Which matx Motherboard for i7 4790K ?

[Boxey]

Hi,

Looking for the best Z97 matx board to overclock i7 4790K, would like sli option (which boards have the best spacing of the pcie slots?) and maybe M.2 for the future. I have an old ASUS gtx 760 and could probably pick another up for £90 on ebay to sli; or may hold out and buy a newer nvidia gpu

Options below with prices on Amazon uk, but open to other suggestions.

MSI Z97M Gaming Intel LGA1150 Z97 Micro ATX Motherboard £124
Asus Maximus VII Gene Motherboard £162
ASRock Z97M OC FORMULA OC £126
Asrock Z97M KILLER - Z97M KILLER £117

ASRock Z97M OC looks good value but not many reviews about this board the colour scheme could be a challenge - but nice to get away from black and red ! Although not heard great things about the Killer™ Gigabit LAN compared to the Intel gigabit lan (is this true ?)

Looking to use Corsair CC-9011070-WW Carbide Series Air 240 case, Corsair Hydro Series H100i and 16gb of 2400Mhz ram to match mobo,Samsung 850 Pro 256GB 2.5 inch SATA III etc

I already have the i7 4790K which I got from the US for a great price compared to the UK.

Also be good if the Mobo bios is compatible out of the box with the i7 4790k

cheers !

 

[geofelt]

Any new stock motherboard will have the latest bios.

I use the maximus VII gene, and it is really a quality piece of work.
You should probably not worry too much about overclocking the 4790K.
It runs at 4.0/4.4 stock and you hardly need more.

I have become a bit jaded on the subject of haswell cooling for overclocking.
How high you can OC is firstly determined by your luck in the bin lottery.
I had high expectations from the Devil's canyon parts and their better thermals.
I found out that the thermals really do not matter unless, perhaps, you are a competitive overclocker.
Haswell runs quite cool, that is, until you raise the voltage past 1.25v or so.
Once you go past 1.3v, then you really do need very good cooling to keep stress loads under say 85c.
But, the consensus is that voltages higher than 1.30 are not a good thing for 24/7 usage.
I have been unable to find any official Intel recommendation on what is a safe vcore limit.
If you are an enthusiast, you can go higher.
Even if you can handle the heat, how much do you really need that extra multiplier from say 4.4 to 4.6?
My thought is that it is better to use the exotic cooling funds for a quieter and less expensive air cooler.
I suggest a good tower air cooler like noctua or phanteks with 140mm fans.

 

[Tradesman1]

^^^^ +1 on the Gene