Asus or Gigabyte MoBo?

[dhilton0506]

I am having a very hard time choosing a MoBo for my Skylake upgrade. It is between the Asus Rog Maximus viii Hero and the Gigabyte Ga z170x gaming 7. Both of them have good and bad reviews, I like the look of the Rog much better, the white on the Gigabyte is not exactly something I like. I currently have a ga-990fxa-ud3p for my Amd and I love it. Bios is not overly complicated like the Rog seems to be, no unnecessary software, (Asus ai suite doesn't seem that appealing to me), overclocked well, and I know my way around the bios, which is similar to the bios on the z170x gigabyte board. Although on the other hand, the Rog board has a very nice look to it, some interesting bios features, (albeit maybe too many features), great overclocking capability from what I have read, and for the most part easy setup. I just want any opinions from people with first hand experience with each of these boards, or whether I should just go with my original choice of the Rog, the looks of the Rog are selling it for me right now, but then again I don't want a board thats going to be a PoS out of the box, but I know thats always possible with any board. Thanx in advance.

 

[KKAW]

Most definitely Rog Maximus VIII Hero.

Asus has been making quality boards for a long time and their Maximus lineup is absolutely top quality.

 

[rolli59]

My personal preference would be the Asus and since you like it better (colors) go with it!

 

[chilly2468]

I personally prefer to go with Asus motherboards but either should work very well for you. If you like the look of the Asus motherboard then I suggest going with it because you may never be happy with the look of your system with the Gigabyte mobo.

 

[dhilton0506]

Most definitely Rog Maximus VIII Hero.

Asus has been making quality boards for a long time and their Maximus lineup is absolutely top quality.

I guess I'm just hesitant because I have never used Asus for anything, but I'm not completely against it. Most things I have been reading say that Asus is dependable, and you saying that just further confirms the dependability. So for now I am going with the Rog, unless someone has any good reason to not get the Rog.

 

[rolli59]

Most definitely Rog Maximus VIII Hero.

Asus has been making quality boards for a long time and their Maximus lineup is absolutely top quality.

I guess I'm just hesitant because I have never used Asus for anything, but I'm not completely against it. Most things I have been reading say that Asus is dependable, and you saying that just further confirms the dependability. So for now I am going with the Rog, unless someone has any good reason to not get the Rog.

It is a great board!

 

[dhilton0506]

I personally prefer to go with Asus motherboards but either should work very well for you. If you like the look of the Asus motherboard then I suggest going with it because you may never be happy with the look of your system with the Gigabyte mobo.

Thats basically the only thing setting them apart right now, both of them have the good and bad. Yes the looks will be important, but I also want it to work correctly. Hoping with either one I don't get a DoA board lol.

 

[chilly2468]

I personally prefer to go with Asus motherboards but either should work very well for you. If you like the look of the Asus motherboard then I suggest going with it because you may never be happy with the look of your system with the Gigabyte mobo.

Thats basically the only thing setting them apart right now, both of them have the good and bad. Yes the looks will be important, but I also want it to work correctly. Hoping with either one I don't get a DoA board lol.

Asus is known for making high quality, reliable motherboards. I prefer them because their is a good chance you're going to have a working mobo instead of a fancy, over sized paper weight.

 

[marko55]

Both companies make fantastic boards. Some will even say Gigabyte is better quality that Asus, and based on reviews of many Asus boards over the last couple years I think they're slipping and continuing to charge for their name.

Hell, I've been using ASRock boards for a few years now and they've ALL been ROCK SOLID. I've deployed 2 in gaming rigs and 4 in professional workstation builds loaded with hardware (lots of drives, RAID cards, dual GPUs, 8-core CPUs, the whole nine). I've also put six X79 Sabretooths out there and they've been great as well. When I looked at the X99 sabretooth I found multiple (yes more than one) review of these boards literally catching on fire! I mean come one!

What I've found vs the Asus boards recently is their features tend to lack behind other boards' capabilities, like they way they cut up PCIe lanes from the CPU for PCIe slots. Asus boards like to share a lot of resources between hardware slots. So while the specs show a lot of slots for various use (PCIe slots, Sata slots, eSata, etc), you'll find that when you plug something in to one you lose another somehow. Granted, its not like Asus is the only one doing this; I've just found their setups to be undesirable for my builds.

Z170 makes this all even more interesting with the PCIe lanes coming off the chipset, and if you look at a lot of the Z170 boards, the way they utilize all the lanes available is terrible! You have to get to the tier of Z170 boards you're looking at to get a good setup.

So in the end, you'll ALWAYS find Asus fanatics, or just people who've sworn by Asus for years and years and won't ever try anything else. You've been a Gigabyte guy for a while and have been happy. Much like you, I'm always game to try something else, and I tend to trust electronics more than most as I understand that you have to take online reviews (like at newegg) with a certain grain of salt.

MOST importantly, build your system out in your head and read the full manual of each board you're considering to make absolutely sure it will support everything you're putting on it, and in the way you want to. If you're just throwing an SSD in there and a single high power GPU, and doing some overclocking, you're pretty much in the clear for any board.

 

[dhilton0506]

I personally prefer to go with Asus motherboards but either should work very well for you. If you like the look of the Asus motherboard then I suggest going with it because you may never be happy with the look of your system with the Gigabyte mobo.

Thats basically the only thing setting them apart right now, both of them have the good and bad. Yes the looks will be important, but I also want it to work correctly. Hoping with either one I don't get a DoA board lol.

Asus is known for making high quality, reliable motherboards. I prefer them because their is a good chance you're going to have a working mobo instead of a fancy, over sized paper weight.

Also, is the Ai suite required? I prefer not to have unnecessary software messing with my sysytem, and also alot of people have been having problems with the Ai suite being buggy, or slowing the pc down. So would I really even NEED to install it?

 

[rolli59]

I have 3 Asus boards and never install the included bloatware. Not at all necessary.