Asrock Z370 Extreme 4 vs Asus Prime Z370-A - Differences??

[tomoki]

Hi Everyone,

 

I was hoping to check for comparisons between the Asrock Z370 Extreme 4 and Asus Prime Z370-A. I've done a little bit of digging through forums and from what one person said, the Asrock board has more power phases and is better quality in VRMs; however, the Asrock board is not as great with the audio chip in comparison to the Asus Prime Z370-A. The prices between the two boards are still what I'd be comfortable to pay for so I'm just trying to make the most of it. 

 

I've visited Overclock.net forums for the motherboard tier list (based on VRMs) and the Extreme 4 does use better VRMs. As to how much better the VRMs are, I'm not an expert so I don't have an answer to that. 

 

Source and credits: http://www.overclock.net/forum/6-intel-motherboards/1638955-z370-z390-vrm-discussion-thread.html  br0da's post. 

 

In terms of audio chipset, I'd like to know what the differences are between the two boards. Is it just 7.1 channel vs 8 channels difference? If so, it probably won't matter to me. I use headphones only (Sennheiser HD6xx) and have an Antlion Modmic 4.0.

 

Any extra feedback, information, opinions and suggestions (with reasons please) would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance! 

 

Oh as a side note, I know the Taichi is probably the best I can get (and want) but it seems a little on the pricier side than I'd like it to be and the features are probably a lot more than what I can use.

 

My main intent for getting a motherboard is just to have 1 PCI-E gen 3 x16 slot for my graphics card, able to provide sufficient power for overclocking and have the best audio I can get (cause I don't have an external amp or dac). I don't have any other add-in cards.