Gigabyte Z170 Gaming 7 vs. Asus ROG Maximus VIII Hero

Slurpee12

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Nov 19, 2015
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I am so torn between these two boards.
The Gigabyte one seems to have outstanding reviews, but I have come across the audio distortion problem quite often, often enough to question buying the board or not.
The Hero on the other hand has outstanding reviews... "when it works." I've seen a fair amount of reviews stating that they received a DOA board, and those that say "when it works," it's a fantastic board. I can't really say how many of these boards have been bought, and those that are reviewing the boards are the ones that had issues. Everyone else had smooth sailing. Do the Hero boards really have that many issues? I know there is always a chance of DOA, but if the Hero has a type of reputation for that, I'd like to avoid it.
If I hadn't seen so many reviews complaining about the Gigabyte audio distortion, I would have already made my choice, but there are two many of these reviews to ignore.

What are your thoughts? Have any of you run into issues with these boards?
Thanks!
 
Solution
I've got the Hero (in sig) and have done 4 other builds on it with no problems, as with any mobo, most newer builders don't update the BIOS and simply use the drivers that are on the disk that comes with board and generally are out of date by a version or two or three. With the Z170 it's also newer, new CPU and new (DDR4) DRAM as well as OS (many going Win10) so many get overwhelmed and can't always find Youtube videos to help which is often the case with newer builder as to where they 'look' for help

Quixit

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Dec 22, 2014
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I have the Gigabyte Z170 Gaming 7 and I don't have any problems with audio distortion. I haven't had any problems with it since I updated the bios (the shipping version didn't overclock well). I chose the Gaming 7 over the Hero because of the audio solution and the lower price (It was $50 less for me) and haven't regretted it.

Now that's my experience, I don't think there is any serious issue with the Hero either. I think you'd most likely be happy with either.
 

Slurpee12

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Nov 19, 2015
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Did you have the audio distortion problem and the bios update fixed it or did you just never have it?
 

Tradesman1

Legenda in Aeternum
I've got the Hero (in sig) and have done 4 other builds on it with no problems, as with any mobo, most newer builders don't update the BIOS and simply use the drivers that are on the disk that comes with board and generally are out of date by a version or two or three. With the Z170 it's also newer, new CPU and new (DDR4) DRAM as well as OS (many going Win10) so many get overwhelmed and can't always find Youtube videos to help which is often the case with newer builder as to where they 'look' for help
 
Solution