z97 asus sabertooth v maximus vii formula

[bubbabigsexy]

So I'll be buying one of these boards in the next month once they are both released. My question is which one will be better for gaming and which one will have the better audio? I do plan to overclock and will be buying one of the new Devil's Canyon processors when they come out next month as well.

Both motherboards look great, although I have currently purchased 16GB DDR3 of the Corsair Dominator Platinum, which would obviously look better with the Sabertooth, although that's not really a big factor for me.

So I guess this question will be based on the z87 motherboards out now, but I don't think there will be a huge difference between the z87 and z97. But I will definitely buy one of the z97 boards.

Any advice would be great!

 

[996GT2]

Maximus VII formula will have better audio, but probably still not as good as a discrete sound card. VRMs should be quite similar between the Sabertooth and Maximus series. Based on the Z87 boards, there are only minor differences in the VRMs between the Sabertooth and Maximus lines. The Maximus line doesn't really have as much to distinguish itself as it did in the past. See here for the VRM chart: http://www.sinhardware.com/images/vrmlist.png

It's up to you if the added cost (probably $50-100 extra) is worth it for the Maximus, but I'd say probably not.

The Sabertooth also has a better warranty than the Maximus (5 vs 3 years), but based on the many horror stories about Asus's warranty service, that may or may not mean much.

 

[Maximilian]

Meh, mainly aesthetics and ports.

They both use ALC1150 chip for audio, the maximus has some snazzy audio centric capacitors but I doubt they make much difference.