jimmysmitty :
The Asus boards also have 2x the reviews which would naturally increase the amount off possible negative reviews. One guy gave it a 1 egg because the onboard sound did not have a EQ yet he says he loves sound. If so then why would he not buy a sound card? Or better yet use a receiver?
It is hard to trust Newegg reviews. Hell some tech site reviews are hard to trust. I found one that stated a con was the color scheme.
And the review you posted, I wonder how they are testing it. Are they testing the system at stock or the best overclock the board can produce? That matters because some people will be OCing to 4.5GHz and others want the best possible OC. I have never seen boards have so much disparity between gaming performance unless they are running overclocks,
1. I don't have time for more than a short math lesson but a % is completely independent of the number of reviews. If 27% of board owners state that they are extremely unhappy, that means:
27 outta 100 are unhappy (27%)
54 outta 200 are unhappy (27%)
81 outta 300 are unhappy (27%)
Tripling the number doesn't change the %. Who's the better hitter in baseball ?
The guy with a .375 average w/ 100 at bats
The guy with a .125 average w/ 200 at bats
So, no ... the number of reviews has no impact on the % of unhappy people as long as the sampling size is adequate. And while accuracy increases with sample size, 270 (Asus ) or 130 MSI reviews is way more than adequate to get an accurate picture....at least according to standard statistical analysis.
http://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html
Following the directions for the bottom 2 boxes....
For the Asus Z97-A, we see that we can have a 95% confidence level in our survey being accurate to within 6%. The math tells us we need a sample size of 264 people and we have 270 reviews. So we can be 95% sure that the 27% figure is accurate to within plus or minus 6 %.... (1.6%) .... in essence, we are 95% sure that the extremely unhappy people are between 25.4 % and 28.4% of board owners.
For the MSI Gaming 5, we see that we can have a 95% confidence level in our survey being accurate to within 8.6%. The math tells us we need a sample size of 130 people and we have 130 reviews. So we can be 95% sure that the 10% figure is accurate to within plus or minus 8.6 %. (1.6%) .... in essence, we are 95% sure that the extremely unhappy people are between 9.1 % and 10.9% of board owners.
2. If you want to know the test conditions, simply visit the site and read them. However, since all boards were tested under identical conditions by the same guy, on essentially the same exact hardware, what different users do with their systems is not really relevant. Same CPU, RAM, same GFX card, all had AX series PSUs for every board.... the Z97-A had a H100i, the Gaming 5 and Hero had a much less capable H105.... so if anything the test conditions favored the Z97-A....and yet despite that advantage, it was 10% behind.
http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/msi_z97_gaming_6_review/10
3. Are you suggesting that if one board overclocks better that "to make things fair", one should purposely reduce its performance so the lower performing board can compete better ? Should Usain Bolt have to wear 5 pound ankle weights at next year's world track championships ? The Z97-A reached 5.0 Ghz, perhaps due to the more robust cooler, But despite the extra 0.1 Ghz and better cooler, it still was 10% behind in fps. If the OP including participating in OC competitions, ya would have to give the nod to the Z97-A (with some reservation due to the better cooler), but that was not listed among the intended uses.
Here's how they stack up for gaming ... with the highest fps total set at 100% and all the others totals as a % of that.
MSI Z97 Gaming 9 - 100.00%
MSI Z97 Gaming 5 - 99.86%
MSI Z97A Gaming 6 - 98.96%
Asus Z97 TUF Sabranco - 96.13%
Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5 - 95.00%
Gigabyte Z97X SOC Force - 94.95%
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Hero - 93.67%
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Formula - 93.58%
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Gene - 91.69%
Asus Z97-A - 89.57%
MSI Z97 Mpower MAX AC - 88.20%
MSI Z97S Krait SLI - 71.01%
Here's how they stack up in the dissatisfied users department...again these are % of unhappy users .... the 1st two I don't have confidence in statistically as they only have 25 and 38 reviews.
MSI Z97 Mpower MAX AC - 4%
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130765
Asus Z97 TUF Sabranco* - 5%
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132414
MSI Z97 Gaming 5* - 10%
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130770
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Gene - 11%
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132136
MSI Z97A Gaming 6 - 12%
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128709
Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5* - 14%
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128709
MSI Z97S Krait SLI 19%
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130801
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Hero* - 19%
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132125
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Formula* - 26%
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132247
Asus Z97-A - 27%
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132118
MSI Z97 Gaming 9 - 28%
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130808
Gigabyte Z97X SOC Force* - 29%
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128704
If it's me, I want something from the top of those lists. (BTW, we have direct personal experience with all asterisked boards above).
The is simply no logical argument that can be made that when you have well over 100 reviews that one group is somehow more uneducated or biased. Both would will be equally represented in any sampling of that magnitude, hence the 95% mathematical confidence level.
The approach is akin to arguing that GFX card A is just as good as GFX card B cause A can be overclocked to B's performance level..... and leaving out the very obvious fact that B can be overclocked too. Most reviews ? More people ate at McDonalds than at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant or at In and Out Burger or anywhere else so is it an unescapable conclusion that McDonalds makes the best meal among those or even on the planet ? Who's the better hitter in baseball ?
The guy with a .375 average w/ 100 at bats
The guy with a .125 average w/ 200 at bats
The sampling size between the two boards in questions tells us, with a 95% confidence level that the accuracy of the % of 1 egg reviews, means ONLY that the number for the Z97-A is only 2% more accurate than the Gaming 5.... and no way that a 2% difference can account the difference between 10 and 27% .