Forced into a new choice --need Z68 mainboard advice in a hurry

[LoneWolf]

Hi,

First off, I'm hoping I'll hear from people who actually own these boards and can be objective about their pros and cons.

In planning my Sandy Bridge upgrade, I thought I had it all figured out. I analyzed everything, did all the research I regularly do (which is fairly meticulous) and one mainboard stood out --the Asrock Z68 Extreme 4 Gen 3. Every feature I wanted, at a very reasonable price. I bought it, and was happy.

That is until I experienced two quirks with the board, not super-serious in some ways (one unrecognized PCIe card, and (yes, I use one to support others' older PCs) issues with the onboard floppy controller) and found that Asrock engineering and design is great --but their support is nowhere near what I'd expect for a $200 mainboard. I got told to return the board, no troubleshooting despite tons of information I offered them, just "return the board". So I'm hoping to do it, and sadly not buying another Asrock. I'll be spending more money, and getting a board not exactly what I wanted, but that's life.

I don't need bleeding-edge overclocking support. I do want stability and performance at modest overclocks, the ability to hold my three PCIe expansion cards with room left over, a good board layout and BIOS, and solid support if I need it.

I've narrowed my selection down to three.

ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z

Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3

GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD5

I like the ASUS' UEFI BIOS, and Intel NIC, but have heard that (like Asrock) that support is mediocre. The Gigabyte boards have Realtek gig NICs, and the old-school BIOS, but I've had very good reliability with my last Gigabyte board (EP45-UD3P) and consider it the best I've ever owned.

On the other hand, the ASUS' fan headers are far better set up for push/pull work with the CPU (the Asrock sadly beats them all for this with two CPU fan headers), Gigabyte's fan headers aren't set up nearly as well for this. I like the ASUS board best after the one I have now, I'm just not sure I trust the support.

If you own any of these three mainboards, please let me know what you like and dislike about them, and if you've had to deal with their tech support, what kind of service you received. Also, if you have the ASUS and any expansion cards, have you had any compatibility issues with the UEFI BIOS recognizing them properly?