ASUS Z97 Pro Gamer or ASRock Z97 OC Formula ?

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tAKticool

tAKticool

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Apr 10, 2013
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Well the title says it all -

"they say" that ASUS in general is the best motherboard manufacturer but "they also say" that perhaps, the OC Formula is a better actual motherboard.

What would I want to pick here .... Price is close enough that it's not the deciding factor or a real part of it so I am calling it even in that regard. I hope to pair it with the i7 4790K and while I am not an extremely experienced overclocker, I've dabbled and hope to take some advantage in the future (but not necessarily looking to OC right out of the box from the jump - but nice to know I can and hopefully I will).

Is this a tossup ? I have tried to compare piece by piece and it seems to be a very close call, this forum calls the OC FORMULA a Tier 1/B (second overall tier) while the Pro Gamer is a tier below it. Both have plenty of good things listed in the reviews on Newegg and also some horror stories (seems pretty much par for the course, many if not most MoBos have fair share of horror stories)

So - which is it my righteous peoples> THANKS!
 
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Here is the Pro Gamer's product page: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/Z97PRO_GAMER/ . Here, they claim their LAN ports, USB ports, and Audio ports are ESD-protected, DRAM has over-current protection, high-quality capacitors (like the OC Formula), and what's basically just a glorified I/O panel.

On the OC Formula's product page, (http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20OC%20Formula/), they claim to have large heatsinks for the components, thicker gold plating on CPU and RAM connectors, 5-year warranty (I can't find the warranty time for the Asus board), the ability to manually turn off unused hard drives for better life-time, and a dehumidifier (another water protection).

There are also more features listed on the motherboards'...
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MarioMan1337

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Jul 19, 2015
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There are some differences between the two motherboards.

The Asus Z97 Pro Gamer has software-enhanced audio, better LAN performance, and lots of protections, and costs $30 less.

The ASRock Z97 OC Formula has more USB ports, water-proof coating, four extra power phases dedicated to RAM, four PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, thunderbolt compatibility, and huge overclocking power.

I would get the ASRock Z97 OC Formula.
 
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tAKticool

tAKticool

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Apr 10, 2013
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Can I ask you, what do you mean by lots of protections? Because while the ASrock seems to have a lot of stuff, I don't necessarily need all that but the waterproof coating sounds like something I would like (just for the "protection" factor).

And as I said, I might want to overclock some but not hi-tech mega-overclocking but I wouldn't mind having the capacity just in case etc. Thanks!
 
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MarioMan1337

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Jul 19, 2015
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Here is the Pro Gamer's product page: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/Z97PRO_GAMER/ . Here, they claim their LAN ports, USB ports, and Audio ports are ESD-protected, DRAM has over-current protection, high-quality capacitors (like the OC Formula), and what's basically just a glorified I/O panel.

On the OC Formula's product page, (http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20OC%20Formula/), they claim to have large heatsinks for the components, thicker gold plating on CPU and RAM connectors, 5-year warranty (I can't find the warranty time for the Asus board), the ability to manually turn off unused hard drives for better life-time, and a dehumidifier (another water protection).

There are also more features listed on the motherboards' product pages if you want to take a closer look.
 
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