H81, H85 or H97?

[verson908]

These are my specs:

CPU: Intel core i5 4590 3.3-3.7Ghz 4-core
Motherboard: ?
Memory: G.Skill Aegis Dual 2x4gb ddr3 1600 cl11
Hard Disk: Seagate 1TB Sata (2,430)
Video Card: Palit GTX 750Ti STORMX DualFan, 2 GB/ 128BIT ddr5
Optical Disk Drive: Asus 24x Sata OEM
Casing: Coolermaster N200 window edition
Monitor: BenQ 22" GW2255 LED
PSU: Seasonic (S12II) 520 watts PSU 80+ Bronze
CPU Cooler: Coolermaster hyper 212x
UPS: Intex 600va


What is the best Motherboard? Thanks! 😀

 

[Woody1999]

With an i5, definitely go for an H97 board. The H81 chipset is the most basic chipset, used by most OEM manufacturers to save money on their builds. I recommend them only for Pentium or Celeron builds.

The B85 chipset is more business orientated, with most of the features of an H81 board but with more SATA ports and mostly in ATX spec.

The H97 chipset is the highest quality locked board you can get, with all but one or two of the features found on the Z97 chipset. It's good for all builds ranging from i3 budget builds to powerhouse Xeon workstation chips.

As your case is MicroATX only, I recommend the H97M Pro4, a great board from ASRock at an affordable price.

Woody

 

[hamzahfelix]

The h81 would have only 2 ram slots, so if you got dual channel 8 gb kit, then you won't be able to go above 8GB without replacing your current memory kit.

The b85 and h97 would have 4 ram slots, so it would give you the luxury of upgrading your ram without replacing your current ones.
The main difference between the b85 and the h97 chipset is that h97 would support broadwell cpu when they're out and b85 won't, which isn't a dealbreaker to me because the broadwell cpus would only offer better power efficiency over the hashwell cpus.

I would recommend an asus b85m-gamer mobo.

On a side note, I noticed you did not include an ssd. An ssd would be a wise inclusion even for a budget build.

 

[Woody1999]

An SSD can always be a later upgrade. I find that performance is the main priority when building a budget system, then aesthetics, then I consider an SSD.

Woody

 

[verson908]

How about asrock H97M anniversary?

 

[Woody1999]

Anniversary boards are severely stripped down boards. The Pro4 contains many more features and good VRM cooling, and it's only about £5 difference.

Woody

 

[verson908]

How about asrock h97m?

 

[Woody1999]

Equally as bad. What's wrong with the Pro4?

Woody

 

[hamzahfelix]

An SSD can always be a later upgrade. I find that performance is the main priority when building a budget system, then aesthetics, then I consider an SSD.

Woody

An ssd has been proven to remove storage bottleneck caused by read/write speeds of hdd, resulting in significant faster boot and shut down time, as well as loading times. However, different people would have different storage preferences.

 

[Woody1999]

I think you're mistaken. Fast storage =/= more FPS. You will only see an increase in boot and load times. You cannot be "bottlenecked" by a hard drive, as it is doing very little work when gaming or rendering etc.

Woody

 

[verson908]

it is not available in our area. 🙁

How about Gigabyte H97 Gaming 3?

 

[hamzahfelix]

I think you're mistaken. Fast storage =/= more FPS. You will only see an increase in boot and load times. You cannot be "bottlenecked" by a hard drive, as it is doing very little work when gaming or rendering etc.

Woody

It would not have more fps, I agree. I never said it would have more fps.

I think you meant decrease in boot and load times. Loading maps or anything while gaming would certainly benefit.

The word bottleneck can also be used to refer to a phenomenon where the performance or capacity of an entire system is limited by a single or small number of components or resources. Fps is certainly one way to measure performance, and so does boot and load times. A hdd is a part performing at a level that can be improved by replacing it with an ssd.

But like I said before, storage preferences can be different in different people. If you want to go with a hdd, it would give you that extra capacity. I myself would go for a ssd and a hdd, but I realized not everybody would want to do that or have the budget for such luxury.

 

[hamzahfelix]

it is not available in our area. 🙁

How about Gigabyte H97 Gaming 3?

The Gigabyte h97 gaming 3 is a solid board choice. Nice vrm phases, though that shouldn't really matter much in a non Oc board. If price and personal preference is not an issue, go for it.