component reliability

[scylla]

While shopping for parts, I tend to turn to user reviews for opinions about any problems that could crop up.
Even though I generally stick with high end, well known companies, I'm surprised by the amount of bad reviews out there. (newegg)
Lately I've been looking at psu's and, if you go by the reviews, it would seem the doa or early failure rate is 20, 30, or 40 percent.
I'm curious if the reviews accurately reflect product quality, or it's just sour grapes. Example: ALOT of reviewers of asus mobos give low scores to what seems to be the top seller of motherboards.
I don't know about you guys, but even to mention the letters "RMA" sends my blood pressure up.

[johnny_quest]

take into account the fact that most happy customers never bother to leave feedback.

any item, regardless or manufacturer, can be doa.

[rond36]

I agree with johnny_quest. Someone that has received a bad product is more likely to post a review than someone that received a good product. I have bought thousands of dollars in parts from Newegg and have never posted a review for any of them. Some of the bad reviews are from people that ordered the wrong part and somehow think that someone else is to blame. Some of the reviews are from people that don't even own the product and are just expressing their opinion of it.

Don't base your decision solely on Newegg reviews. Read the product reviews at Tom's Hardware Guide (http://www.tomshardware.com/), HardOCP (http://www.hardocp.com/), and AnandTech (http://www.anandtech.com/) if there is any flaw in a product those guys have found it. Visit the manufacturer's site for more information on the product. If it is a motherboard download the manual and read it and while you are at it get the latest drivers and BIOS update too.

[saphalline]

Most of those bad Newegg reviews are directly associable to the level of knowledge of the reviewer. ;) In other words, most of them are user error! I read those reviews when I want a good laugh! :p

Case in point: I was reading the reviews of several budget mobo's for a member a few months back (he/she was building a budget system) and was surprised at the low "eggs" scores of many of them. Coming from manufacturers like Asus and MSI, it seemed to me that 2 or 3 "eggs" was rather harsh for a $60 mobo. Sure enough, I was right! Upon reading a few reviews, it was clear to me that many newbies out there don't know the value of hardware. Things that I take for granted, such as the fact that a $60 mobo is "budget". I saw several reviews, not just one, that said something to the effect of "Don't buy this mobo if you want to OC! It sucks!". Well, no $hit, Sherlock!! OC'ing on a $60 budget mobo!? Are these people #*%^ing insane!?

So yeah, read some of those reviews if you want a good laugh. Some of them are useful, but most are just newbies who don't know SATA 1.0 from SATA 300...