Best Motherboards For The Money: October 2014 (Archive)

[PaulBags]

What about h97 boards? I don't care aboutoverclocking & the savings would get me an m.2 drive or a better graphics card.

 

[Crashman]

What about h97 boards? I don't care aboutoverclocking & the savings would get me an m.2 drive or a better graphics card.

One of our contributing editors is looking at those for a future project, and we're also trying to get together a sub-$120 Z97 roundup. That last part is just as important because, contrary to popular belief, the price difference between H97 and similar Z97 boards is usually around $10.

 

[a39232]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131872&cm_re=970_motherboard-_-13-131-872-_-Product

ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AMD

 

[Crashman]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131872&cm_re=970_motherboard-_-13-131-872-_-Product

ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AMD

Looks good. I have a guy rehashing AM3+ right now, but Asus only responds to half of our invitations. So, rather than us overburdening them with multiple product requests, why don't you point them to this thread?

 

[logainofhades]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131872&cm_re=970_motherboard-_-13-131-872-_-Product

ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AMD

4 phase power, and no heatsinks? No thanks.

For non SLI, 970 boards, this is the one to get.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128651

With SLI, I would choose this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130790

 

[a39232]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131872&cm_re=970_motherboard-_-13-131-872-_-Product

ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AMD

4 phase power, and no heatsinks? No thanks.

For non SLI, 970 boards, this is the one to get.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128651

With SLI, I would choose this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130790

that's out of the price range

 

[logainofhades]

You cannot afford $7 more for motherboard, for the 970a-UD3p? The 970 gaming is only $12 more. That is like one less trip, maybe 2, to a fast food joint, when you could just eat something at home. 4 phase boards are not suitable for overclocking, and those without heatsinks, on the vrms are even worse yet. AMD's chips are quite power hungry. I would not want a single board, even for regular use, without having the heatsinks. Throwing money away on a motherboard that will probably fry, is not something that I would consider to be a good idea.

 

[PaulBags]

One of our contributing editors is looking at those for a future project, and we're also trying to get together a sub-$120 Z97 roundup. That last part is just as important because, contrary to popular belief, the price difference between H97 and similar Z97 boards is usually around $10.

I guess these charts aren't for me then, where I am in the world & from what I've seen of what is actually here the difference is more like ~36usd and up. The difference in cost compared to what I earn per hour, for the boards I've been comparing, equates to ~4-6 working hours of my life.

 

[Crashman]

One of our contributing editors is looking at those for a future project, and we're also trying to get together a sub-$120 Z97 roundup. That last part is just as important because, contrary to popular belief, the price difference between H97 and similar Z97 boards is usually around $10.

I guess these charts aren't for me then, where I am in the world & from what I've seen of what is actually here the difference is more like ~36usd and up. The difference in cost compared to what I earn per hour, for the boards I've been comparing, equates to ~4-6 working hours of my life.

$36 less than $80? You're looking at B85 or H61 or something...We're getting that up soon (article is written).

 

[PaulBags]

Where did you get $80(usd?) from? There's nothing anywhere near that low in the article. I'm looking at, say, the asrock z97 extreme4 vs asus h97 gamer, which is 250nzd vs 200nzd respectively; with the difference (according to google) equating to ~36usd. The difference apples to apples, asus h97 gamer vs asus z97 gamer, is higher: ~80nzd.

 

[Crashman]

Where did you get $80(usd?) from? There's nothing anywhere near that low in the article. I'm looking at, say, the asrock z97 extreme4 vs asus h97 gamer, which is 250nzd vs 200nzd respectively; with the difference (according to google) equating to ~36usd. The difference apples to apples, asus h97 gamer vs asus z97 gamer, is higher: ~80nzd.

I said we were arranging a sub-$120 Z97 roundup. The cheapest Z97 is $80. I looked at a couple MSI boards a while back and saw same PCB, one using H97 and the other Z97, for a price difference of less than $20.

 

[ilpoptimize]

Sorry if I'm showing my age or ignorance with this comment. Back in the 8088 and 80286 days, mother board vendors would offer or suggest RAM Disk software support that would dramatically increase performance (I saw a 20-fold speed up in one application). Why don't they do so today? I edit videos (Sony Vegas) as the hard drive is active and may be a performance bottle neck during render and editing preview. Can anyone suggest a program that would allow me to copy my working source video files and target the render to a virtual drive letter in RAM, setting aside some part of my 12 GBytes that often goes unused?

 

[logainofhades]

Why go through all that hassle, when you can just buy a nice SSD? A 250gb Samsung 850 Evo is about $110.

 

[tsnor]

Sorry if I'm showing my age or ignorance with this comment. Back in the 8088 and 80286 days, mother board vendors would offer or suggest RAM Disk software support that would dramatically increase performance (I saw a 20-fold speed up in one application). Why don't they do so today? I edit videos (Sony Vegas) as the hard drive is active and may be a performance bottle neck during render and editing preview. Can anyone suggest a program that would allow me to copy my working source video files and target the render to a virtual drive letter in RAM, setting aside some part of my 12 GBytes that often goes unused?

List of RAM drive software: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_RAM_drive_software

"A powerful and free option we recommend is called ImDisk. " i've never used it. http://www.tekrevue.com/tip/create-10-gbs-ram-disk-windows/

"we’ll use the free version of DataRAM’s RAMDisk, because it’s easy to set up and supports up t0 4GB of storage space." Never used it either. http://blog.laptopmag.com/faster-than-an-ssd-how-to-turn-extra-memory-into-a-ram-disk

 

[tsnor]

Why go through all that hassle, when you can just buy a nice SSD? A 250gb Samsung 850 Evo is about $110.

To get the 5 orders of magnitude access time difference for reading/writing data.

Aside, did you see the driver for Samsung 850 (like the 840) uses your PC's RAM to improve the SSD's performance? "RAPID DRAM caching on the Samsung 840 EVO SSD A RAM disk for your SSD" http://techreport.com/review/25282/a-closer-look-at-rapid-dram-caching-on-the-samsung-840-evo-ssd

 

[juanjostorreshernndez]

I have the AsRock Z97 Extreme 4, its a great mobo with good components and features, awesome audio, and OC capabilities, for me the smartest buy I have ever made.