Asus Motherboard or Gigabyte

Hi
I am planning to build a PC to replace my old one.

The configuration I have in mind is as follows

1. Intel i7 6700k 4 ghz processor.

2. Z170 chipset lga 1151 socket atx motherboard (not sure which one. Asus Signature Series Z170a or Z170a Professional. Or even Gigabyte Z170x UD5 ???????)

3. Corsair dominator platinum DDR4 16gb ram

4. Superflower 450w golden green 80 plus gold power supply or Corsair450 80 Plus Gold?

5. In-win 503 midi tower case

6. Dvd drive from the existing machine

7. 1 tb western digital existing black hdd running win 8.1 (will upgrade to free windows 10 pro) after installation in the new pc through Microsoft free upgrade programme.

What do you think? I am now confused between motherboard of ASUS Z170 signature series or Gigabyte Z170x UD5 as I am seeing mixed reviews from users on the various problems they have been facing. I have been reading Asus has a very good Quality Control but seeing motherboards failed or replaced is casting doubts in my mind?

Both brands are good. I lean a bit toward Asus as I have used the Maximus VIII Gene and Z170 Deluxe and they were solid with latest bioses.
I would also strongly recommend to invest in an SSD. You would be seeing massive difference with that little cheeky device.

Tough choice...

One is a shambles (Asus) who does not even know what HPET is or was and would refuse to even talk about a bios to remove it. The other (Gigabyte UK) will actually listen and email you a bios to ya know...help?

This also happened the second time with NVMe which again only Gigabyte UK has been helping users on here. So yea do the right thing and support Gigabyte or you go ahead and take a chance my man but if another software feature like NVMe 2.0 lands you will be high and dry with no support.

In the process of moving to an Asus z170i from my Gigabyte Z77x UD5H and have to say the Gigabyte bios on the older Z77 is far better laid out. Would prefer to stay with them but they skimped on their itx vrms/cooling, foolishly left out displayport on their itx offerings and cost more

Asus for me anyday. My last few boards have all been Asus and they have been rock solid. Excellent bios layout and have never had any problems. My next board will be Asus as well and seeing as OCUK now have a enhanced 3 year warranty support with Asus I wouldn't even consider another brand.

Only motherboard i ever had serious problems with was an Asus, an expensive one at that...never bought one since.

smilertoo said:

Only motherboard i ever had serious problems with was an Asus, an expensive one at that...never bought one since.

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i feel this guys pain, the only board to ever really give me jip is an asus z97.
Gigabyte make fantastic boards.

i have had a few z170's, MIS and AsRock, and i have the say the MSI Gaming M7 is fantastic and rock solid.

pastymuncher said:

OCUK now have a enhanced 3 year warranty support with Asus

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I used to go exclusively with Gigabyte boards after an awful support experience with Asus a few years back. With the new support arrangement though, I wouldn't hesitate to buy an Asus board. In fact my m-ATX system has a brand new Asus board in it.

Gigabyte boards aren't without their issues (largely being fickle about certain settings that can cause habitual cold boot failures) but overall have been a far better experience for me.

I've had way too many Asus motherboards die on me to touch them again.

Whatever board you like the look of and has the most features for your money IMO

They are all decent,gigabyte excellent in RMA though but Asus tend to have fewer niggles that need fixing via BIOS updates

A few years ago I had a Gigabyte board corrupt its (dual) BIOS and I had to RMA it. The scary thing is three other people at work also had the same problem within a few months with Gigabyte boards (different models). They are probably perfectly fine now but I still don't think I would buy one. At the end of the day it is down to personal experience.

I've had far more issues with Asus boards than Gigabyte ones. So I always stick with Gigabyte these days. I don't think Asus have the QA that they used to :/

Never had any issues with Asus and I have been using them since X38 came out on socket 775. Never had any issues with Gigabyte either though.

I too am looking at a new system very soon amd cannot make my mind up what motherboard to get. I am going for a 6600k or 6700k which really depends on the rest of my budget and cutting back on the motherboard could enable me to get the 6700. I've always been an amd user and always had gigabyte boards. I'm almost decided on the z170 gaming 5 but i see there are some other 'gaming' boards that are cheaper. Its pretty much going to be for gaming and general use only. Would cutting back on the board specs and getting a 6700k be a better option? I'd like to stick with gigabyte as never had a problem but not shy of trying msi or asus if it saved a bit but there are so many options available.

In Z170 ASUS is the better choice.

I had a hard time picking between the Maximus VIII Hero Alpha and the Z170X Gaming 7 recently, but ultimately the better UEFI on the Asus board swung it for me. Gigabyte's seems rather basic by comparison.

Aretak said:

I had a hard time picking between the Maximus VIII Hero Alpha and the Z170X Gaming 7 recently, but ultimately the better UEFI on the Asus board swung it for me. Gigabyte's seems rather basic by comparison.

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Spend a lot of time in the BIOS do you?

Gigabyte. I've used nothing but for about 10 years and when I had a serious problem recently, they sorted me out.

The odd few glitches here and there were sorted with bios updates.

Fan control is suppose to be really good on the Asus boards. The gigabyte fan control from bios is very basic. In mine (z170 gaming itx) it says something like this - 1.25pwm per degree C. And goes up in numbers like 1.25 then 1.50 etc etc. I read that Asus allows you to set a max and min fan speed based on rpm or %. Gigabyte doesn't.

D1craig said:

Fan control is suppose to be really good on the Asus boards. The gigabyte fan control from bios is very basic. In mine (z170 gaming itx) it says something like this - 1.25pwm per degree C. And goes up in numbers like 1.25 then 1.50 etc etc. I read that Asus allows you to set a max and min fan speed based on rpm or %. Gigabyte doesn't.

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GB software does this but with an AIO it doesn't work as your sys fan isn't waiting for your cpu temp