Best Motherboards For The Money: October 2014 (Archive)

[Jose Fernandes]

Every intel z97 under 130$ is crap for TH... heh

 

[Onus]

I'm going to throw out there that buying a more expensive mobo than you might otherwise think you need can have a couple of benefits. One is, it may possess a feature (or two) that you can and will grow in to. The second, based partly on the first, but also on more durable components, is that it will last a lot longer and thus keep the ultimately more expensive "upgrade itch" at bay. Buy cheap, and sooner or later a missing feature will nudge you into an upgrade, which will actually end up costing more than buying a little higher on the scale the first time.
Consider the long-term use(s) of the machine. If it's Mom's web surfer, than a cheaper board may be just fine. If it's an enthusiast build (gamer or otherwise), then try to step up.
As a personal example, subject to overall reputation / quality requirements, I used to buy mostly cheaper boards, then want to upgrade after little more than a year (maybe for additional ports, maybe for newer interfaces; there'd be a reason). My current mobos are a 990FX Sabertooth and a Z77 Maximus V Gene. Both have features I may never use, but years in I've not felt any desire to upgrade them, and won't unless/until the two systems no longer meet my needs.

 

[logainofhades]

Every intel z97 under 130$ is crap for TH... heh

I would use a cheaper Z97 board, like the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI if I wanted SLI, M.2, but didn't care about overclocking. It isn't something I would consider for an overclocking board, but sufficient for a basic, non overclocking, SLI build.

I have the Z77 extreme4 and haven't felt the need to upgrade. I just want something different, and smaller. The direction my life is going right now, I think a mini-itx build is going to have to be in my future, as I will be needing the room.

 

[Guest]

This is a joke! The Asrock Extreme 4 has way much less expansion and features than the Gigabyte X99 UD4. It costs more as well.

 

[Reepca]

Next time I'm looking for a high-end, expensive APU build, I'll be sure to check here for the best $110+ FM2+ motherboards.

I don't anticipate doing any high-end APU-based builds soon, though.

 

[RedJaron]

I have to echo a few people here. First, I love the idea of monthly lists of mboards. But yes, I have some problems with this listing. A "... for the money" article has to consider how much money can be spent in order to find what is the best product for that price. I think you need a sub-$80 group, $80-$100 group, $100-$120 group, $120 - $150, and then $150 and up. Within each of those ranges you'll need of course different sockets, and maybe chipsets ( though you might get away with feature set and use case instead like "home office" "HTPC" and "overclocking." )

 

[Draven35]

Why were the H97 boards skipped completely? Makes Intel boards look vastly more expensive

 

[logainofhades]

This is a joke! The Asrock Extreme 4 has way much less expansion and features than the Gigabyte X99 UD4. It costs more as well.

Performance is factored into this as well, not just the feature set. 4 way SLI is useless, and the extreme4 is like $1 more. You make it sound like its $50. :lol:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X99-UD4 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($238.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $238.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-16 09:41 EDT-0400


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme4 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($239.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $239.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-16 09:41 EDT-0400

 

[Calculatron]

This is a great synthesis of all the recent, previous motherboard round-ups. I really like the side-by-side comparison of the motherboards, so you can quickly and conveniently tell the different features that each board comes with.

 

[jase240]

I am noticing a pattern here, you seem to recommend ASRock and MSI motherboards a lot. I have personally used MSI boards previously and had a lot of issues with them and their customer service. I don't really know much about ASRock, but I cannot believe they are the top for the price.

Seems a little too one sided to be good advice.

 

[epcock]

Would any1 plz clarify "Why is Asus Crosshair V Formula - Z not there in the top AMD motherboard list??"

 

[Terry Perry]

MSI has a new 4 month old 970 means newer Bios, that is a full board and has newer sound card that lights up and does CF and SLI for only 100$ and has a very high rating I bought one for my 6 core.

 

[Calculatron]

Would any1 plz clarify "Why is Asus Crosshair V Formula - Z not there in the top AMD motherboard list??"

These motherboards are from a number of previous reviews/round-ups where the manufacturers willingly sent in products for the site to compete/be reviewed - so they are limited in that sense.

Long story short, the list is by no means comprehensive. Otherwise, I think the Asrock FM2A88X-Extreme6+ may have gotten a mention.

 

[f-14]

Best Motherboards For The Money: October 2014
$50 $75 $100 $130 $160 $200 $250 $300 price points. include the socket.

so far this is paid advertising, none of these boards is a best for the money, just near the top priciest m/b for the cpu.
if you're spending $100+ for an APU board... you need to scrap the APU idea altogether unless you're a corporation setting up servers, and none of these boards would ever be put into a corporate server.

hope you've got your flak jacket on.....

a disclaimer at the top or bottom would be appreciated for who paid for the article and it's contents. it's nice to know something is bias before wasting time reading it.

 

[akula2]

ASRock X99 Extreme4 is the top board? I don't see Asus Z97 WS board either. Seriously? I don't own any of those boards from the above mentioned Z97 category. I own these boards in dozens of machines:

Asus Z97 WS - ultra workstations (2 x Quadro or Quadro/Tesla combo)
Asus Z97-Pro (non-Wifi) - mid-range workstations (2 x GTX Titan Black)
Office/Executive builds with G3258: Asrock Z97 Anniversary, MSI Z97 PC Mate and MSI Z97 Guard-Pro

Asus Maximus VII HERO - home entertainment/gaming etc (EVGA Titan Black)
Asus Maximus VII HERO - home gaming machine (Asus 980 STRIX)

To reviewers: I'm in plan to build ten ultra workstations in the upcoming holidays based on 5960X and Xeon E5 v3 CPUs. Can you do a solid review by comparing Asus X99-E WS and Asrock X99 WS boards? Example:

a) how well 5960X/boards performs with Mushkin Scorpion PCIe 960GB SSD drive?
b) how well Xeons/boards performs with Intel DC 3700 NVMe SSDs (1.6TB/2TB)?
c) high-performing NAS solution for such builds, say with 48TB storage (e.g., Synology DiskStation or whatever)?
d) hi-speed DDR4 performance in CPU turbo ranges? Why should anyone run, say DDR4-2800 when CPU can't cope up with it? (as a policy, CPU/GPU/RAM manual OCing barred at work places)
e) what are the coolest cases for SSI-CEB form factor (Asus X99-E WS)?
f) best performing AIO coolers for such expensive machines? (e.g., how noise impacts in a lab environment)
g) PSU considerations under multi-GPU environment with expensive cards?
h) PCI-e performance (PLX); lane management when GPUs shared with other h/w resources

There are many parameters to review each workstation-grade build thoroughly. You can cover a lot more than the usual synthetic benchmarks etc.

 

[yippy3000]

I love the Best of series. I just wish it included a section for microATX boards. I don't know why they seem to be second class citizens when they they make a lot of sense for any build that isn't using SLI. Some of us don't want gigantic ATX towers in our house.

 

[Guest]

just trying to make people by expensive boards they dont need regards

 

[ceh4702]

The motherboard has to be a better value also. Never spent more than $149 for a motherboard.

 

[Ubrales]

Good reference information!

 

[c kretzman]

Nice list. Maybe I like it because I own a board on this list

Speaking of "Where is the...": Where is the "Best Server Board" list?

 

[DVJ Rick Kraft]

I'd like a split for the Intel, with recommendations for the x99 side, and a separate one for z97. I'm shopping for a new X99 board and am surprised neither Asus or Gigabyte made the list. Great work though, and very informative. Keep it up

 

[GObonzo]

Onus said: "Where are entry level (e.g. basic office) and mainstream boards (e.g. B85, H87)? This applies to only a small fraction of the market, most of whom do not need advanced features."

probably in some other list titled; "featureless crap for basic users"
just look up "cheap basic motherboard" i'm sure some $50 something will popup.

 

[Reepca]

Onus said: "Where are entry level (e.g. basic office) and mainstream boards (e.g. B85, H87)? This applies to only a small fraction of the market, most of whom do not need advanced features."

probably in some other list titled; "featureless crap for basic users"
just look up "cheap basic motherboard" i'm sure some $50 something will popup.

Explain, in terms of features that are important to most users, what I am missing out on by getting an $80 micro-ATX motherboard that has the socket i'm looking for, has the ram slots i'm looking for, has usb 3.0, the video outputs I'm looking for, legacy PCI, PCIE3.0 x16, at least 3 SATA3 ports, average integrated sound and standard ethernet. Not looking for crazy overclocks, just looking for something that glues together the brains of the computer and works.

Because I sure don't see what I'm missing out on. Need for a big case? Potentially higher overclocks? Maybe a couple of ports and headers that 99% of people don't need to use?

I get that as a general rule, it's a good idea to build a system around a solid motherboard, but especially the FM2+ motherboards listed here are just flat-out disproportionate to the budget someone buying an FM2+-based platform is operating on.