No Contest, I'd go and did go the Hero, much improved over the Z87 Hero which was and is the best Z87 mobo, I've built on numerous Z97s and worked on a whole lot of other different Z97s. I myself only build on Asus, the Rock and GB, I used to include MSI till their QC started going downhill and have yet to see it come back. I still get more trouble calls on faulty MSI mobos than any two other mobo makers put together