[SOLVED] H81 vs Z97 - Big difference when gaming?

[sponkwig]

My Z97 mobo has died.

Finding a replacement mobo for a LGA 1150 CPU is very difficult except for ones that have the H81 chip.

There's just a few 'new' Z97 mobos available but they're 3 times the price as a H81. I can try and get a second-hand one from eBay instead but would rather buy a new one.

What I'd like to know is will there be a fair drop in gaming performance between the two?
After reading a few other threads I can see the Z97 has more features such as overclocking but I'm not interested in that. I can also see the H81 supports RAM only up to 1600Mhz (my RAM is 2400Mhz but assuming it's backward compatible) but will this also affect the performance.

In short, will I notice a big drop in FPS if I use the H81 instead of the Z97 chip.

thanks very much and hope you can help.

 

[RememberThe5th]

Well, only ram speed can impact 5-20 fps depending on games.
I went from h81 to z97 and just oc a bit, only con that i see on h81 is probably 2 ram slots and probably usb ports (less 3.0), less sata ports and sound chipset.
I really dont know why the 1150 socket mobos still hold the high price tbh.

 

[sponkwig]

Well, only ram speed can impact 5-20 fps depending on games.
I went from h81 to z97 and just oc a bit, only con that i see on h81 is probably 2 ram slots and probably usb ports (less 3.0), less sata ports and sound chipset.
I really dont know why the 1150 socket mobos still hold the high price tbh.

Thanks for your reply and advice, I really appreciate this.

From what you've said, there's not much in it.

However, your mention of the impact on FPS because of the RAM speed is an eye opener for me. 5-20 FPS is a lot! Therefore it might be better for me to try and get hold of a Z97 but not for the reasons as previously thought.

My 240Mhz RAM will be downgraded to 1600Mhz so do you think the FPS will be greatly affected if I'm playing a game like Assassin's Creed Odyssey?

BTW, I think the reason why the price is still high is because they know there's some sucker like me who is willing to pay more to avoid having to upgrade the other components!

Thanks again.

 

[RememberThe5th]

Not sure , depends.
For instance Rottr was depended on ram.
If you have i5/i7 and good gpu i should not worry much about it.
I was lucky to fix broken mobo (Adus maximus hero vii) , by re soldering the socket with heat gun and flux. Con, case buttons dont work nor the bios flashback.

Can you list the specs of your pc and what does the mobo do when you try to power it up?

 

[sponkwig]

I had a long standing issue with it not switching back on after powering it down so I've always left it on and restarted when needed.

It took me ages to pin it down to the mobo because I thought it was other components such as the PSU. I did trial and error by replacing and swapping with another machine.

In the past, you had to walk away from it for a few hours before trying to switch it on again!
Someone suggested it might be a faulty capacitor that needs time to recover. When it's on, it works fine!

Anyway, I think last night I might have buggered it for good but will have to wait and see when I get home tonight. I tried to replace my aging Radeon Graphics card & waterblock for a Fanned GTX 1050 Ti. I was going to replace the card with the power still on then hit the restart button but new that would risky so I powered it down instead. As usual it refused to come and I was so mad that I spilt a bit of cooling on the mobo.

This morning, it switches on and turns the fan & pump but nothing else.

The CPU is the i5-4460.
The new mobo I've actually ordered is the Asus FBA_90MB0GT0-M0EAY0 H81M-C 16 GB DDR3 PCI Express but not sure to use it yet.

Thanks.

 

[DSzymborski]

One problem you may run into is the BIOS; you have a CPU from the Haswell *refresh* not the initial run of Haswell CPUs and H81 motherboards generally required BIOS updates to run those. Check for a sticker of at least BIOS 0705 or higher as your motherboard may not run your CPU otherwise. One advantage of Z97/H97 is no worries about out-of-box compatibility with these CPUs.

 

[RememberThe5th]

Seems good your mobo choice.
I had also issue with 12 year old motherboard which was my friends first build ever, 775Dual-Vsta, had to jump start the psu (dont ask how) and in that exact moment i had to hit power button to actually boot it, soo I assume bad capacitor.

H81M-C was my first consideration 2 years ago when I wanted to build myself new pc (from 775 socket), cause I wanted that PCI slot (not pcie) but since i got deal at local shop for 30€ , why not?

Drivers should work right out of box (without installation).