Gigabyte or Asus?

[teddyv]

Hi Folks - buying an i5-2500k at MC and need a motherboard, got it down to Gigabyte's GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 or the Asus P8P67 R3.1, and would appreciate any input on...

1. Reliability - I will not overclock, will not use onboard video (have a 3850 I will use), will not be using an SSD (for now). I am most interested in reliability. Mainly, ease of setup and long-term stability. Both boards seem to have issues with Newegg comments but both seem to have pretty good reputations.

2. Features - aside from what they all have I want the front USB3 header & Firewire for my old but still good digicamcorder - both have. I like the extra USB ports in the back panel on the ASUS, but doubt I will use more than 5 (keyboard, mouse, printer, external drive, ipad) - leaving whether it would be better to have backup video?

3. Bios - I like the new Asus bios but it seems a bit buggy in some comments - is this a widespread problem?

4. Memory - plan to buy 4g of cheap MC ram and pick up 16g of good ram at Black Thursday sales, either more finicky than the other with memory?

4. The Asus TPU/EPU features I find a bit confusing, are they useful at all?

I am going to be using my current WD-640 Black as my boot disk - I cloned to a WD-640 Blue and will use the Black to install windows wiping the current stuff, and the blue to bring all my data over.

Any comments much appreciated.

 

[GotNoRice]

Between those two boards i'd go with the gigabyte simply due to it being Z68 vs P67, but have you looked at the Asus Z68 boards also? You said you aren't going to be using an SSD now, but with SSD caching you could add in an SSD at any point down the road to accelerate everything on your mechanical drive without having to re-install your OS or do anything at all. (Just make sure to set your Intel controller to RAID before you do your initial windows install to keep that option open later)

 

[Mem]

Personally I think Asus and Gigabyte are good either way,I agree about Z68 over P67 ,basically Z68 has everything P67 has and more like onboard video ,SRT SSD cache etc....

I purchased an Asus P8Z68 V/Gen3 few days ago,setup was easy,BIOS very easy to use,BIOS is not buggy on mine and it boots first time every day as well.

TPU is for quick overclock,EPU energy save,you can leave both disabled(default setting) and still overclock in Bios or within Windows so its not an issue if you don't use them.

 

[gevorg]

Hi Folks - buying an i5-2500k at MC and need a motherboard, got it down to Gigabyte's GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 or the Asus P8P67 R3.1, and would appreciate any input on...

1. Reliability - I will not overclock, will not use onboard video (have a 3850 I will use), will not be using an SSD (for now). I am most interested in reliability. Mainly, ease of setup and long-term stability.

If this is your #1, then get an Intel-built P67 or Z68 mobo (like DZ68DB). P67 will probably be a better deal for you since you don't need IGP and won't use SSD caching. P67 should still support future Ivy Bridge CPUs if you decide to swap CPUs later on.

 

[videopho]

My last 2 builds have been GB but I can no longer recommend it since it has some quirks about the bios that sometime just puzzled me..i.e boot loop
That said I'd definitely try Asus as my next mobo.

 

[Puppies04]

I would say asus but unless you are willing to spend the extra to pick up a Z68 board then go for the gigabyte

 

[Fujiwara]

If you don't mind my asking, if you're not going to overclock why not go for the i5-2500/2400? It's a little bit cheaper and you won't suffer too much loss power-wise. To answer your question, both are great and are well-known for reliability. Honestly, it's almost impossible for me to choose between the two. Whichever you go with, I'm sure you'll get a rock solid board.

 

[tulx]

I'd go Asus any day. I still have a M2N-SLI Deluxe that has endured my first attempts at overclocking and is working perfectly for about 5 years now.

 

[Skott]

As far as quality and reliability they are both good. I don't see one above the other. So it really comes down to features and price in this situation I think.

 

[poohbear]

they're both solid for reliability & quality. I'd go with the Asus though due to their UEFI bios, its so visually easy to use and not cluttered like the old bios all the other manufacterers are using. Gigabyte is finally gonna update their BIOS screen to be a bit less cluttery and text based with their x79 mobos, but that doesnt help u much.

 

[videogames101]

Both are considered the premier motherboard manufacturers in quality metrics, so you can't really go wrong. I anecdotally prefer Asus.

 

[stevech]

Me too, ASUS for microATX for years. Always, always AMD (don't let Intel have a monopoly)
But...

Just got a mini-ITX Gigabyte GA-E350N-USB3. Very pleased with this. Great cost/performance: HDMI out to TV at 1080i.
$120 + $18 For DDR3 RAM.
No CPU chip to buy.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Go for price IMHO.

 

[Meghan54]

While I cannot speak to those specific motherboards, I have owned both a Gigabyte and Asus Z68 board....the Z68-UD3H and the Maximus IV Gene-Z.

I switched from the Gigabyte to the Asus because the Asus just OC'd better, the graphic BIOS is just much easier to use (not saying the Gigabyte BIOS is bad or anything, just old school and I've always hated Gigabyte's BIOSes overall anyway....needlessly complicated and I don't feel they're particularly well done), and the Asus brand has always served me well with only one mb failure over the years, an old CUSL2.

I'm just an Asus fanboi, I guess, but I have used Gigabyte for my wife's builds before and have no real reliability complaints for them, either, just nitpick setup crap I don't like.

You really can't go wrong choosing either brand.

 

[DigDog]

i love my Giga 965p_DS3, but i agree that Asus products are top of the line.

However, i had the most atrocious customer-service failures* when dealing with Asus (in the UK)..so, i say go Gigabyte.


*seriously, you don't want to know.

 

[classy]

Asus>Gigabyte

 

[teddyv]

Thanks for all the replies, I put some real thought into it and decided ultimately that I needed simplicity and reliability more than things like Firewire I don't expect I will ever use. So I got the i5-2500K, the Asus P8Z68-V LX, 2x4gigs of Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600, and an Antec 300 Case. I have it together and it fires right up and seems pretty happy. Only gotten as far as playing around with the bios as I am trying to find a Win7 Ultimate 64-bit disc to use in place of the 32-bit version I got free at the launch party some years ago.

The new bios is very cool and makes things very easy, worth it over the Giga right there alone I think.

 

[Avalon]

*Edit*

Just saw your update. Enjoy the new machine!