Maximus VII GENE: RoG Or Maximus VII Ranger?

[MoShU23]

Hello, looking at building my PC and I got two motherboards:

ASUS® MAXIMUS VII GENE: RoG, PCI-e 3.0, SATA 3.0, USB3.0 and ASUS® MAXIMUS VII RANGER: PCI-e 3.0, SATA 3.0, USB3.0

I would like to know the difference between these two, leaving aside the size. I looked online, but could not find a good comparison.

Thank you.

 

[endeavour37a]

Here are the 2 spec sheets, they pretty much lay out the differences.......
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VII_RANGER/specifications/
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VII_GENE/specifications/

 

[unknownofprob]

The best thing to do in a comparison is open both motherboards in two links and check the differences for each individual feature, But I'll list them.

VII GENE has;

3300MHz ram speed support. This is determined by CPU FSB anyways, so doesn't even matter.

VII Ranger;

Lot more features
Larger size
3x PCI-E 2.0 X1 ports compared to one on the GENE
6x USB 3.0 Ports vs GENE's 4 Ports. Both have 7 USB 2.0 ports.

Apart from those spotted differences (there are many more, features like exclusive Asus ROG software for the Ranger which doesn't do much), there practically the same.

 

[endeavour37a]

One odd thing I noticed, the Ranger shows a M.2 socket in the image of the board yet says Nothing about it at all in the specs, strange......it sure looks like a Hero to me LOL

To me the Ranger looks more like a cut down Hero than a Gene, the power is a big difference also....

 

[MoShU23]

Thanks, I will probably go with Ranger

 

[unknownofprob]

great choice, won't disappoint.