Help me choose the right motherboard for my Haswell K Core i5.

[dazkyl]

Time to upgrade my motherboard to a 1150 socket!! i got these options to choose from so tell me which one and why. I have a coolermaster v6 cpu cooler and have the intention to overclock this Haswell i5 to more than 4.0Ghz.


Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H (156euros)
Asus Z87-K (134euros)
Gigabyte GA-H61M (125euros)
Asus Z87-Plus (189euros)
Gigabyte Z87-HD3 (125euros)

 

[Eximo]

Well you certainly would want to avoid the GA-H61M, I don't even think that is the right socket.

Not really a lot of difference when you get into that range of boards. Do the more expensive ones offer features you think you will use?

Pretty much any Z87 board is going to offer a minimum of 6 SATA III ports via Intel, and some of them offer additional ports using a third party controller. A pile of USB3.0 and USB2.0 slots, PCIe 3.0 @ 16x or 8x\8x, and an additional PCIe 2.0 8x, 4x/1x/1x/1x, or 1x/1x/1x/1x.

I would start looking at fan headers, USB headers (for your case ports), cooling (both passive and possible interference with your V6), Color (if you are going for a theme).