Any advice/experiences with the Asus z170 PRO GAMING?

[arrkaye]

I'm considering this board for my Skylake build. Any alternatives?

[pastymuncher]

Hexus did a review of it back in August. I have no experience of anything associated with Skylake as it offer's me nothing over what I already have but it's a nice looking board. Better looking than the more expensive Z170 Hero with all it's awful plastic shrouds.

[GoNz0]

I would check out the support before you buy, 1st is the most inept UK support you have ever come across as they have no idea whatsoever, then the lack of fixes. If you manage to find your way to the official ROG forums you come across North American staff who are unwilling to help anyone who is not from that country leaving you with user to user support.

I gave up and have started to mod my own BIOS for the Rampage V Extreme board to bring it up to date with needed fixes.

MSI seems to tick all the boxes for quality, updates and support so it may be worth checking them out.

[arrkaye]

I've heard MSI have issues with QC - nothing specific, just passing comments in forums. Is this founded?

[Peter Parker]

Ha! Looks like you should PM malice19 :
http://forums.hexus.net/motherboards...20-budget.html

I'm about to get the Asus Z170 Pro Gaming too. Can't see any issues with it. Perhaps would've liked built in WiFi but I'm not willing to splash out for the Delux.

[pastymuncher]

I would check out the support before you buy, 1st is the most inept UK support you have ever come across as they have no idea whatsoever, then the lack of fixes. If you manage to find your way to the official ROG forums you come across North American staff who are unwilling to help anyone who is not from that country leaving you with user to user support.

I gave up and have started to mod my own BIOS for the Rampage V Extreme board to bring it up to date with needed fixes.

MSI seems to tick all the boxes for quality, updates and support so it may be worth checking them out.

I have had the opposite experience. Every single MSI board I have ever owned has failed for one reason or another. The last board of theirs I had was a P45 Platinum on which the NB died. The board was less than 3 months old. I gave up on them then and would not go back to them under any circumstances. Since then I have had all Asus boards and while early bios versions can be buggy, they get there in the end but you could say that about any manufacturer. Every board has been rock solid and the bios layout is excellent.

[malice19]

Ha! Looks like you should PM malice19 :
http://forums.hexus.net/motherboards...20-budget.html

I'm about to get the Asus Z170 Pro Gaming too. Can't see any issues with it. Perhaps would've liked built in WiFi but I'm not willing to splash out for the Delux.

So far so good, very impressed but did have a few teething problems....

CPU low fan speed error hit F1 to enter Bios = Had to set BIOS to ignore CPU speed in then end as changing the value did not help as kept getting the error on every other boot up. (Using tower fan that hardly uses the fan at all when on idle)

Had problems with hard drive from my old rig connecting to it, setting off smart error but found this to due to using an old Samsung HDD that needed a firmware update, now drive picks up fine with no smart errors.

Only problem i have not found a fix for is USB3 support in Windows 10 as Asus website has win 10 USB3 asmedia drivers but the Intel USB3 for win 10 drivers do not exits (only win7 or 8)? So can not get any of my USB3 devises working yet. Its currently using a default driver provided by Microsoft in device manager.

Apart from the above its a great board with a solid BIOS features, big improvement over past BIOS's i've used. Auto OC works well for quick OC. Mainly went by the good reviews it got being best bang for buck and by the hexus review.

Pulsing lights look quite cool on motherboard if you have a case with a window, but I've now turn them off in the BIOS as they stay on pulsing even when the computer is shutdown.

[mrgreen009]

I've had the Z97 Pro Gaming from ASUS, and was just as good as my Z97 Maximuns Ranger - So I imagine the formula for the Z170 should be just as good. Solid quality, can't fault it, and maintained a solid overclock for me too.