Saying X vendor is fast and Y vendor is slow is so rubbish. People either don't know what they are doing or their problem is specific to their build/setup. ASRock/MSI/Gigabyte/ASUS builds I've done, all have more or less similar boot times. The less sophisticated boards of ALL brands tend to POST faster due to less features/expansion options/etc they get. So yah, cheaper is faster too! Ironically. Somebody mentioned above, you should use Fast Boot / Ultra Fast Boot whenever you can if you wear the stopwatch at all times. Standby mode was invented for a reason! Heh.
That SPCR review is very confusing, I agree.