Having a hard time finding a good motherboard

[OutbackSteakhouseGuy]

I've been working on figuring out a build for a PC. So far, this is the build I have: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8kBTK8 I have searched for hours on google/NewEgg looking up reviews, but it seems as though no matter what motherboard I look at, about 10-20% of the reviews say they're DOA, reboot for no reason, die, etc. Are motherboards just prone to shoddy construction, or maybe most people that are satisfied don't leave a review? Is the motherboard I have unsatisfactory and I should get another? Any input would be greatly appreciated; thank you very much.

 

[alexoiu]

It's ok, if not OC-ing.

 

[Ximerous]

Here's the thing, not everyone who gets a working piece of hardware makes a review, mostly everyone whose motherboard is trash does(Though I wouldn't if they replace it/give you a fix in a timely manner, stuff breaks sometimes). That being said don't go for something with like 2eggs . Look at the reviews of the ones that worked as well as the specs.

 

[OutbackSteakhouseGuy]

Thank you for the replies. I'm currently not planning on doing any overclocking or bridging GPUs. I was kind of wondering that; if maybe more people who were satisfied didn't place a review.

 

[synphul]

If you're looking to do any real overclocking of the 4790k I'd personally look to a bit better motherboard. The low(er) budget z97 boards are more suited to mild i5 overclocking or to the pentium g3258. Better boards don't have to cost a ton.

Most of the lower budget boards run lower power phases in the neighborhood of 4 which is fine for stock use and light overclocking. For higher overclocking you may want to consider something like a gigabyte z97x gaming 5 or asrock z97 extreme 4, both run around $115. They both use 6 power phases, the asrock using analog hybrid (a bit more budget) and the gigabyte uses digital power phases.

Of course the 4790k is already pretty fast (still the fastest clocked intel cpu) out of the box at 4ghz (4.4 turbo) so if you're not overclocking the cheaper board you've got selected would do fine.

Reviews in general are a double edged sword. They're 'candid' thoughts on a product from everyday users about a product so likely more truthful (we hope) than a paid review. On the other hand as others pointed out it's heavily imbalanced with mostly negative reviews being posted vs all experiences. Of those negative reviews it's important to sort out how many are legitimate.

Some get knocked points off a review because someone complains they can't play songs on their bios speaker (which only emits beep codes) or other crazy things. Some are people who truly think they have an issue, follow the rma process and so on but come to find out there was nothing wrong with the product and they just didn't configure it properly. These are people from all walks of life attempting to build their own systems, some are spot on and others don't know which end is up. They're not all technical professionals. Some are proficient system builders with legitimate problems/issues, you just have to take reviews with a grain of salt.