Do Asus' motherboards have speacual features ?

[IRONBATMAN]

Hi,

I'm planning a Mini ITX build, and I have narrowed down to 2 motherboards. The Asus H97i Plus , and the Gigabyte H97N WiFi. They're very similar, but the Gigabyte motherboard has a wireless adapter. But what makes the Asus motherboard more expensive ? It's about $5 more expensive. Does that mean that the Asus motherboard have higher quality or something ? If so, I might go with the Asus motherboard.

So, which motherboard has higher quality?

Any input would be appreciated,
Thanks

 

[i7Baby]

$5! big deal.

I'd say I prefer Asus quality - reliability. But yeah you do have to pay for it. But the chance of anything going wrong is supposedly less.

 

[Paul NZ]

Well look on the ASUS site

I cant get on the GB site its going nowhere

 

[i7Baby]

Can't get it to load either.

So BAT - compare their specs. If they're the same then get the Asus - for $5 more they're worth it.

Mobo Wifi is rarely good. I'd prefer a pcie card - better antennae.

 

[Paul NZ]

I like ASUS mobob because unlike the other brands (maybe except GB).

If you accidentally brick it somehow when you update the BIOS, you can bring it back to life.

Other brands, if you brick it, its dead

 

[IRONBATMAN]

Nobody seems to be able to explain why Asus is so magically better :|

 

[Paul NZ]

I just told you one reason

 

[IRONBATMAN]

How does it do so ?

 

[i7Baby]

Reliability. Ease of overclocking (good uefi software). Robustness (per Paul)

 

[Arno8]

Lifetime, Asus has a longer lifetime then Gyg. I think that's worth 5$ sir.

 

[synphul]

They have slightly different specs, those are the main differences. The asus has m.2 support, gb doesn't. The gb has 5 audio out jacks vs the 3 of the asus. The asus support 2 additional fans to the cpu fan, the gb only has 1 additional fan header. The asus has 4 sata ports, the gb has 6. The asus has 8 usb ports at the rear, the gb has 6. Asus has 1 lan port, the gb has dual lan ports (1 intel, the other atheros). Also like you stated, the gb has built in wifi and bluetooth 4.0, the asus doesn't.

Both use high quality parts, solid caps, etc. I can't speak for gb in terms of ease of rma's, the past 10yrs I've done 6 personal builds over 2 different machines with all gb boards and never had to rma one.

The better board comes down to your needs, whichever has the features you want/need is the better buy. $5 isn't much difference in motherboards, so essentially I'd consider them the same price. Difference in pricing can be as simple as brand pricing or difference of features. More important are the specific boards/features. Being of one brand or another doesn't make something 'worth it'. Both companies have high end and low end boards and higher prices are charged for more features whether it's more power phases, more slots, etc.

Some people have said the new gb bios is confusing, I really didn't see the confusion. All bios are bound to be slightly different and unless you're a professional overclocker constantly tweaking settings there's no reason to base a purchase on that. For the once or twice most people even access the bios, it's kind of a non issue. It's not like a primary interface the user has to work with everyday or anything. I'm not sure that asus has a longer lifetime than gigabyte, unless maybe time in business or something? Both those boards have 3yr warranties. I've heard of people who had issues and had to rma their boards with gigabyte and asus both, that's just normal. No one makes a perfect product 100% of the time.

If it were me, I'd look at what my needs were, hardware connectivity, peripherals etc and then base my decision on that. It's true a discrete wifi card would probably work better, discrete anything typically works better than onboard devices.