Gaming Motherboard for 4790k and m2

[Samvk9]

Looking for an amazing motherboard for Z97 that will be primarly focused on gaming. I am looking for one with great onboard audio, a fantasic UEFI bios, internet controls and SLI configuration. Less then $300 and one with great community and support.

I see alot of ASUS boards (i have a P97) but i worry about everyone's comments on how bad ASUS techincal support is. I rarely see anyone with postive reviews from ASUS support.

Does m2 use up PCI-E lanes? I ask because I have the 4790k with 16 PCI-E lanes and with my SLI configuration, 2 cards in 8x, all of my lanes are used. Does this mean I can't use an m2 SSD like Plextor and such? Or do motherboards take that?

 

[Eldy]

I suggest purchasing the ASUS maximus VII hero, it is what i am currently using with my 4690K, and i havent found any problems with it yet, plus it will have room for everything you need

 

[Samvk9]

I have heard a lot of people enjoy that board. Some have had bad experiences with it defuncting a few weeks later and apparently there are horror stories of ASUS tech support.

Thanks for your input.

Do you know how m2 interfaces with the board? Does it use PCI-E lanes from the CPU? If it does, then obviously I can't use it because my 2 GTX 980 Ti's will suck up the 16x (8x/8x) lanes of the 4790k.

 

[mrmez]

Asus Ranger.
I could never buy something called a hero.

 

[Eldy]

I have heard a lot of people enjoy that board. Some have had bad experiences with it defuncting a few weeks later and apparently there are horror stories of ASUS tech support.

Thanks for your input.

Do you know how m2 interfaces with the board? Does it use PCI-E lanes from the CPU? If it does, then obviously I can't use it because my 2 GTX 980 Ti's will suck up the 16x (8x/8x) lanes of the 4790k.

I havent heard a ton of stuff about it malfunctioning, mine hasnt and i have had it for a while, and sorry but i dont know much about m2's so i dont want to give you false information. I will look around and inbox you if i find anything

 

[Eldy]

Asus Ranger.
I could never buy something called a hero.

You do realise that the ranger is worse than the hero right?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Up until a few years ago .... I had gone about 10 years using 98% Aus boards.... but not only has TS gone down hill , much of it now being handled by Pegatron (Asrock's parent company) but so has quality.... if you look at newegg reviews of Asus Z87 boards versus Z97 boards (and X79 versus X99), you will see negative (1 egg / 2 egg) reviews have gone up 50% or so on average.

At $300, it's hard not to love the Maximus Formula but owning one, I'd be hesitant to buy another.

If it's a gaming build, I'd take a good hard look at performance and check and see what % folks are happy / unhappy with their choices.

The board I am using mostly these days is the MSI Gaming 5 .... was $125 last month, up about $150 lately. Simply put, unless you are water cooling, I don't see the extra money buying anything.

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/msi_z97_sli_krait_motherboard_review/12

It's a feature for feature match with the $209 Asus Hero but with equal or better components. If there's something worth an extra $60 nobody has yet been able to tell me what it is.

The Hero has 18 % negative (1 egg) user reviews on newegg, the Gaming 5 has about half at 10%.

With the Gigabyte Gaming 5 next in line performance wise in the above graph, it's a steal at $99.99

MSI Gaming 5 - 211.5
MSI Gaming 9 - 211.8
Gigabyte Gaming 5 - 201.2
Gigabye SOC Force - 201.1
Maximus 7 Formula - 198.2
Maxumis VII Hero 198.4

Unless there's features you need that aren't available from these two, I see little need to spend more money. That $150 - $200 could pay for most of a second GFX card or get you a

As for you can't use any additional PCI-E 3 Lanes that come from the CPU on Z97 w/o killing SLI. So it depends on how each MoBo is wired..... and how fast the M.2 is (x 4 ?) and if you have a PEX chip.

Here's a full explanation.

 

[Samvk9]

Absolutely fantastic and well written reply. Thank you!

I am glad that someone else noticed that the ASUS quality in mother boards has decreased. Both Newegg and Amazon have quite a few bad reviews of ASUS boards. Failing for whatever reason. Talking about how bad customer support is. Of course, this all speculation as we don't know exactly how other PC enthusiasts build their machine or screwed it up.

I too am not sold on the idea of all these extra features in the ASUS Maximum Hero 2 and ASUS Rampage and so on. Do I need keyboard macro optimization? No, thank you. Save the $$$. Do I need your WiFI interpretation of a lesser quality 3rd party USB 3.0 WiFi that I could buy and install instead. No, thank you. I feel like these gaming boards, or ROG boards, really try but they are missing the mark on what really matters.

In any case, I'd like to follow up -What do you mean by a PEX chip? Looks like I have some googling to do unless you can inform me. I'm assuming that frees up PCI-E lanes or works differently then just dropping an M2 into your motherboard? Which z97 boards have this?

Lastly, what's your favoriate rock solid board, with excellent UEFI bios, the feautres you want, and the one you trust with techincal support and community?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Back in the days od PCI02.9, we'd see PLX chis which gave us extra lanes..... in some instances (i.e STLKER) we say a 10% increase in fps on PCI-2 .... since PCI-e 3 X8 is about as fast as PCI-E 2 X16, we didn't see that so much implementation w/ Z97.

I do love Asus's UEFI BIOS, and their MoBo utilities are still the best.... but noot enough to spend an extra $6- $85 to get it. Gigabyte who seems to get the best reliability reviews but their's I like the least (next to ASRock).

Another place to look is here..... lists most failed MoBos between 6 and 12 months of usage

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/927-2/cartes-meres.html

The Top 20

- 8,80% ASUS Rampage IV Extreme
- 7,20% ASUS Maximus VI Extreme
- 5,06% ASUS Maximus VI Formula
- 4,76% ASUS Z87I-PRO
- 4,42% ASUS Maximus VI Gene
- 4,26% ASUS Z87-PRO
- 4,13% ASUS SABERTOOTH Z87
- 3,37% ASUS Z87-A

- 8,05% ASRock AD2550B-ITX
- 7,93% ASRock FM2A88M Extreme4+
- 7,25% ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0
- 5,95% ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0
- 5,26% ASRock 990FX Extreme3
- 5,26% ASRock 990FX Extreme3
- 5,05% ASRock FM2A55M-VG3
- 4,55% ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer

- 5,93% MSI Z87I
- 3,65% MSI Z87-G45 GAMING
- 3,48% MSI Z87-G43 GAMING

- 5,56% Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3

The Gigabyte SOC Force was a nice board to build on.... extremely good user ratings .... love the fact the CPU and CPU_OPT headers are individually controlled but hated the BIOS. MSIs BIOS is OK, could use some polish but highly functional. Also, like Asus, usually plenty of OC Guides on youtube.

I'd like to try the new Gaming 9 ACK...differs from the prev version ... audio and network performance rocks with some unique features. (http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7141/msi-z97-gaming-9-ack-intel-motherboard-review/index11.html) in that it has USB 3.1

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130842

 

[Samvk9]

Another great response. Thank you!

Way to see a great list of failed motherboards. That is good to know! I see that some of th eones I was interested have made the list, and alot of them are ASUS.

Also, thank you much for the PLX chip explanation. It looks I should just go with i7 4790k, 2 980 TI in SLI, MSI Gaming Mobo (either 5 or 7), 1000w evga supernova g2, 16gb ram (ddr3) and be all set. I'll have to give up the idea of ever using m2 SSD though. i'll have to go with a samsung 850 pro if i am reading what you said correctly.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

No need to give up om the SSD unless you going x4

From new ACK description

1 x M.2 port*
- M.2 port supports M.2 SATA 6Gb/s module
- M.2 port supports M.2 PCIe module up to 10Gb/s speed**
- M.2 port supports 4.2cm/ 6cm/ 8cm length module
- Supports RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 5 and RAID 10***

* The SATA5 and SATA6 ports will be unavailable when installing a module in the M.2 port.
** Intel RST does not support PCIe M.2 SSD with Legacy ROM.
*** M.2 PCIe interface does not support RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 5 and RAID 10.

Also unlike Asus where I couldn't have both Wireless and LAN enabled (per Asus TS)

ACK: Use Killer DoubleShot Pro to combine Killer WIFI with Killer LAN for the best online gaming experience

1000 watts is a bit big but good idea if water cooling.... I live the new Seasonic Snow 1050 .... Do a Enthoo Luxe Case Build.... I'd have hard time trying to decide whether to install the PSU shroud.

 

[mrmez]

Seems to be the Z87 Asus boards failing. Haven't heard anything bad about their Z97 boards.

Jack, the Hero might have more features than the Ranger, but none of those I'll ever use.
I figured a 4790k + ranger would always be better than a 4690k + hero.

 

[Samvk9]

I meant that the m2 would use PCI-E lanes and I would not have any free to use after going SLI with 980 Graphics Card. As the required lanes for the graphics card is 8x, and with 2, I can't have room for another M2 PCI-E ssd. I lose that unless I find a motherboard that has a PEX chip in it.

I do love those Phanteks cases. I like the Enthoo Luxe Case. I am looking at the Enthoo Series Primo. I can't decide. Both are good. But need one that has superb airflow especially when using 2 SLI GTX 980s (with reference blowers).

 

[Samvk9]

After all the reading I have done, it looks like there are a very few motherboards options for one that focus on high quality audio, excellent UEFI bios, priority internet and expansion for m2 PCI-E Gen3 (x4):

Asrock Z97 Extreme9
GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-Gaming GT (no m2 slot but can just use a Intel 750 PCI-E card instead)
ASUS Z97 WS

Comes with all the necessary tools and without WiFi. Includes an 48-lane PEX 8747 PCI-E bridge that repeats 16 lanes of input to 32 output lanes. This obviously has very little effect on SLI/CrossFire GPU's (there is really no difference between both running in 8x versus 16x) but having the 8747 chipset on board allows me to purchase a Samsung SM951 and enjoy the benefits of a SSD on PCI-E 3.0 x4 lanes while having SLI/CrossFire configuration (8x + 8x + 4x = 20 < 32 (winning)).

Without that PEX bridge, I would not be able to run each graphics card at the required 8x PCI-E Gen 3 speeds while having a M.2 SSD installed using an additional PCI-E 4x lanes (8x + 8x + 4x = 20 > 16x = break).

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Seems to be the Z87 Asus boards failing. Haven't heard anything bad about their Z97 boards.

Jack, the Hero might have more features than the Ranger, but none of those I'll ever use.
I figured a 4790k + ranger would always be better than a 4690k + hero.

Yes, it **seems** that way if you don't take into account the reporting period for the source provided. Evidence of the the Z87 boards are exists because the study period is for reported for failing hardware with 6 - 12 months of it's warranty period..... so Z97 X99 failures won't start appearing on the failure lists until the next study period. I'd be willing to bet that there's another shakeup .... usually when a company tops the charts there's a huge effort in making improvements.

Also when new series are introduced, as MSI and Gigabyte have done, there's bound to be 1st year growing pains so I expect the new Gaming series will be up there. First year products generally bring an uptick 1st because it's new..... and 2nd because it's new to users. You can also be what I like to call "a victim of your own success" when positive reviews result in an large increase in sales which puts strains on production lines and staff as the company struggles to keep up.

To compare the Z87 / Z97 and X79 / X99 look at newegg negative user reviews which I first compared back in January:

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2458770/whatz-happenin-mobo-quality-late.html

Asus X79 Deluxe => Asus X99 Deluxe 22.5% worse than X79

X79 Deluxe - 31%
X99 Deluxe - 38%

Asus X79 Rampage => Asus X99 Rampage 50.0% worse than X79

X79 Rampage IV - 24%
X99 Rampage V - 36%

Asus X79 WS => Asus X99 WS 78.3% worse than X79

X79 WS - 23%
X99 WS - 41%

================================

Just updated the Z97 boards

Asus Z87 Hero => Asus Z97 Hero 47% worse than Z87

Z87 Asus Hero - 17% (13% one egg)
Z97 Asus Hero - 26% (19% one egg)

Asus Z87 Formula => Asus Z97 Formula 67% worse than Z87 (88% for the 1 eggers)

Z87 Asus Formula - 24% (17% one egg)
Z97 Asus Formula - 40% (32% one egg)

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I meant that the m2 would use PCI-E lanes and I would not have any free to use after going SLI with 980 Graphics Card. As the required lanes for the graphics card is 8x, and with 2, I can't have room for another M2 PCI-E ssd. I lose that unless I find a motherboard that has a PEX chip in it.

I do love those Phanteks cases. I like the Enthoo Luxe Case. I am looking at the Enthoo Series Primo. I can't decide. Both are good. But need one that has superb airflow especially when using 2 SLI GTX 980s (with reference blowers).

From what I remember, M.2 can use either SATA lanes which come from the chipset of PCI-E 3 lanes that come from the CPU.

If you are using water cooling with 2 or more radiators, get the Primo

If you are using 1 - 2 radiators or something like the Swiftech H240-X, get the Luxe.

If using air cooling the Pro will be fine..... I have all 3 and much prefer the white ones.