Best Motherboards For The Money: October 2014 (Archive)

[teknic111]

I'm pretty sure the Asus Rampage V is the best x99 board.

 

[hrafn42]

The questions most potential MB buyers will be asking (and certainly what I was asking when I put together a Haswell Refresh build a few months ago) is what chipset gives me the features I need, and which manufacturer produces the best value-for-money MB for that chipset in a form-factor that fits my preferred case? (Yes, there may be slight variation in features between MBs for the same chipset/form-factor combo, but not generally enough to affect decision-making.)

I looked very carefully at the Z97 and H97 MBs, but eventually realised that they did very little for me that a far cheaper B85 wouldn't do.

As it stands the Wikipedia article on the Haswell chipsets provides a far more useful 'buyer's guide' than this article.

 

[chenw]

I personally didn't even attempt to look at older chipset mobos, because older chipsets usually require flashing BIOS, which to me is far more hassle either way (I prefer to have my motherboard to be compatible with my CPU without me needing to do anything), and won't work on your backup BIOS if it is write protected.

Most important thing is, who knows how long the old mobo has been sitting in a warehouse? I would much prefer buying a newer gen Mobo knowing full well that it cannot possibly be older than the chipset's age. I never EVER buy a mobo that is more than a year old.

If I was using an older CPU, then I would have considered older MoBos (I had once considered using 4820k, which basically pinned me to x79 mobos), but I have since switched to devil's canyon, I hadn't even thought about looking at 8x chipsets.

I would have agreed that a mobo could be trimmed down if your CPU ended cheaper or comparable to that of Mobo. But my CPU is already quite high, didn't see a reason to skimp out on a decent newer mobo for an older cheaper one.

 

[petemhen]

I registered just to cosign what Jeffs0418 said, this article is largely useless for those on a budget, which is probably the majority of people. Thankfully you listed some cheap AM1 mbs.

I don't care to pay double, triple or quadruple the price for a board to extract an extra 300mhz from an overclock, or for some extra slots and a cool design that gives my nerd friends hard ons. It just needs to run the fundamentals stably, that's all.

The other articles are popular because of the price range breakdown, please do that in the future for these motherboard articles. Nevertheless, great work starting articles in this vein for MBs, it is very much appreciated and exciting!

 

[hrafn42]

I personally didn't even attempt to look at older chipset mobos, because older chipsets usually require flashing BIOS, which to me is far more hassle either way (I prefer to have my motherboard to be compatible with my CPU without me needing to do anything), and won't work on your backup BIOS if it is write protected.

If the bios-refresh for the new CPU is several months old (which you can generally check on the manufacturer's site), and you're buying the MB from a major retailer, I would suspect that the probability of being stuck with the old bios is small (and thus unusual).

 

[bdjenkin]

ASUS are shipping as many or more motherboards than anyone, so why are they so poorly represented in the Z97 reviews?

 

[mlga91]

I saw the price tag of the asrock z97 extreme 4 of $104 and i almost fell off my chair, oppened the link and the page was amazon UK, so, it was in euros, you can imagine the disappointment. Though is a 970 based motherboard, the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P should be mentioned, it has better voltage regulation than many entry level 990 mobos, and you can get it around $70-$80 bucks.

 

[ceh4702]

I look at this article and I cant help thinking that whoever wrote it lives in La-La land some place where money grows on trees. Sure a really expensive motherboard may cost $295 and it might even be the best and maybe there are a certain percentage of people who might want the absolute best and spend $5k on a computer. I would suggest you do a reader survey to determine what kind of money people are willing to spend on a motherboard that read your forum and front page of your website and write more realistic articles. There may be a percentage of people that spend more for a motherboard, but I have never purchased a motherboard over $140.99. However, the last motherboard I purchased was a Gigabyte Z87N-WIFI 802.11"ac" and it worked great for about $139 or so. I only spent more on it because I wanted the wireless for an HTPC. I don't even have Cable so I don't use an HDTV card. Even Cable TV is too expensive. (This is my opinion) Fell free to have a different opinion.

 

[ceh4702]

I look at this article and I cant help thinking that whoever wrote it lives in La-La land some place where money grows on trees. Sure a really expensive motherboard may cost $295 and it might even be the best and maybe there are a certain percentage of people who might want the absolute best and spend $5k on a computer. I would suggest you do a reader survey to determine what kind of money people are willing to spend on a motherboard that read your forum and front page of your website and write more realistic articles. There may be a percentage of people that spend more for a motherboard, but I have never purchased a motherboard over $140.99. However, the last motherboard I purchased was a Gigabyte Z87N-WIFI 802.11"ac" and it worked great for about $139 or so. I only spent more on it because I wanted the wireless for an HTPC. I don't even have Cable so I don't use an HDTV card. Even Cable TV is too expensive. (This is my opinion) Fell free to have a different opinion.

 

[ceh4702]

I like WIFI "ac" on the motherboard. Most houses and apartments have Wireless Routers. If you build a giant ATX motherboard why not add a mini-PCIE slot for SSD/wireless Centrino card? Gigabyte made a Mini-ITX Phoenix motherboard that has LED's with both a WIFI card short card slot and a MSATA long card slot.

 

[Crashman]

Article suffers the same issues as previous one - a perfect example is the fm2+ boards. All 3 of them were full-ATX, and all 3 of them were over $100. Although I do note that this article doesn't include "for the money" in the title, I suppose it's generally expected that price is a factor when considering buying stuff.

Board's can't "just be added". We need to test them before we can recommend them. As we add more motherboard reviews, the list of recommendations gets longer.

This is completely unlike best graphics cards where we test one and apply it to all similar products, because there aren't enough similarities between motherboards. If companies ever agree to a "reference board" for each chipset/form factor, you'll see everything at-once

 

[f-14]

James Mason , November 17, 2014 10:54 AM [quote/]


The title of the thread is Best Motherboards For The Money: October 2014 though.
WROOONGGGGGG

Best Motherboards: November 2014
By Thomas SoderstromNovember 16, 2014 11:30 AM

you DO understand how COPY & PASTE works RIGHT?!

take a deep breath, slow down while reading, stop thinking you are seeing what you want to believe and pay attention to what is actually being said.
i owe some teachers of mine big time for teaching me this in elementary school.

 

[Abmario]

How come no Asus board under Z97 list, at least ROG series?

 

[Crashman]

How come no Asus board under Z97 list, at least ROG series?

Only motherboards that actually WON roundups are on the list.

 

[hrafn42]

Board's can't "just be added". We need to test them before we can recommend them. As we add more motherboard reviews, the list of recommendations gets longer.

If the MBs you are "recommend[ing]" are inappropriate for many (most?) readers, due to price or form factor, then this article becomes largely irrelevant. The internet (both your site and competitors) is chock full of reviews of ATX Z97 & X99 MBs, to the virtual exclusion of all else.

We do not need a list of best overspecced/overpriced MBs that won't fit our case. We need more reviews/recommendations for MBs we actually might buy. If manufacturers aren't sending such boards to you to review (concentrating purely on 'flagship' boards), then suggest that they're missing out on sales because of it.

 

[HOSSAM-ALG]

WHAT ABOUT H97/B85 !!!!!!!!!!

 

[sdhov]

I was really hoping for your typical the best for x amount of dollars. This is a much less useful.

 

[Flying-Q]

How come no Asus board under Z97 list, at least ROG series?

Only motherboards that actually WON roundups are on the list.

That is not the rule with CPU, GPU and SSD "Best..." articles, so why the change of rule here? I recognise that there are many more factors to consider when assessing a best motherboard. If we only look at round up winners then that leaves us with a highly subjective selection based on which manufacturers sent sample for which roundup, rather than an objective comparison.

 

[Crashman]

How come no Asus board under Z97 list, at least ROG series?

Only motherboards that actually WON roundups are on the list.

That is not the rule with CPU, GPU and SSD "Best..." articles, so why the change of rule here? I recognise that there are many more factors to consider when assessing a best motherboard.

Exactly. You do know that some of our motherboards go up in flames right? And some don't work right out of the box. It's not like graphics cards where 16 brands use the same part, with motherboards 16 brands produce 16 different versions of a part with enough variation that a blind recommendation would be meaningless.

14 years ago I bought a motherboard on such a recommendation and it had severe compatibility issues. After that the flaming motherboards started to appear. I'm not going to put anyone through that.

Like I said, this isn't like a comparison of "Brand X's custom-colored reference card vs Brand Y's extra-custom-colored identical reference card", each model of motherboard is unique.

 

[Flying-Q]

How come no Asus board under Z97 list, at least ROG series?

Only motherboards that actually WON roundups are on the list.

That is not the rule with CPU, GPU and SSD "Best..." articles, so why the change of rule here? I recognise that there are many more factors to consider when assessing a best motherboard.

Exactly. You do know that some of our motherboards go up in flames right? And some don't work right out of the box. It's not like graphics cards where 16 brands use the same part, with motherboards 16 brands produce 16 different versions of a part with enough variation that a blind recommendation would be meaningless.

14 years ago I bought a motherboard on such a recommendation and it had severe compatibility issues. After that the flaming motherboards started to appear. I'm not going to put anyone through that.

Like I said, this isn't like a comparison of "Brand X's custom-colored reference card vs Brand Y's extra-custom-colored identical reference card", each model of motherboard is unique.

I see the logic you are using. However, do you feel that it is right to restrict this list to the WINNERS only? I have been reading Tom's for nearly as long as it has existed and and in that time it has been rare that motherboards in a roundup have been 'flamers'. Would it not be fair to include some of the runners-up from those round ups, bearing in mind that the conclusions of those articles regularly highlight multiple 'Honourable Mentions'?

 

[Crashman]

How come no Asus board under Z97 list, at least ROG series?

Only motherboards that actually WON roundups are on the list.

That is not the rule with CPU, GPU and SSD "Best..." articles, so why the change of rule here? I recognise that there are many more factors to consider when assessing a best motherboard.

Exactly. You do know that some of our motherboards go up in flames right? And some don't work right out of the box. It's not like graphics cards where 16 brands use the same part, with motherboards 16 brands produce 16 different versions of a part with enough variation that a blind recommendation would be meaningless.

14 years ago I bought a motherboard on such a recommendation and it had severe compatibility issues. After that the flaming motherboards started to appear. I'm not going to put anyone through that.

Like I said, this isn't like a comparison of "Brand X's custom-colored reference card vs Brand Y's extra-custom-colored identical reference card", each model of motherboard is unique.

I see the logic you are using. However, do you feel that it is right to restrict this list to the WINNERS only? I have been reading Tom's for nearly as long as it has existed and and in that time it has been rare that motherboards in a roundup have been 'flamers'. Would it not be fair to include some of the runners-up from those round ups, bearing in mind that the conclusions of those articles regularly highlight multiple 'Honourable Mentions'?

They'd still be roughly the same price though, since these are grouped by price. What's actually needed is more reviews of cheaper boards. Would you like to be the low-end motherboard reviewer?

 

[Flying-Q]

How come no Asus board under Z97 list, at least ROG series?

Only motherboards that actually WON roundups are on the list.

That is not the rule with CPU, GPU and SSD "Best..." articles, so why the change of rule here? I recognise that there are many more factors to consider when assessing a best motherboard.

Exactly. You do know that some of our motherboards go up in flames right? And some don't work right out of the box. It's not like graphics cards where 16 brands use the same part, with motherboards 16 brands produce 16 different versions of a part with enough variation that a blind recommendation would be meaningless.

14 years ago I bought a motherboard on such a recommendation and it had severe compatibility issues. After that the flaming motherboards started to appear. I'm not going to put anyone through that.

Like I said, this isn't like a comparison of "Brand X's custom-colored reference card vs Brand Y's extra-custom-colored identical reference card", each model of motherboard is unique.

I see the logic you are using. However, do you feel that it is right to restrict this list to the WINNERS only? I have been reading Tom's for nearly as long as it has existed and and in that time it has been rare that motherboards in a roundup have been 'flamers'. Would it not be fair to include some of the runners-up from those round ups, bearing in mind that the conclusions of those articles regularly highlight multiple 'Honourable Mentions'?

They'd still be roughly the same price though, since these are grouped by price. What's actually needed is more reviews of cheaper boards. Would you like to be the low-end motherboard reviewer?

More budget oriented boards would definitely be useful on this list, as many people have suggested above. As for the offer to be a reviewer, I have never considered technical journalism, but I am up for a challenge.

 

[Crashman]

More budget oriented boards would definitely be useful on this list, as many people have suggested above. As for the offer to be a reviewer, I have never considered technical journalism, but I am up for a challenge.

I have a guy, but he's busy finishing up the Z97 stuff. If you know someone, have him give me a shout.

 

[lunyone]

I would love the opportunity do low-end reviews of motherboards, GPU's, or anything else. I always think that most people purchase in the low-mid price range anyway. The higher-end stuff that you guys get from manufacturers are nice and all, but most people are looking for a value oriented devices/parts. It's a shame we don't get more low-mid priced reviews. I understand, to an extent, why they do the mid-high priced options, but it leaves a pretty big gap between what most people buy and what is reviewed.

 

[Crashman]

I would love the opportunity do low-end reviews of motherboards, GPU's, or anything else. I always think that most people purchase in the low-mid price range anyway. The higher-end stuff that you guys get from manufacturers are nice and all, but most people are looking for a value oriented devices/parts. It's a shame we don't get more low-mid priced reviews. I understand, to an extent, why they do the mid-high priced options, but it leaves a pretty big gap between what most people buy and what is reviewed.

There's a problem with the way these are organized (it should be by price) but the Extreme4 and Gaming 5 are both in there from the $120-160 article. I hope to get my technician onto Z97 sub-$120 soon.

I'm willing to consider exactly one freelancer for low-end (sub-Z97) boards. If two people want it, I'll have to decide between two sample articles. And whoever gets there needs to be contract-able (final approval comes at a higher level).

But there's a huge benefit: Some manufacturers let you keep the boards