Need help deciding between Motherboards

As the title says, I need help picking between a few motherboards.

The main two I am looking at are the Asus Maximus VII HERO (http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-maximusviihero), And the Gigabyte GA-797X-UD5H-BK (http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gaz97xud5hbk).

I am also looking at the Asus Maximus VII GENE (http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-maximusviigene) But that would probably be for if I decided I wanted a smaller case than what I am most likely going with.

Looking at either the 4690k or the 4790k for the CPU at this moment, may also go with the 4790 non-k version since amazon is having a sale on it right now, but have yet to decide.

Anyways, any help would be appreciated, especially if anyone here has experience with any of these boards, Thanks for looking!

Well first things first, if you look at those particular Z97 board, then in my opinnion, you should go straight for a K cpu, 4690k or 4790K. since Z97 is a fully unlocked chipset designed for overclocking.

About the boards you have posted, its depending a bit on the feutures you like, and if you need them or not.

The Gigabyte offers more feutures, in terms of usb 3.0 connectivity, and it has sata expres. Also the Gigabyte offers Dual lan killer and intel.

The Hero, is a board thats more desigend towards gamers, it it has 2 less usb 3.0 ports on the back 4 instead of 6 on the Gigabyte, and it also does not have sata expres. further it does has intel lan, and supreme FX sound. which i personaly like.Vreg design of the Hero is better it has a true 8+2 powerphase digi vrm design, on which the Gigabyte has 12 pwm phase design, so basicly 6 true powerphases.  Since we are talking about haswell, you dont realy have to worry about the vreg design.

If you wanne build a smaller formfactor computer micro ATX, then the Asus Maximus VII Gene would be a great choice.

But offcourse there are tons of Z97 boards you could look at. ☺

 After what you said about the two motherboards, it is still a hard decision, Suppose I'll just wait and see which one goes on sale first/for lower price to pick one :)

Though I have decided I will go with the 4790k as the CPU. Thank you for the help! :)

and which mobo did you go with? ☺

Basicly you should ask your self one simple question. Is sata express a thing for you?

Because if you dont care about that, you could also look for cheaper board, if you prefer red and black, something like the Msi Z97 Gaming 7 for example.

Yea you might wanna say if your more into more Sata drives, say 6+, or into more usb 3.0, or into more overclocking. Me personally I look at if they have gigabit ethernet, more than 2 usb 3.0 headers. Or heck just remove all 2.0 alltogether. I also look at which shared pcie lanes are shared. Last thing I wanna find out is my raid controller running shared lanes with my graphics card.

Sorry for the REALLY late reply, but I decided to go with the Maximus VII Hero, Cant wait for it to arrive along with the rest of the parts I ordered with it :s

Thank you for your help! :D

Good choice, its a sollid mobo ☺

I own that GENE if you have any questions you want to ask about the one in particular :)