New Build Z270 MB Budget $300. What is the best board for a newbie overclocker? Friendly bios/software to learn with

[Billfish01]

I'm an Asus fan, but I'm open to all brands. I'm looking for the best board that has user friendly soft/firmware making it easier to learn OC'ing on. Board with good temp meter placement and solid mild overlcocking. Not worried about lighting aura ect.

First build, all advice is appreciated.
I will not be using multi GPU, only plan 1 m.2 2280.
Primarily gaming rig.
I'm leaning on the Asus Rog Maximus Hero IX / Asus Rog Strix E

CPU: i7-7700k (Would like to hit 4.7/4.8 OC'd)
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken x62
GPU: Nvidia 1080 ti 11gb (likely MSI Gaming X)
Case: Thermaltake Core v71
Ram: G. Skill Ripjaws 16gb (2x8gb)
PSU: EVGA Supernova 650
Storage: 1 TB SSD + 1 tb HDD

From my experience Asus has always done well, I've also been looking at MSI M7, I'm really just looking for some input on which board has the best bios/software for a newbie to overclocking. Light/moderate OC'ing

 

[Supahos]

The one touch oc does work for Asus but it'll toss more voltage than necessary and usually resort in more heat than necessary. I've seen results throw potentially fatal voltages at CPUs and if you're not knowledgeable enough to check it you may severely shorten your CPUs lifespan. I would rather oc it myself. Just read up and pick a voltage you think is safe and see how fast it'll run at that voltage. Once you find the speed. Step voltage down to see how low you can go at that speed.

 

[Karadjgne]

Visit the ROG forums. There's all sorts of posts on mobo settings that have achieved stability. See what ppl have done, then visit Google and learn what those settings are and what they do.

Software OC is like NOS in a stock motor, sure it'll run great, for a little while, up to the point where you melt the rings, crack the block and warp the heads. It's software. It's not personally tailored to your mobo or cpu, it's universal to all of them. By that it means it'll over-volt, over-current, over-drive the pc just to get the speed results you want, within its own universal parameters while supposedly guaranteeing stability. Nice gimmick for the sales department, but next to useless for longer term reality.

For a real answer, the Asus maximus are great boards, but designed for serious OC, for something milder, most of the midrange boards are better suited. The maximus bios is extremely detailed for that reason, for ppl trying to tweak out every last erg of power just to maintain stability at high speeds. It's not exactly user friendly in any way. Having all those tweak settings left on auto defeats the purpose of having them, could have gotten a cheaper board for the same results.

 

[mediademon1]

I personally recently purchased the GIGABYTE GA-Z270X-UD3 motherboard as my first z270 board. I have the same cpu as you, 7700k and I found the bios very easy to pick up on. I switched from Asus boards, specifically the z170 S, not because of any issues but simply because I liked the look and features of this particular board for my needs. Within a few seconds I had my 7700k overclocked to 4.6ghz and have had zero issues. Could I go higher on overclock? Yes but I have no need to. I like Asus boards but if the bios is close to what was on z170 boards with the new z270 boards then I suppose it will come down to which board fits your needs price and visual wise.

 

[Karadjgne]

I have 2 pc's, an Asus p8z77-v le and an msi mpower Big Bang z77. The Asus bios is cake. It's easy, simple, does what I want it to do without many of the tiny tweak settings included on the serious boards. The MSI mpower is the equivalent of the maximus. It's got more crud in it than I cared to bother looking up. Probably half the settings are still default. But thats only the beginning of the differences. The p8 is a mild OC board at best, limited heatsinks on the VRM's. It does my 3570k to 4.3GHz just fine. The mpower has taken my i7-3770K to 4.9GHz at 1.32v. Easily. I'm pretty sure I could get 5.0-5.1GHz and stay under 1.4v if I really pushed those tweak settings some. So yes, there is a huge difference in boards, and not just in the prices.
The question you really need to ask is just how far you plan on going with this. If you want the best possible probability of speed, the maximus or a udp7 or boards like that are your best bet. If middle of the road is good, a udp5, gaming pro carbon, Asus A are perfectly suited. If you just want a little better than stock, Asus E, udp3, asrock k6 etc.

Best advice I can give is learn what to expect, what to push, what to avoid from OC. Get an education, then make an educated decision on your pc choices.

 

[The_Staplergun]

To answer the thread based on the title, and from experience: Asus z270A prime, or Asus z270e strix.

Those will both be perfect for you for the z270 chipset.

I have the z270e strix and it's insanely easy to overclock.

I don't mean using some sort of proprietary software either, I mean the standard manual overclock that's reliable and tested and true.

 

[quisterio]

I personally recently purchased the GIGABYTE GA-Z270X-UD3 motherboard as my first z270 board. I have the same cpu as you, 7700k and I found the bios very easy to pick up on. I switched from Asus boards, specifically the z170 S, not because of any issues but simply because I liked the look and features of this particular board for my needs. Within a few seconds I had my 7700k overclocked to 4.6ghz and have had zero issues. Could I go higher on overclock? Yes but I have no need to. I like Asus boards but if the bios is close to what was on z170 boards with the new z270 boards then I suppose it will come down to which board fits your needs price and visual wise.

I've recently purchased my first Z270 board as well, GIGABYTE Z270-SLI, along with an i7-7700K, and for the life of me I can't make heads or tails of how to properly work the BIOS in my favor.

I've had an Asrock P67 board for the last 6 years and loved the bios controls with it, everything in pull down tabs etc. etc..

Now I have this board and everything seems to need to be manually typed in and I'm not so hot at it yet.

All I'm after is for the CPU to run at 4.5 (Right now) and to get my RAM to run at proper speed...

Do you have any pointers to give?

 

[Karadjgne]

https://www.joomag.com/magazine/gigabyte-z270-overclocking-guide-gigabyte-200-series-overclocking-guide/0767815001483933769