Confused over ASUS subbrands: TUF, Strix, ROG, etc.

[x509]

So it's time for me to do a whole new system inside my case: MB/CPU/RAM/Graphics. I haven't decided yet about AMD or Intel CPU, or AMD or nVidia GPU, but I'm leaning to nVidia. I noticed that ASUS also has different graphics card with these subbrands. I'm leaning to ASUS for the motherboard because I've used them for over 20 years and I'm happy with the level of BIOS support.

But what about choosing a "simple" motherboard, as opposed to a more expensive on that's TUF, or Strix, or ROG? If it matters, I'm not a gamer, but I do a lot of photo processing with Lightroom and Photoshop.

Is there an explanation of these differences without all the gobblydegook and cotton-in-your-mouth talk?

 

[RazorWind]

The short answer is "Not really."

Very generally speaking, it goes something like ROG > Strix > TUF, but you ultimately still have to decide what features you want and buy the board that offers that set of features.

 

[x509]

The short answer is "Not really."

Very generally speaking, it goes something like ROG > Strix > TUF, but you ultimately still have to decide what features you want and buy the board that offers that set of features.

In features? Price? Attractiveness to gamers? As I said in post #1, I'm not a gamer. But I do want good performance and long-term reliability.

 

[RazorWind]

All three, but again, that's a pretty broad generalization.

What I'd suggest that you do is pick out a CPU first, and then go looking for a board that supports it and has the features you need.

Edit: My point being that you shouldn't worry too much about which line the board you're buying comes from, and instead concentrate on features and price.

 

[RomeoGolf87]

I would go for the Asus ROG line if the budget allowed for it. The ROG Crosshair VIII Hero or Formula. Otherwise the Prime series maybe a more "simple" motherboard. Asus Prime X570 Pro or Prime X570-P. I do not have direct experience with these exact boards, but I have an Asus prime board currently that I am happy with.

I have heard that the Asus TUF/Sabertooth series is not what it use to be and is basically budget gamer boards now, I wouldn't buy TUF series. It's a shame because I like the TUF appearance/style.

 

[Brian_B]

I have heard that the Asus TUF/Sabertooth series is not what it use to be and is basically budget gamer boards now,

I thought these were always Asus' budget gamer branding

 

[Archaea]

Tuf was originally supposed to be “military grade capacitors” and a long reliability characteristic.

 

[RamonGTP]

The short answer is "Not really."

Very generally speaking, it goes something like ROG > Strix > TUF, but you ultimately still have to decide what features you want and buy the board that offers that set of features.

Heck, my motherboard is a ROG Strix.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

Tuf was originally supposed to be “military grade capacitors” and a long reliability characteristic.

which worked at the time but now everything that was used on TUF boards is standard on every board from almost all the manufactures other than the ultra low end boards. so the TUF brand has no reason to exist anymore.. ultimately though the sub brands are just marketing now and play very little part in the components and feature sets of the boards.

 

[x509]

which worked at the time but now everything that was used on TUF boards is standard on every board from almost all the manufactures other than the ultra low end boards. so the TUF brand has no reason to exist anymore.. ultimately though the sub brands are just marketing now and play very little part in the components and feature sets of the boards.

So is this all now sales fluff? I suspected as much. Confuse the heck out of the customer, but it's all good as long as they buy something ASUS. Are the other brands as bad? Like, what does Aorus stand for?

 

[sirmonkey1985]

So is this all now sales fluff? I suspected as much. Confuse the heck out of the customer, but it's all good as long as they buy something ASUS. Are the other brands as bad? Like, what does Aorus stand for?

aorus is gigabyte's "enthusiast" brand.. basically it just means you get RGB on the board and more than 1 RGB header.. other than that there doesn't seem to be any real difference.

 

[x509]

aorus is gigabyte's "enthusiast" brand.. basically it just means you get RGB on the board and more than 1 RGB header.. other than that there doesn't seem to be any real difference.

Which for me is a don't care, since my case has solid steel sides. At least I got that one sorted out. Thanks.

There is so much s--- to learn about, what with all the different brands and subbrands and chipsets. And that's on top of Intel or AMD.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

Which for me is a don't care, since my case has solid steel sides. At least I got that one sorted out. Thanks.

There is so much s--- to learn about, what with all the different brands and subbrands and chipsets. And that's on top of Intel or AMD.

yup agree, i primarily just focus on the features i want at the price i want to pay and ignore the names/brands. up until about 3-4 years ago brands actually mattered significantly when it came to feature sets but not so much anymore. both intel and AMD have gotten a lot more strict about what the minimum requirements are for VRM's, etc for their processors and with the move to pcie 4.0 manufactures are no longer allowed to cheap out on their PCB quality like they use to be able to.

 

[x509]

yup agree, i primarily just focus on the features i want at the price i want to pay and ignore the names/brands. up until about 3-4 years ago brands actually mattered significantly when it came to feature sets but not so much anymore. both intel and AMD have gotten a lot more strict about what the minimum requirements are for VRM's, etc for their processors and with the move to pcie 4.0 manufactures are no longer allowed to cheap out on their PCB quality like they use to be able to.

So I have always believed that ASUS had the best BIOS and better/longer BIOS support than the others? Was this ever true? True now?

I also thought that only AMD board support PCIE 4 right now, with Intel still stuck on PCIE 3. If I got an AMD board, are there any vid cards today that can use PCIE 4? Or would I have to wait a few months? (I'm thinking about upgrading my vid card pretty soon.)

 

[sirmonkey1985]

So I have always believed that ASUS had the best BIOS and better/longer BIOS support than the others? Was this ever true? True now?

I also thought that only AMD board support PCIE 4 right now, with Intel still stuck on PCIE 3. If I got an AMD board, are there any vid cards today that can use PCIE 4? Or would I have to wait a few months? (I'm thinking about upgrading my vid card pretty soon.)

i have a personal hatred for asus so i won't use my personal experience to effect your purchasing decision but i believe it still holds true with them as far as bios support goes. no there's no gpu that will take advantage of pcie 4.0 any time soon outside of AI/computational work loads in the enterprise market. storage though that's a different story if you fall into that category where you move a lot of data around then pcie 4.0 is pretty nice.

 

[RamonGTP]

I have a PCIe 4 NVME drive and I must say it's pretty sweet.

Can I tell the difference between it and a PCIe 3? No. In fact, not a whole lot of noticeable difference between it and a SATA III SSD. But the Crystal Disk Mark results are nice to show off.

 

[Zepher]

I've been a fan of the Sabertooth TUF line, mainly for aesthetics.

My old 3770k Sabertooth


My 4790k Sabertooth


And Asus has been my go-to board for personal builds since the mid 90's.

 

[Archaea]

I agree that there isn’t much difference with the boards anymore.

The x570 boards for instance are rumored to have the same VRMs from top to bottom of every vendor lineup. So oveclocking headroom should be identical between any manufacturer and any sub product.

Differences anymore typically are in the bells and whistles vs expected longevity or quality.

If you go more top of the line you may see:
Thicker PCB (more rigid), more RGB ports or built in lighting, better onboard sound-card, more nvme ports, and or SATA controllers, more onboard USB ports for use on back I/O plate, built in WiFi, capability to flash BIOS without CPU installed. Most websites have a built in comparison too. Just look for a deal that has the feature you need. I’d agree that brand is becoming increasingly less important. There are fewer market players now, and each remaining player is pretty solid at this point.

MSI is under some fire right now for saying they won’t support 3rd gen Ryzen on first gen Ryzen motherboards, while Asus said they would. So there are some ‘tis for tat differences here or there. I think the story goes that MSI used smaller capacity BIOS modules that weren’t big enough for 3rd gen BIOS instructions, but with the community backlash they recanted and updated some/many/all? of the boards anyway — to do so they had to remove all the flash from the bios (color and graphics) and just make it old CLI style BIOS. That’s about the most drama I’ve seen in a couple years regarding a particular MB manufacturer.

 

[RamonGTP]

I agree that there isn’t much difference with the boards anymore.

The x570 boards for instance are rumored to have the same VRMs from top to bottom of every vendor lineup. So oveclocking headroom should be identical between any manufacturer and any sub product.

This rumor is easily put to bed by simply watching Buildzoid's breakdowns and seeing what's actually on there. They aren't all the same. There's differences in components, as well as design methodologies from not using doublers vs using doublers, to using multiple power stages per phase.

They are however all good enough to handle whichever Ryzen processor you want to run at stock speeds.

MSI is under some fire right now for saying they won’t support 3rd gen Ryzen on first gen Ryzen motherboards, while Asus said they would.

Which boards are 1st gen boards? I have a B350 Gaming Plus that's currently not in use but looking at MSI's BIOS page, the latest one for that board is specifically for Ryzen 3rd gen support.

 

[Nicepants42]

So it's time for me to do a whole new system inside my case: MB/CPU/RAM/Graphics. I haven't decided yet about AMD or Intel CPU, or AMD or nVidia GPU, but I'm leaning to nVidia. I noticed that ASUS also has different graphics card with these subbrands. I'm leaning to ASUS for the motherboard because I've used them for over 20 years and I'm happy with the level of BIOS support.

But what about choosing a "simple" motherboard, as opposed to a more expensive on that's TUF, or Strix, or ROG? If it matters, I'm not a gamer, but I do a lot of photo processing with Lightroom and Photoshop.

Is there an explanation of these differences without all the gobblydegook and cotton-in-your-mouth talk?

Short answer for AMD: TUF 570.

If for some reason you want to agonize over the decision, Buildzoid has plenty of blather on Youtube.

 

[Jandor]

If you don't overclock the TUF series are the best bet. Nothing complicated with leds all over round and large capacitors to handle standard use. Asus put them on sale as basic overclockable gaming series but they are still good for non gaming non overclocking, while the Strix and ROG may get you into more trouble even if they can do better.

 

[Hakaba]

When people are saying Buildzoid has great info out there, they are referring to a few videos by him linked below. In short, the X570 TUF is an amazing board for its price, now it might not give you everything you wanted but at $200 for an entry board (yesh) it performs well. I run one for my 3600 and will put a 3900X in it later or a 3950X, just waiting on a few things.



Now this video covers a multitude of boards at varying price points that should work (should because you need to research individual boards/bios/peoples response), and the ASUS TUF X570 is mentioned because its built rather well, however, its full feature set may lack a little.

 

[Dan_D]

This is a bit older, but ASUS' marketing still currently breaks down like this:

It used to be quite different with ROG and TUF existing in parallel with the standard models being right under them. TUF and ROG were separate, but equal. Now, ROG is at the top of the pyramid with ROG STRIX below that. Adding the extra name doesn't make sense and it makes even less sense since the STRIX name is top of the heap with video cards. PRIME is newer, but as you can see has a ton of overlap with the other brands to further confuse you. Prime also overlaps the commercial segment.

Even more confusing is what doesn't appear here. There is a TUF series like the older TUF boards, and TUF Gaming which are different animals. There is also a WS line as well. They are higher end, workstation focused products.

 

[Jandor]

Well, this is not so much true if you look at the components. Your TUF board may live longer if not overclocked than your Prime unoverlcocked board.
So the TUF board may be better used in a home server, for instance, than a Prime board. While the higher level gaming boards have gadgets and performance components, and Bioses, all oriented at overclocking and boosting performance, meaning they are more prone to failure than more basic TUF boards and maybe even Prime boards, even all used without overclocking.
So what's good in TUF boards is that they are as simple as Prime but with better components.
If you want gaming with overclocking, get an expensive gaming boar.

 

[x509]

Well, this is not so much true if you look at the components

Which is why I started this thread.

. Your TUF board may live longer if not overclocked than your Prime unoverlcocked board.
So the TUF board may be better used in a home server, for instance, than a Prime board. While the higher level gaming boards have gadgets and performance components, and Bioses, all oriented at overclocking and boosting performance, meaning they are more prone to failure than more basic TUF boards and maybe even Prime boards, even all used without overclocking.

So I'm supposed to pay more money for a board that is less reliable long-term? Am I reading this right?

So what's good in TUF boards is that they are as simple as Prime but with better components.
If you want gaming with overclocking, get an expensive gaming boar.

What if I want to overclock, but I'm not a gamer? Is there some difference between "gaming overclocking" and "regular overclocking?"

 

[Jandor]

Which is why I started this thread.

So I'm supposed to pay more money for a board that is less reliable long-term? Am I reading this right?

What if I want to overclock, but I'm not a gamer? Is there some difference between "gaming overclocking" and "regular overclocking?"

By principle it is the gamers who overclock. For gamers getting more FPS is better than having a reliable board for the next 10 years, because they will upgrade the board in a couple of years.
If it's for professional use you should get the better board and CPU instead of overclocking. Losing your work will cost you a lot more.

 

[x509]

By principle it is the gamers who overclock. For gamers getting more FPS is better than having a reliable board for the next 10 years, because they will upgrade the board in a couple of years.
If it's for professional use you should get the better board and CPU instead of overclocking. Losing your work will cost you a lot more.

OK. I get that and that's what I should do. But my impression is that the "gamer" boards with the ROG and Strix sub-brands are "better" than the TUF or just plain Jane boards. See question #2 in this thread.

I just want to thank everyone who has posted in this thread. It's really, really helpful to me.

 

[cyclone3d]

It goes like this:
ROG:
We might honor your warranty.
Strix:
If we have some other poor sap's matching item that they sent in for warranty, we'll just swap yours with theirs and hope you both leave us alone.
TUF and below:
We will claim that it doesn't work because you caused physical damage even though we damaged it on purpose after we received it.

ASUS USA RMA (3rd party scumbags) sucks about as bad as a company can suck and ASUS corporate doesn't give a crap enough to fire them and actually get a good company to handle warranty repairs/replacements.

 

[kirbyrj]

I've been a fan of the Sabertooth TUF line, mainly for aesthetics.

My old 3770k Sabertooth
View attachment 183620

My 4790k Sabertooth
View attachment 183621

And Asus has been my go-to board for personal builds since the mid 90's.
View attachment 183622

The problem is that the old Sabertooth line has pretty much been extinct since the 990FX and Z97 (maybe Z170...I'd have to look) boards. Since then, they are basically entry level.

The product space they used to cover seems like it was absorbed by the STRIX line just with more LED bling and less warranty.

 

[Dan_D]

The problem is that the old Sabertooth line has pretty much been extinct since the 990FX and Z97 (maybe Z170...I'd have to look) boards. Since then, they are basically entry level.

The product space they used to cover seems like it was absorbed by the STRIX line just with more LED bling and less warranty.

Pretty much.