Seven Sub-$160 Z77 Express Motherboards, Reviewed

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JonnyDough

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Simply put, as a gamer I want fast dual slots capable of crossfire. On a budget board, it is possible to have this, even if I have to give up a little speed with a CPU. Today's CPU's aren't usually the bottleneck. I still don't care about IGP graphics in my builds, as they aren't strong enough for what my system might want to handle at some point. I like friends to come over and play games on my systems. It's just easy and a good time.
 
Good review although it would have been nice to see the Asus Z77 Lk in that group of boards. It fits right into that price range. In fact I don't ever remember seeing that board above $160.


These were the prices of those boards on Newegg on May 1st 2012. This is taken from a previous post on this board.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813157293 $134.99 + $7.87 Shipping
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131837 $144.99 FREE SHIPPING
ASUS P8Z77-V LK LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128546 $144.99 + $7.87 Shipping
GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-D3H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813130644 $149.99 FREE SHIPPING
MSI Z77A-GD55 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

 

jgillispie

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The review is lacking very important questions.

When I buy a motherboard 'm less worried about a couple hundred Mhz in overclocking and more concerned with the quality of the components they are built with. For instance, which of these mobo's is going to have fried capacitors in one year and which one is going to last 5+?
 

Crashman

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[citation][nom]jgillispie[/nom]The review is lacking very important questions. When I buy a motherboard 'm less worried about a couple hundred Mhz in overclocking and more concerned with the quality of the components they are built with. For instance, which of these mobo's is going to have fried capacitors in one year and which one is going to last 5+?[/citation]I'll let you know in five years? They all have 3-year warranties.
 
apparently Asrock has die hard lady fans to was hanging out playing pool in the bar last night and my buddy was hitting on some lady i go to the restroom come back out hes lay out on the ground face brick red holding his nuts i thought a guy did it so i was like are you o.k. which one did it hurry up and tell me before they leave i wasn't really drunk and enjoy fighting anyway lol plus hes my friend so of course i am going to back him up then he points at the girl he was talking to i said what did you do to deserve it get to touchy or something if so suck it up that's what you get stupid and he said no i said asrock sucks and next thing i know i woke up on the floor with my nuts hurting and burning and you standing over me asking me if i was o.k. Asrock Ninja you've been warned ahahahaha
 
Moral of the story watch who you say Asrock sucks to in public she ended up saying sorry and getting kicked out the bar i had to carry my friend piggy back style to the car hes going to the doctor tomorrow to find out how serious it is lol poor guy
 

Crashman

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[citation][nom]bigcyco1[/nom]apparently Asrock has die hard lady fans to was hanging out playing pool in the bar last night and my buddy was hitting on some lady i go to the restroom come back out hes lay out on the ground face brick red holding his nuts i thought a guy did it so i was like are you o.k. which one did it hurry up and tell me before they leave i wasn't really drunk and enjoy fighting anyway lol plus hes my friend so of course i am going to back him up then he points at the girl he was talking to i said what did you do to deserve it get to touchy or something if so suck it up that's what you get stupid and he said no i said asrock sucks and next thing i know i woke up on the floor with my nuts hurting and burning and you standing over me asking me if i was o.k. Asrock Ninja you've been warned ahahahaha[/citation]Col....is that you?
 

Crashman

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[citation][nom]stri1016[/nom]It's hard to tell, but the last Biostar board I had in a system lasted 12 years before it got dismantled for its entire processor selection being too slow.http://www.strizzle.com/[/citation]Yes, Biostar produced some die-hard system-integrator style boards, I've had a few. And if you've been using Biostar for a long time, you might even remember when its USB header pins were reversed between the first and second row, so that users could flip over the connector without shorting its power pins. Too bad that didn't become the standard...
 

Crashman

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youcanDUit

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so what would you recommend?
 

Crashman

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Any of the familiar name brands (crucial, kingston, mushkin, patriot, etc) should be fine. Adata, Geil and Transcend should be fine too, but I haven't tested as many of those.

When trying to figure out "if this DDR3-1600 works with that board", I'd rely more on memory reviews at Newegg than I would on motherboard reviews. DDR3-1600 is so common that all boards are set up for it and any problems would be either due to badly-progammed memory (rare these days) or a defective board (gets you a free replacement).

 

youcanDUit

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wicked! thank you so much, oh wise one!
 

Brian Blair

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I have a TZ77A and everything runs perfect. But the T Overclocker program never wants to run. I only use the bios to overclock anyway, But I like it because it monitors the 12V rail and it's the only software program that reads my voltages correctly. I only got the T Overclocker program to run one time. I tried everything to run as admin and in compatibility mode I tried XP and Vista and 7. Nothing works. I don't know if it has anything to do with Windows 8.1 or if it's conflicting with Catalyst Control Center. Who knows. You would think they would test this crap.
 
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