I have two boards I'm looking at.
MSI Z170A Gaming M5
$40, about 60mi round trip to pick it up.
Asus Z170-E
$50, about 30mi round trip.
Both are second hand, and my car gets about 11mpg.
Gas is about $4 a gallon for me.
You can see all my PC hardware in my signature.
The MSI looks to be more robust in features and design, but is gonna cost me a bit in gas for sure.
Otherwise the Asus is more cut down in comparison you the board I was using, but would cost less overall to buy.
I plan on overclocking to the same OC I was getting with my previous board the ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming/AURA which is 4.6GHz
I'm thinking the MSI will be able to let me get that OC better than with the Asus board, but not entirely sure, also I like that the MSI has the extra I/O support that is almost nearly what my previous board offered, but if I can pretty much achieve what I'm looking to achieve using the Asus board, then it would definitely cost me less to get that one.
Also, the RAM in my build isn't the same anymore, I now have 4x4GB Corsair Vengeance LPX C16 memory.
Model # CMK16GX4M4A2666C16 v4.23
These RAM were on the QVL of my previous board which was nice, but aren't on the QVL of the MSI, the MSI QVL only lists v3.21
But they are on the QVL for the Asus Z170-E.
MSI Z170A Gaming M5
$40, about 60mi round trip to pick it up.
Asus Z170-E
$50, about 30mi round trip.
Both are second hand, and my car gets about 11mpg.
Gas is about $4 a gallon for me.
You can see all my PC hardware in my signature.
The MSI looks to be more robust in features and design, but is gonna cost me a bit in gas for sure.
Otherwise the Asus is more cut down in comparison you the board I was using, but would cost less overall to buy.
I plan on overclocking to the same OC I was getting with my previous board the ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming/AURA which is 4.6GHz
I'm thinking the MSI will be able to let me get that OC better than with the Asus board, but not entirely sure, also I like that the MSI has the extra I/O support that is almost nearly what my previous board offered, but if I can pretty much achieve what I'm looking to achieve using the Asus board, then it would definitely cost me less to get that one.
Also, the RAM in my build isn't the same anymore, I now have 4x4GB Corsair Vengeance LPX C16 memory.
Model # CMK16GX4M4A2666C16 v4.23
These RAM were on the QVL of my previous board which was nice, but aren't on the QVL of the MSI, the MSI QVL only lists v3.21
But they are on the QVL for the Asus Z170-E.
Last edited: