There's no one answer to that question.
1. Overall, historically
Asus has made some great boards, Asus has made some real bad boards
Gigabyte has made some great boards, Gigabyte has made some real bad boards
2. Over all brand return rates for the last period, Asus (2.43%) had lower return rate for the last 6 month reporting period than Gigabyte (2.96%), MSI was 2.82%. In the previous 6 months, bot MSI (2.65%) and Gigabyte (2.51%) topped Asus (2.86%). These number are so close as to be statistically insignificant.
4. Like every other component maker most make some real winners and both create their fair share of duds. The question you want to ask therefore is what's better an Asus [insert model name here] or a Gigabyte [insert model name here] ? For example, when you look at specific models... we see number much large than 2.xx%. For example:
- 9,65% ASUS Rampage IV Extreme
- 6,96% ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0
- 5,03% ASRock Z77 Pro3
- 4,95% ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77
- 4,44% ASRock H87M
5. Performance wise, with Z170, no one seems to have any statistically significant advantage. Thru Z87 and Z97, Asus was well below MSI which led the pack, followed by Gigabyte in reviewer testing.
6. One of the best ways to judge user satisfaction, assuming the number of data sources is statistically significant, is newegg user reviews. When we see say that 20+% of board owners have give a board the worse possible 1 egg rating, that is a board that I would avoid.
7. As was said above, the Asus BIOS is still better than the competition. With Z87 it was still a significant lead but the competition has caught up. If we assign a value of 100 to Asus, I'd have given MSi an 85 w/ Z87 and a 98 w/ Z97 ... Gigabyte I'd have to give a value of 70 inZz87 and 90 in Z97. Haven't had enough experience with all 3 to judge Z170 as yet. And tho it would be a factor in my decision, it has to be weighed against costs, feature set, components, price and the fact that after the first day, I'm not going to be spending any significant time in the BIOS.
8. Still, despite the UEFI advantage, one can usually get a Gigabyte / MSI board for $50 cheaper than the equivalent Asus board... $75 if it has a RoG label on it. For example... the Asus 797 Hero was 6% slower than the Gaming 5 series from MSI and Gigabyte but costs $85 more than the MSI and $105 more than the Gigabyte ... and with the same component list and features. Again w/ Z170, that gap has shrunken but is still there.
As to the models in question ... there's no way I would consider an H170 series board over a Z170 board.
The Giga has SLi, giving you the ability to extend system life by 18-24 months by adding a 2nd GFX card
Giga supports 3466 versus 2133 on the Asus
Giga has 2 more SATA connectors and 2 more SATA espress ports
Giga has extra USB port
Giga allows overclocking of your CPU
There really is no comparison between Z97 and h97 and on that alone, gotta give it to Giga.... as I said in item 8, if you are going to compare equivalently priced board, it will be hard for Asus to match the competition in most price niches.
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