First Build - Need Reliable Motherboard

[gbaker200]

I'm going to be building a system with a mix of new and repurposed parts, but I'm worried about getting a bad mobo since I won't have a way of testing the build.

I'm going with the i7 4790 and a budget H97 board. Based on reviews, I'm trying to decide on one of the following:

Asus H97 Plus
Gigabyte GA-H97M D3H
Gigabyte GA-H97 HD3
ASRock H97M Pro4
ASRock H97 Pro4

I have a mid-ATX case I can use and all of these should fit, but it seems like all brands produce bad boards on occasion, so is there any consensus about which is the safest bet?

I was planning on 2x8 Kingston or Crucial 1600 DDR3 RAM.

I do zero gaming, but heavy Adobe CS multitasking and moderate video production.

 

[Outlander_04]

Gigabyte and Asus are generally a step up in quality to Asrock
Asrock usually give you more features by lowering the quality a little , but not enough to affect reliability

 

[gbaker200]

Gigabyte and Asus are generally a step up in quality to Asrock
Asrock usually give you more features by lowering the quality a little , but not enough to affect reliability

Thanks, Outlander. Yes, I only recently added ASRock to the list because they seemed to be getting good reviews, but that could be because of the features. I had initially settled on the Gigabyte, but then read about the endless boot loop issues and so started looking for an alternative.

Would you say issues with Gigabyte mobos (especially the H97 chipset) are rare enough that I'm likely to have first-time success? My budget won't allow for mistakes.

 

[madmatt30]

The Asus best by miles , all the rest similar quality / spec.

Not a fan of asrock personally but the pro 4 is admittedly a good board & would be second choice.
Gigabyte lowered component quality on newer revisions of the hd3 & kept quiet about it which is kind of naughty.

 

[XiPH3R]

i personally use a core i5 4440 with a Asrock h97 pro4. Never found any issue with it. My PC is always on and the board never gave stability problems. Its cheap and reliable. One of the best h97 boards.

 

[gbaker200]

Thanks, XiPh3R and Madmatt. I've been at this selection process for days, but I should have been just a little more patient. No sooner than I made my purchase, I saw your responses.

I bought the Gigabyte HD3 since it was available on Amazon Prime. The ASRock Pro4 was, too, but it was overpriced by about $20 from other online retailers, and no Asus was available, so that's how I made my decision. Looks like I got the worst of the three! Oh well. With luck all will work well and my worry will be wasted (better that than my money), but at least it's easy to return should the need arise!

 

[Outlander_04]

Gigabyte and Asus are generally a step up in quality to Asrock
Asrock usually give you more features by lowering the quality a little , but not enough to affect reliability

Thanks, Outlander. Yes, I only recently added ASRock to the list because they seemed to be getting good reviews, but that could be because of the features. I had initially settled on the Gigabyte, but then read about the endless boot loop issues and so started looking for an alternative.

Would you say issues with Gigabyte mobos (especially the H97 chipset) are rare enough that I'm likely to have first-time success? My budget won't allow for mistakes.

I would say that almost all the time when people have problems its because of something they have done . The real failure rate of computer hardware is exceedingly small so you can buy any of these boards and be confident it will work .

 

[XiPH3R]

Thanks, XiPh3R and Madmatt. I've been at this selection process for days, but I should have been just a little more patient. No sooner than I made my purchase, I saw your responses.

I bought the Gigabyte HD3 since it was available on Amazon Prime. The ASRock Pro4 was, too, but it was overpriced by about $20 from other online retailers, and no Asus was available, so that's how I made my decision. Looks like I got the worst of the three! Oh well. With luck all will work well and my worry will be wasted (better that than my money), but at least it's easy to return should the need arise!

Yeah great choice on the board. They make great boards.I never saw any kind of bad review bout gigabyte boards though

 

[madmatt30]

Mixed em up its the d3h they dropped quality on - board will do you fine mate.
Its not like the locked i5/i7's have high power requirements anyway.

Gigabyte naming conventions for you - they have the hd3,the d3h & the dh3 & then matx variations of the same boards.trying to confuse the consumer?

 

[gbaker200]

Thanks, all! Everything should arrive by Monday, so I'll post results after the build.

 

[gbaker200]

My memory modules were back ordered, but I finally got all my new components and put the thing together. Piece of cake! I can't believe I was so apprehensive about it. The only bad part is that I wasn't able to use any of the tricks I'd read about to make the boot drive work in the new system, so I had to spend a day installing software, too, but with the exception of the case (clunky) & cheap-o ugly i/o shield, everything is awesome.

Thanks for all your input.