Can't decide between these boards (or any mATX board capable of sli and CPU overclocking).
Don't know much about that sort of stuff so any help will be greatly appreciated.
Well, they all can what you want of them, the Gigabyte runs the second 3.0 port only in 8x, but that should hardly matter. If you dont care about the other features (some offer better audio or gold plated whatnots) then just pick the one you like the most. Some advertise better mosfets and the like, but those are all quality boards and you dont really have to overengineer a mobo to overclock a haswell quadcore.
I would personaly NOT go for the gigabyte, the reason is simple, it only has 4 powerphases, so its not the best quality wenn it comes to overclocking. as far as that matter.
The other three boards are 4+1 powerphases with doublers, this makes them atleast a bit better then a plain 4 phase board. so my vote goes to the Msi or one of the 2 asrocks.
All motherboards are pretty much gravy right now. Check whichever one you buy to make sure that htere is not specific problem, but otherwise, all Asus, Gigabyte (my favorite), AsRock and MSI boards are so much better than anything HP, Dell, Lenovo, Alienware,..., or any other computer would ever use that you will find your computer awesome.
I am currently using an HP z400 with a 6-core Xeon at work, and it SUCKS. Even the commercial stuff simply does not compare. It really makes a difference to have a nice motherboard. Too many people get mislead over Intel branding. Many laptop i7 CPUs are garbage under-clocked dual cores. you are better off with a desktop i3. In general, the largest benefit from building your own computer comes from the superior motherboard. Luckily, pretty much anything over a $100 at your local Microcenter will run circles around even expensive "gaming" computers sold at retailers or online.
I would probably go with the MSI out of those. The ASUS GRYPHON Z97 might be a possibility I would do some research into those two, I think the ASUS will take faster memory than Newegg or ASUS lists, if you go into support(under ASUS website) and bring up the supported memory it brings up memory up to 3200 , but I would suggest you do your own research to confirm I might be wrong. I build 20-30 machines a year I prefer ASUS and MSI or Evga are next on the list. All brands can have lemons or issues , but over the years they(ASUS, MSI, and recently EVGA) have been the best for me.
Out of those boards ... I would go with the MSI Z97M Gaming Micro ATX Intel Motherboard only because I am not a huge Asrock fan ... they have a way to go yet to impress me. (There have been issues in the past)
I will try to keep an open mind and if you do purchase one ... by all means ... let us know how you like it.
I do like the fact that it is impossible to brick the bios in the Gryphon board. However the onboard sound is left wanting.
but if I were to build for myself right now ... I would choose the Asus z97 MAXIMUS VII HERO .... for reasons lol have a look
http://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VII_HERO/