Looking for advice/references for motherboards.

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Masamune_Smokey

Masamune_Smokey

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Mar 26, 2014
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Hello guys! It's me again, and I'm finally about to build my first PC. I just have a few more questions before I order the parts and I'd like some more tomshardware help since you guys are fantastic. This time, it's about motherboards.

Here's my build:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU
CoolerMotherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB ACX 2.0 Video Card
Case: NZXT Phantom 410 (Gunmetal/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair CX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (32/64-bit)
Case Fan: NZXT Air Flow Series 83.6 CFM 140mm Fan
Case Fan: Cooler Master R4-L2R-20AC-GP 69.0 CFM 120mm Fan
Case Fan: Cooler Master R4-L2R-20AC-GP 69.0 CFM 120mm Fan
Case Fan: Cooler Master R4-L2R-20AC-GP 69.0 CFM 120mm Fan
Case Fan: Cooler Master R4-L2R-20AC-GP 69.0 CFM 120mm Fan


Now, here's my questions.
1. Should I stick with the motherboard I have or get an updated one?
2. There's 3 motherboards I've been looking at, in the case I use a different motherboard.

  • ■ Asus Z97-A ATX
    ■ ASRock Z97 EXTREME6 ATX
    ■ MSI Z97 PC MATE ATX
My friend who's helping me told me ASUS is the best, and it's hard to mess it up. He also said MSI is about a step down, but he's had issues with them. The EXTREME6 was my first choice, but I've heard bad things about ASRock and I'm scared to get it.
Thanks in advance, I've been thinking about this for a few days and it's hard for me to decide on my own.
 
Solution
JackNaylorPE
1. Not seeing the reasoning behind B85 MoBo and k series processor. Your friend would have a lot of support in 20912 but Asus quality has slipped in recent years.... look at the newegg user reviews from say Z87 to Z97 and X79 to X99 and you will see that highly negative 1 egg reviews are up about 50%. They went from dominating the GFX card market performance wise with the 6xx series but now are an "also ran" with MSI and Gigabyte dominating.

The dominant Z97 board in your price range is the MSI Gaming 5, followed closely behind by the Gugabyte Gaming 5

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/msi_z97_gaming_6_review/10'

Here's how they stack up with the best performing MoBo assigned a value of 100% and the others reported...
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1. Not seeing the reasoning behind B85 MoBo and k series processor. Your friend would have a lot of support in 20912 but Asus quality has slipped in recent years.... look at the newegg user reviews from say Z87 to Z97 and X79 to X99 and you will see that highly negative 1 egg reviews are up about 50%. They went from dominating the GFX card market performance wise with the 6xx series but now are an "also ran" with MSI and Gigabyte dominating.

The dominant Z97 board in your price range is the MSI Gaming 5, followed closely behind by the Gugabyte Gaming 5

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/msi_z97_gaming_6_review/10'

Here's how they stack up with the best performing MoBo assigned a value of 100% and the others reported by the % of fps they get compared with the best performing board.

MSI Z97 Gaming 9 - 100.00%
MSI Z97 Gaming 5 - 99.86%
MSI Z97A Gaming 6 - 98.96%
Asus Z97 TUF Sabranco - 96.13%
Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5 - 95.00%
Gigabyte Z97X SOC Force - 94.95%
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Hero - 93.67%
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Formula - 93.58%
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Gene - 91.69%
Asus Z97-A - 89.57%
MSI Z97 Mpower MAX AC - 88.20%
MSI Z97S Krait SLI - 71.01%

2. As for user satisfaction with their purchase.... here's the % of extremely unhappy board owners who were unhappy enough w/their board so as to give it a high;ly negative 1 egg review:

Asus Z97 TUF Sabranco - 3% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132414
MSI Z97 Mpower MAX AC - 4% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130765
MSI Z97 Gaming 5 - 10% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130770
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Gene - 11% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132136
MSI Z97A Gaming 6 - 12% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128709
Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5 - 14% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128709
MSI Z97S Krait SLI 19% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130801
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Hero - 19% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132125
Asus Z97 Maximus VII Formula - 26% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132247
Asus Z97-A - 27% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132118
MSI Z97 Gaming 9 - 28% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130808
Gigabyte Z97X SOC Force - 29% http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128704

3. Looking at the Asus X97-A you listed, 27% of board owners are quite dissatisfied, whereas the MSI G5 owners are that unhappy only about 1/3 the time.

4. You'll want 2 sticks of RAM.... dual channel RAM MoBo will work better with 2 sticks ... and faster 2133 is about same price as 1600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226565

5. I'd compare the differences in hardware components used on the various 970s if you want to get an understanding as to why MSI and Gigabyte for example, outperform the competition. Read bottom third of pages 2-4 here. Gigabyte have high % of 1 egg reviews tho and is a long card that won't fit in many cases.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-review/1

6. The C series from Corsair is to be avoided in gaming / enthusiast boxes. Suggest a EVGA B2
http://www.ncixus.com/products/?sku=97531

7. The SSD doesn't help anything in the HD ... so after 3 or 4 games are installed, everything else goes on HD. An SSHD would be 50 to100% faster than the WD Black / Blue

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2013/-17-PCMark-7-Gaming,2915.html
And double the size for $13

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178380
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178340

8. That's a lot of high speed 2000 rpm fans which result in quite a noisy box. I'd suggest 140mm 1200 rpm fans unless you wear headphones
 
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Solution


I forgot to mention, I already have the motherboard listed, the case, and the single stick of ram (I'll be adding a second 8gb stick later). I also will not be overclocking yet, nor doing SLI, and I'll be usong only the one 140mm fan, and get use stock or lower rpm fans.
I will use the PSU you recommended after looking into it more.
I'm still looking into the other stuff though.
 
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I'm leaning towards the MSI Z97 MPOWER Max AC, it has a lot of nice features and is black with a few yellow accents which will compliment my blue memory and fans.
Now my question regarding Motherboards is, should I wait and buy the motherboard, or use the motherboard I have now and switch it out when I get the new one?
 
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