First build, pairing X99 mobo with i7 5820K and single GeForce GTX 970. Which mobo?

[Aurora-Storm]

HEY GUYS! My thread was bumped. I think this was one of the very first places I stopped when I was doing research and this entire community has been very helpful. I'm in the process of my first build as of about 6 hours ago. I ended up with:

- i7 4790K (I will be OCing it)
- ASRock Z97 Anniversary (It doesn't have Displayport, but it has everything else I need and it was on sale. This was actually the first component I purchased)
- Gigabyte GTX 970 (full length card)
- Creative Zx
- Samsung 850 EVO SSD (250GB)
- Western Digital Black HD (1TB; I've heard the larger ones are noisy as anything)
- Corsair Vengance DDR3 2133 8GB (4GB x2. I plan on "OCing" these)
- Corsair 750W HX
- NZXT Phantom 410
- Windows 8.1 (which I will make as much like XP as possible because I am stubborn)


---
Hello! As stated, I've decided on:

i7 5820K CPU (6 cores, 28 PCI-E lanes)
GeForce GTX 970 (single card) - chances are I'll go for the Zotac AMP Extreme, or Zotac Omega (if I can find it anywhere).

I'm looking for a build capable of:
- Gaming, old as well as new. A lot of old so if anything has problems with older games that can't be fixed (I've read this about the Gigabyte G1 970 GPU) it's a deal-breaker.
- Light to medium tasks, including streaming gaming. Little if any rendering.
- Maximum stability... the computer I have now has lasted me over a decade with a single upgrade when I fried the GPU. Cost about 2k from Dell at the time and I have had no issues with it. Ideally my new build would be much the same, i.e. long-lasting with minimal issues.
- Future-proofed... I'm not expecting to be able to run Crysis at maximum, but ideally I'll have something that will last me as long as this computer did. And honestly I can still play most everything on here but the newest releases (i.e. DA:I) because my system is limited by the fact it's x32.

I don't need:
- SLI
- OCing ability - if it's not great out of the box, chances are it's wasted on me.
- A really expensive card with every bell and whistle

I've been reading about mobos and I'm having an awful lot of trouble deciding what to get. I'm trying to keep my entire build under 2500CAD. Something not highest end and excellent right out of the box. I've tried to narrow it down by brand to begin with and from what I've read ASUS/ASRock have horrible customer service and their quality has been slipping. That leaves Gigabyte, EVGA, and MSI. I've had good luck with EVGA GPUs but otherwise I have no experience with these brands. I'm hoping the mobo will be under 300 but I'm not against spending more for quality.


BTW, I'm going with the i7 5820K because I believe some of my applications will benefit from 6 cores, now and into the future. Six cores is my attempt at "future proofing" my system a bit. Same reason I'm looking at i7/X99 over i5/Z97 in general. I often run dozens of applications at the same time and some of them are somewhat heavy. I also muck around in Photoshop and Premier on occasion, and I'd like to be able to maintain browser, music, Steam capabilities at the same time. I stream movies and games for friends while running other background tasks... or I would, if my system could do that anymore. I realize there's a trace of irony in the fact that my current decade old system uses a quad core and it's just fine, but I'm planning on keeping whatever I build for a long time with upgrades as required. If you think you can convince me to lower my sights with good reasoning it's worth a shot but I'm fairly confident in my choice of 5820K.

 

[Tradesman1]

Assu X99-A

 

[Aurora-Storm]

Assu X99-A

Any reason? I'm reading up on it. It looks unfrilly, which is a plus, but apparently there's been issues with BIOS etc.

 

[dyl47]

That is pretty common with new motherboards. I think that your needs would be met fine with the 6 core... I'm sure you could run a game, stream a movie, maybe even render a video at the same time... I will tell you though, I have the 4790k and I can run a game while rendering and even a youtube video opened up at the same time. The 4790k is very hefty, and most consider it overkill (or any i7 for that matter) unless you are overclocking.

The 5820k is badass. It was hard for me to not get it because I mainly do rendering in Sony Vegas... But I opted out because I knew that in 2 years the 5820k would be outdated. Future proofing is a waste of time man. How much is that $2000 pc you bought from Dell worth now? I'm sure it pisses you off thinking about it. Well, that's just the way it is. I think that with the 5820k, it will be nice... but probably overkill. Six cores 2 years from now will likely be the standard, and yours will be significantly slower.

If you have the money to go all out, get the 5820k. Just don't expect much "future proofing." Chances are, you might have to shell out another $2000 to keep up with advances in technology... Computers are an expensive hobby.

But, as far as a motherboard goes, you need to be a little more specific. Do you need wifi? Do you care about silly features like audio pulsing where LED's blink in accordance with your music? Motherboards, although critical, are generally all the same. The only difference is bells and whistles. I find it hard to believe that someone who buys a high end Z97 is gonna get any performance difference compared to my cheap as it gets, Z97 Anniversary. Sure, some might have better audio, more PCI lanes, etc etc... But if they are both running the same chipset then it's ultimately the same thing.

So what do you need in a motherboard? You don't want to SLI, well most x99's will support that. As far as I know, this is the only one that doesn't. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157542&cm_re=asrock_x99_extreme3-_-13-157-542-_-Product

ASRock makes quality products for cheap. You want more, spend more. You probably won't need it, but if you have the money, what the hell.

 

[Aurora-Storm]

That is pretty common with new motherboards. I think that your needs would be met fine with the 6 core... I'm sure you could run a game, stream a movie, maybe even render a video at the same time... I will tell you though, I have the 4790k and I can run a game while rendering and even a youtube video opened up at the same time. The 4790k is very hefty, and most consider it overkill (or any i7 for that matter) unless you are overclocking.

The 5820k is badass. It was hard for me to not get it because I mainly do rendering in Sony Vegas... But I opted out because I knew that in 2 years the 5820k would be outdated. Future proofing is a waste of time man. How much is that $2000 pc you bought from Dell worth now? I'm sure it pisses you off thinking about it. Well, that's just the way it is. I think that with the 5820k, it will be nice... but probably overkill. Six cores 2 years from now will likely be the standard, and yours will be significantly slower.

If you have the money to go all out, get the 5820k. Just don't expect much "future proofing." Chances are, you might have to shell out another $2000 to keep up with advances in technology... Computers are an expensive hobby.

But, as far as a motherboard goes, you need to be a little more specific. Do you need wifi? Do you care about silly features like audio pulsing where LED's blink in accordance with your music? Motherboards, although critical, are generally all the same. The only difference is bells and whistles. I find it hard to believe that someone who buys a high end Z97 is gonna get any performance difference compared to my cheap as it gets, Z97 Anniversary. Sure, some might have better audio, more PCI lanes, etc etc... But if they are both running the same chipset then it's ultimately the same thing.

So what do you need in a motherboard? You don't want to SLI, well most x99's will support that. As far as I know, this is the only one that doesn't. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157542&cm_re=asrock_x99_extreme3-_-13-157-542-_-Product

ASRock makes quality products for cheap. You want more, spend more. You probably won't need it, but if you have the money, what the hell.

Hey, thanks so much for the thorough reply. I'm not at all displeased with my 2k once-beastly purchase, since it lasted me a decade, even years through x64 bit changes. I've given some consideration to 4970K, I'll give it some more. I'm not necessarily trying to throw gobs of money at the machine - what I want is something capable of LASTING me as long as my first rig did (which, at the time, was not quite but very close to the bleeding edge). I realize to some extent that future-proofing is iffy given the speed at which tech advances and prices drop, but all in all I'm looking to build a solid, stable, capable machine to meet my needs for the next while, allowing for some upgrade wiggle-room.

Audio quality is important enough to me that I'll be doing additional research on audio cards (which I've heard are practically not in use; I'm guessing since on-boards is considered decent). Problem with audio is that the quality is reduced/bottlenecked at so many steps my little audiophile heart breaks - the format of the sound, the program through which it's being played, the quality of the speakers and/or headphones, and the quality of the on-board or soundcard. LEDs can be fun depending on the case I get but anything like that is purely bonus, it's not something I'm worried about. As for PCI-E lanes, I'm not looking at too many extras - all I need is a single GPU, maybe two into the future, and possibly a sound card.

I've considered ASRock, overall they do seem fair quality for the price. It's good to know that all same-chipset mobos are of similar value at any rate, that SHOULD make my decision a heck of a lot easier.

 

[dairyman3833]

For the soundcard part of your build, will you be recording? And what type of input outputs do you need? This system is great. Not the best but great! http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PTHDX16ana
If you don't need that much then, http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SymphIO16x16TB
Then you could go down on your input/output or go Madi http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HDSPeMADI
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MadiXtreme128

And finally the cheapest which is what I have-
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HD192CorePCIe

 

[The Original Ralph]

in your op you stated: "....I've tried to narrow it down by brand to begin with and from what I've read ASUS/ASRock have horrible customer service and their quality has been slipping....."

fwiw, at 65 yrs old, i built my first pc 3+ months ago with an Asus Z97M-Plus MB and was actually impressed with customer service / tech support. Iirc, they're located in indianapolis, and two calls re driver installation issues i was on / off the phone inside 30-35 minutes with issue resolved - 2nd call, tech was so knowledgeable and professional, i wrote an email to his boss, complimenting him. Btw, they're techs are US based, with english for native language - made a big difference to me.

 

[Aurora-Storm]

For the soundcard part of your build, will you be recording? And what type of input outputs do you need? This system is great. Not the best but great! http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PTHDX16ana
If you don't need that much then, http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SymphIO16x16TB
Then you could go down on your input/output or go Madi http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HDSPeMADI
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MadiXtreme128

And finally the cheapest which is what I have-
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HD192CorePCIe

Whooo, that card costs nearly as much as my entire build cost (which I am now in the process of actually building). I can see that being of use for some people, but for me to have purchased it, that'd be pretty crazy! Definitely far beyond my personal needs and means, at least for the next decade or two.

I'm not looking for professional recording for a studio or anything. Just chatting with friends and (maybe, eventually, when I have time to learn) I might try and record my violin. I ended up going with a fairly basic sound card, the Creative Zx. Hopefully when I plug my Audiotechnica AIR (ATH-AD900X) 'phones into the back I'll hear a difference from my old onboard. They're only 38 ohms, so they weren't underdriven, just... you know. Lower quality of sound. I was considering the ASUS Zonar series too, but I've had so much trouble with mics for chatting in the past that the beamforming mic (if it works) was the tipping point for me.

 

[Aurora-Storm]

in your op you stated: "....I've tried to narrow it down by brand to begin with and from what I've read ASUS/ASRock have horrible customer service and their quality has been slipping....."

fwiw, at 65 yrs old, i built my first pc 3+ months ago with an Asus Z97M-Plus MB and was actually impressed with customer service / tech support. Iirc, they're located in indianapolis, and two calls re driver installation issues i was on / off the phone inside 30-35 minutes with issue resolved - 2nd call, tech was so knowledgeable and professional, i wrote an email to his boss, complimenting him. Btw, they're techs are US based, with english for native language - made a big difference to me.

I actually ended up going with an ASRock mobo, the Z97 Anniversary (I ended up going with a 4790K CPU as well). It's good to know that if I'm totally floundering with troubleshooting that their tech support is Americas based.