Z87 Asus Motherboards....Not sure which one for first build....decisions, decisions....

[Swiph]

Sup everybody,


I'm building my first PC, mainly for gaming, and I'm a little torn and a little uneducated in the motherboard area so I have a few questions........

(Yes, this is an Asus board selection only. This a just a personal preference.)
The Asus Z87 boards range from $100 to $400 with a bunch of stuff I don't really need like WI-FI. I understand the difference between the Maximus VI EXTREME vs Z87-K LGA (I think..) because of the 4-way SLI and OC panel. The question I have is, what's the difference between the VI HERO LGA vs something like Z87-Plus or the Z87-A. What the hell am I getting extra for a $50 difference? Originally, I was aiming for the VI HERO for the OC features, which I plan on using, but come to find out, most (if not all) of the Z87 boards have some type of OC feature/program/BIOs to use for OC. Now I need to narrow down my needs vs bells and whistles.

Let me break down my proposed build:

Intel i5-4670k CPU Haswell
EVGA Superclocked /ACX cooling Geforce GTX 770
Corsair Vengeance 8gb (2X4) DDR3 1600
Samsung 840 Pro 128GB SSD
Seagate 2TB mechanical
Corsair HX750 750W, 80 Plus Gold Powersupply
Corsair 400R Graphite Case
CM EVO 212 (not sure about upgrading to liquid cooling just yet.....)
Windows 7 pro

Yes, I do plan on gaming and yes, I do plan on Overclocking. Honestly, this will be my first time around for overclocking so I don't believe I plan on pushing the Haswell past 4.0GHz beginning but I would like to get to 4.5GHz+ in the future.

Is the IV HERO too much or just right?
Is it worth the extra $50 difference?
What IS the difference?
Is the proposed build flawed in regards to the motherboard?

Any info/input would be greatly appreciated fellas. Thanks.

 

[Tradesman1]

Hero is great, that's what I decided on after about 20 client builds, wouldn't change it, and I've built on prob most of the better Asus, Rock and GB mobos with haswell. Might also look at the Gryphon, but if OCing and looking for performance I'd stick with the Hero. Asus definitely seems to have the best handle on Haswell and the Z87 chipset

 

[Swiph]

Hero is great, that's what I decided on after about 20 client builds, wouldn't change it, and I've built on prob most of the better Asus, Rock and GB mobos with haswell. Might also look at the Gryphon, but if OCing and looking for performance I'd stick with the Hero. Asus definitely seems to have the best handle on Haswell and the Z87 chipset

Yeah the Hero looks pretty damn good. What's the difference between that and the other Z87's that are cheaper?

 

[Tradesman1]

Depends on which you compare against, but the ROG mobos use slightly better components, have better heat dissipation, OC better (finer BIOS tuning), generally handle DRAM better, the Hero has the ROG Audio which is very good , can see more specifics on the mobo here:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VI_HERO/

 

[Swiph]

Depends on which you compare against, but the ROG mobos use slightly better components, have better heat dissipation, OC better (finer BIOS tuning), generally handle DRAM better, the Hero has the ROG Audio which is very good , can see more specifics on the mobo here:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VI_HERO/

Thanks for the info. It looks like I'm sticking to this board. The build will commence......

 

[Tradesman1]

Let us know how the build goes, will be looking to see 😉