Z97 board for Devil's Canyon build: MSI, ASUS, or Gigabyte?

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c3k

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Gents,

I've used Asus and Gigabyte, but never MSI.

I +HATE+ the Asus flashing power light when computers sleep. Enough so, that I'll buy something else just because of that.

I'm looking at MSI's Gamer 7 board. I'd like a full-featured, mid-range, mobo.
I've used Gigabyte in previous builds (and Asus), but never MSI.

Any reccomendations, pro or con, for any of the above brands?

Thanks,
Ken
 
I have have the Asus Z97-A with my DC.

Solid board.

A piece of black electrical tape takes care of the standby led.
 
I've become a big fan of MSI's boards in the last few years. At this point, I'm sticking with them going forward until they give me a reason not to.
I bought my Z97 Krait Edition for $70 at Microcenter. Even when it isn't on sale, they're under $100. The Gamer 7 boards are similar, but I found the extras on the Krait to be of more use to me personally.
 
The Mac said:
I have have the Asus Z97-A with my DC.

Solid board.

A piece of black electrical tape takes care of the standby led.
Click to expand...

Solid board? Maybe. Utter garbage support? Most definitely.

Solid MSI recommendation here. Have had several over the years.
 
never had a problem with Asus support, been top notch the few times ive used them.
 
The Mac said:
never had a problem with Asus support, been top notch the few times ive used them.
Click to expand...

Then you've never had to RMA anything. Utter garbage is being very generous. Took THREE attempts for them to get me a working board. Reasonably certain one of those was just my original board that came back unfixed.
 
I love my Impact 7. Flawless from day one, no heat issues, even with a fanless Seasonic PSU, in my ITX box.

JX5dB1f.jpg
 
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FnordMan said:
Then you've never had to RMA anything. Utter garbage is being very generous. Took THREE attempts for them to get me a working board. Reasonably certain one of those was just my original board that came back unfixed.
Click to expand...

yup. had to rma a P67 deluxe board, not a single problem.

Crosshiped and replaced within 2 weeks.
 
Okay...

Asus: duct-tape or disconnect/fry the power LED (to stop the blinking)

MSI: good recommendations

Gigabyte: crickets chirping

Is that a fair summary?
 
Gigabytes are good boards. I have a Z87-UD3H, Z97-SLI, and a Z87-UD3H-BK board all running right now with no issues. The BK board is kind of slim on features compared to it's Z87 counterpart, but the SLI board is definitely nice for it's price. You can read reviews here on H that show the GB boards are good, but not spectacular.

I also had to RMA the Z87 board due to issues with the USB3 bug on the chipsets then. Easily the simplest RMA I've done. Requested ticket, a day later I had the RMA number. Mailed it out, and about 2 weeks later I had the replacement (was cheap and didn't speed shipment).
 
My DC uses UD5H, but my previous choice as Z97 G1.Sniper due to the best PCI lane layout (I could avoid installing anything between the GPU's), however due to Sniper being just a little narrower than an ATX board, thus leaving part of the board completely unsupported by standoffs.

Normally that would not matter at all, since that part of the board is also the lightest, it only has RAM, some chipset heatsinks and SATA ports, but in the interest of safety (accidentally bending the board when installing new RAM for example), I went with UD5H, the only full size board with an acceptable lane layout.

I didn't consider Asus because my last Mobo was Asus, wanted to try a different company. MSI is not known for quality mobos either. It's improving, but it is still ranked below the other two for reliability. Asrock is considered plain bad here, some retailers even refuse to stock them.

So far with UD5H, apart from the lane layout and colour scheme, everything works like a charm. I have not pushed the board's abilities, but I have no technical complaints.
 
My last Gigabyte mobo was/is an 890FX for a 1090T cpu. It's the one I'm looking to replace. It works, but time marches on. ;) I've liked it, but it never wowed me. I'm open to another Gigabyte, but the reviews I've read all seem to denigrate the BIOS/UEFI setup on Gigabyte when compared to Asus and/or MSI.
 
The Mac said:
I have have the Asus Z97-A with my DC.

Solid board.

A piece of black electrical tape takes care of the standby led.
Click to expand...

Have the same board and CPU, extremely happy with it... The standby LED you can just unplug it at the motherboard, slightly annoying as my fracta R4 looks cool with the LED but makes zero difference at the end of the day.
 
You can search for 'lightdims', they are selling semi-transparent tape that allow you to bring led to an acceptable brightness.
 
c3k said:
I +HATE+ the Asus flashing power light when computers sleep. Enough so, that I'll buy something else just because of that.
Click to expand...
Holy this is just an Asus thing? I don't put my computer to sleep for this very reason.
 
Silverghost said:
Holy this is just an Asus thing? I don't put my computer to sleep for this very reason.
Click to expand...

I've used Abit, Gigabyte, and Asus mobo's in my builds. (And some intels. There were some others, but they've been forgotten in the dim mists of time... ;) )

Yes, Asus is the ONLY mobo which flashes the damn LED when it sleeps.
 
I used msi and had good times with it. Switch to Gigabyte and never went back. I just felt like it was a better built board. Asus' warranty handling was a joke for a highly used system at work so that was a huge turn off for me. Have a bnib z97x-ud3h-bk if you want it. Just don't need it.
 
^^^
Thanks for the offer. I'm in a holding pattern right now, waiting to see what the AMD 300 series gpu's will do/cost. That will help determine which way I go with the upgrade.
 
peanuthead said:
Asus' warranty handling was a joke for a highly used system at work so that was a huge turn off for me. Have a bnib z97x-ud3h-bk if you want it. Just don't need it.
Click to expand...

Doesn't ASUS have a Advanced RMA service now? I've heard enough horror stories about them that I brought an Asrock MB during my last update so I have something as backup.

I'm curious about anyone's experience?
 
I don't know about now. This was just 2-3 years ago for me. I had to fill out a form with my CC info, fax it (CC info plain sight of anyone who sees the fax), wait for them they had the board they could send me, ship it, etc. No thanks. Way to archaic for me.
 
I've had boards from all three mfgr's in recent years, and liked them all. Each one had their own +/-'s feature wise, but never had any issues with them. I've been using an Asus Maximus Hero VI ROG and an MSI Gaming-6 series, both Z87 units, for the past 6 months and haven't had any issues at all with either of them....

I'm currently browsing the web for info, reports, comments, specs etc on the X99 platform for a near-future build though, and at this point I'm just about set on going with another Asus board. This may or may not change as Skylake gets closer to launch though :)
 
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