Which would you guys recommend to go with a i7 4770k? I have heard MSI boards aren't as good but since they are high end and $70 cheaper I figured it was worth asking. Thanks
MSI Mpower. Should be competitively priced with the Hero.
I own the Z87 Hero. Happen to like the utilities and some of the features. It's not a bad board, but the Mpower would be better for overclocking, I believe.
all these boards are basicly fine however, if you want an open upgrade path to devils canyon or broadwell, you will be better of buying a Z97 board atm.
the new hero Z97 is realy nice, but its abit expensive for my taste, i think you could grab nicer boards for less, like indeed msi gaming 7 series or mpower series. the only thing with msi, is that they did not choose to implementate sata express on theire boards, but yeah its not realy a thing in my opinnion
Whenever I shop for a board by manufacturer it seems to go like this:
Asus
Gigabyte
MSI
ASSSSSSSSROCK
In reality, they're all pretty solid, but I don't think I would be human if I wasn't biased toward one brand over another. One thing you can do is watch reviews of the boards, some go into extreme depth about all the features and qualities, and based on that you can make the decision of what fits your need the best, as well as your budget.
NeweggTV recently did overveiws on all the new z97 motherboards from all 4 manufacturers: