We had primarily been an Asus shop from 2002 - 2012 ... but at that point, the "RoG tax" got to be a bit much and they had a rough run with Z87 and Z97 where their performance was far and away below the standards Asus had shown over the years. Since then they have returned to form but there's still that 'tax' where the Asus brand, adds $50 - $75 over comparably or even better featured / quality boards. I would pay a premium for Asus BIOS which is still the easiest to 'find" things. but while I wouldn't mind paying extra $20 or so for that ... the "tax' has been much more than that. Asus seems to be addressing that of late w/ some huge rebates ($35 on Gene)
The one big thing with the Ass moderately priced boards is that they have been using low end audio solutions (*ALC 887 / 892)at price points where everybody else is using ALC 1150 / 1220. The Strix uses ALC 1220 so you are good there.... the Gene uses Supreme FX 2015 ... Supreme FX was simply a branded Realtec 1150. I believe that the SupremeFX 2015 on 270 series boards is ALC 1220 tho some boards use ALC 1220A. In short, at that price range you should have nothing to worry about audio wise.
Might wanna read thru the newegg user reviews ... I usually like to see > 590% 5 eggs and < 20% 1 egg. Gene is 40% / 14% (42 reviews), the Strix is 54% / 15% but only 13 reviews ... statistically not enough to draw any real conclusions.
All that being said, the mATX field is quire small and Asus seems to be the only vendor with attractive offerings in this niche.
The Strix has faster memory support 400 vs 3800, a 2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x1 slot, WiFi, 2 less USB 3 ports but 2 extra USB ports, 2 less fan headers ... and a ROG Strix sticker and ROG Coaster !
If it were me, I'd take the Gene for the extra fan headers, USB 3 ports and much lower cost
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