Asus Z97-A vs. PRO

[Eddy_SO_29]

For my new build I consider getting one of the Asus Z97 series of motherboards, but I'm not sure if it's worth getting the Z97 for the wifi, or just getting an -A and then buy a PCIE wifi card. Other thing I wanted to know were the in-depth differences between both (I'm new in this).

Thank you in advamce!

[Cokeman]

I'd get the A and buy a wifi card.

[techswede]

If they've fixed the problems they had with the z77 boards then i'd say go for the pro

[Tiby]

Personally I have now the Z97i-Pro motherboard. The WIFI was a pain to mount (well not the card itself that is soldered to the motherboard but the actual antennas). It's from Broadcom as well (which doesn't make it better - I got many driver issues with Broadcom especially on non-Windows OS).

Bottom line, if you are able to choose, go with the cheaper model. You can buy an additional PCI card afterwards that has the chipset manufacturer you prefer.

[runit3]

Between the Pro and the A you're paying $23 for a wifi card on board and the ASMedia PCIe SATA controller for 2 extra SATA 6gb/s ports as well as the 2 extra USB 3.0 ports on that controller. The wifi card is AC, I also built a Z97i-Pro which is the mini ITX version for someone who did not have an AC band router. To get decent speeds I had to shut off AC band on the network card to reduce it to g/b.

 

You'll be paying more than $23 for a decent AC/dual band PCIe x1 wifi card, so you might as well go with the Pro and enjoy the extra ASMedia controller ports. Unless you have an AC router you'll have to do some fiddling with the network adapter settings, but it's 5min of work.