?

[Nebulous]

I mean, all of what this user wants to do can be done on a $150 (or even less) motherboard. There isn't a need for the 'made for overclocking' /$200 boards for air and water. That said, you want one.. grab it and beat the snot out of your CPU... we will help!

And THAT is what is all about!

 

[Fever]

I've got nothing but love for MSI motherboards. I've been through their top X58, Z77, Z87, and X79 boards. Never had any problems and they overclock with the best of 'em. MSI will be in my systems for the foreseeable future.

 

[Woomack]

X58 MSI boards had issues with dr.mos , they were simply burning under longer full load at even light OC. The same issues were with some X58 ASRock and Biostar boards. Since SB release, most manufacturers improved power section design. Dr. mos is better now but my last X79 MSI board also died because of that. 2 out of 8 LEDs showing power phase activity were glowing and board didn't want to run. Support couldn't fix it so I got a new board.
I had no bigger issues with Z77 MPower but CPU needed higher voltage while overclocking than on any other Z77 board that I had. Memory was also overclocking worse than on GB or ASUS.
My point is that MSI is never perfect. There are always some issues that convince me to move to other brand.
I remember when MSI graphics cards were one of the best but now they make average cards and often specs is misleading like with all these GTX600 cards with triple overvoltage options in Afterburner ... when AB had no option to change voltages for over half year since GTX660/670 PE release. These cards were already overvolted anyway.

I'm not recommending MSI boards not because of high end series but because of all their cheaper boards. Many of H61, H81 etc boards that I was testing had issues with PCB, broken traces or other issues. The same never happened to GB or ASRock. I had some issues with ASUS in the past too but in last 2-3 years are mainly issues with bad BIOSes and too lazy support to fix it.