We were strictly an Asus shop for about 10 years ... with Z87, we began having too many issues with RMAs and TS ... w/ Z87 performance was significantly lower than competing brands and Pegatron (ASrock's parent company) was handlng Asus' TS and RMAs. One more thing, Asus started "cheaping out" where, for example, almost every board under $150 had a subsrtandard sound system, and finally, there was the "Rog Tax" having started early trying ASrock boards, when most boards ony had 1 or 2 year warrantees... at that time it was a way for Asus to sell low cost MoBos for the system builder market w/o tarnishing the Asus reputation for enthusiast quality boards. We had issues with thin boards which warped, bleeding caps, cracked boards, etc. Once Asus spun them off as an independent entity, things began to improve and really can't knock their products above $150.
However, it's foolish to throw a blanket label on a brand cause every one of them has winners and losers. The RMA rate for each major brand is such that they only differ by a few hundredths of a % point whiuch is less than the statistical standard deviation.
Gigabyte 1,48%
ASRock 1,55%
ASUS 1,59%
MSI 1,63%
When we limit consideration by chipset, we see that things change ,,, for Z170 / Z270
1,41% MSI
1,63% ASUS
1,97% Gigabyte
2,94% ASRock
Here we have quite a wide difference so there's reasonable cause for concern.
But what the data is most useful for is determining specifically what boards to avoid. For example... Asus TUF line bears out very well, whereas the inexpensive (< $150) boards usually do not. So the individual rates for each board do matter. I recommend avoiding those with > 2% failure rate
5,71% ASUS Z170I-PRO Gaming
5,59% ASUS X99 Strix Gaming
4,70% MSI B150M PRO-VDH D3
4,17% ASUS B150I PRO GAMING/WIFI/AURA
3,81% ASRock FM2A58M-VG3+
3,45% MSI X99A Gaming 7
3,17% ASUS X99-A II
2,23% MSI Z170A Gaming M3
2,19% ASUS Z170-A
2,08% GIGABYTE GA-Z170XP-SLI
Another thing I like to look at is the newegg user reviews. I'm oft countered that these are useless because so many users don't know what they are doing. While a valid point, it's irrelevant because with say xx % of reported problems may be user error ... there's no reason to suggest that such users are choosing one brand over another. Branding, as in model line, also is not a reliable indicator.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130968
Here MSis XPower Titanium gets 74% 5 egg reviews. 81% 4 or above and just 4 % 1 egg.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813144016
Yet here, the same XPower branding brings us just 23% 5 egg reviews. 48% 4 or above and just 23 % 1 egg.
Another thing you want to be sure to check is the subsystems on the board ... thru Z170 Asus boards for example dropped their sound and LAN subsystems down a notch in quality as part of the RoG tax . On boards < $150, we were looking at ALC 892 and even 887 instead of the gaming standard ALC 1120. With Z270 many vendors followed suit and w/ Z370, they seemd to have realized that customers caught on. So be sure to check you are not getting short chnaged.
Other things may factor into the decision ... my son for example likes MSI because they have the best assembly videos ... at least he has this one bookmarked for some reason.
AT the lower end of your price range, my fav board was the MSI Z270 SLI PLUS, usually available for $100 - $119. In previous generation, used the Gigabyte equivalent with similar name but thois gen had some issues. At $150 - $175, the MSI Gaming Pro Carbon and Gigabyte Gaaming 5 and Aorus boards. At $200ish, the Gigabyte Ultra Gaming and K5. For Workstation builds the Asus TUF series is always int he mix. For Z370, pretty much the same boards tho haven't really got a list of favorites.
In short... look at specific models ... everybody has princes and everybody has toads.
