Z87 or Z97 motherboard

[Jack-OF-Blades]

Hi !

I'm on the way of building a gaming pc and was wondering what would be the smart choice between a Z87 or a Z97 motherboard ?

 

[Eduello]

Z97 is newer and overclocks better from what I've heard. It also supports the upcoming Broadwell CPUs, so Z97 gets my vote.

 

[ksham]

Either one. Z97 is newer and going forward, it would be the best choice. And it's not much more expensive than Z87. But you probably don't need most of those features so either one is fine.

 

[coastie65]

Hi !

I'm on the way of building a gaming pc and was wondering what would be the smart choice between a Z87 or a Z97 motherboard ?

Just go with the Z97.

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

z97 has more features and will be compatible with Broadwell CPUs.

 

[Jack-OF-Blades]

Thanks.
How is the Asus MAXIMUS-VII-RANGER ?
I have a deal ( 35 euro cashback) on it, and i was thinking of buying a wifi card because i need wifi ( D-Link DWA-556).

That is out of the subject, but for gaming purpose, do you think an i7 4770K can be much more " future proofing" than the I5 4670K ? ( because of HT, maybe ?)

 

[Eduello]

The Ranger (as all Asus ROG boards) is a high quality board, it should be more than enough for your needs.

Hard to say, but I'm fairly certain that the i5 will be enough for the foreseeable future.

 

[ksham]

How is the Asus MAXIMUS-VII-RANGER ?

A great motherboard, but too expensive for me.

That is out of the subject, but for gaming purpose, do you think an i7 4770K can be much more " future proofing" than the I5 4670K ? ( because of HT, maybe ?)

No. Most games do not make use of HT and HT is not likely going to be very popular in the foreseeable future. You will still be able to play them well on the i5. Overall performance gain is about 10-15% with HT.

 

[Jack-OF-Blades]

Thanks for your answer !
I forget to mention that i'm going to use two R9 290 trix on crossfire.
Do i risk a big bottleneck with a with the I5 ?


If i buy a good wifi card, will i have the same result that i could have with an onboard wifi card ?

 

[ksham]

Do i risk a big bottleneck with a with the I5 ?

You'll need some amount of overclock on it, but generally no. At least, the i5 won't bottleneck it anymore than the i7 will. It depends on the application and scenario. The definition of bottleneck is "anything that is preventing something from performing at its full potential is considered a bottleneck." So there is always some bottleneck somewhere. If there are no bottlenecks, everything will run instantly. That's obviously not the case. The major point is "will the bottleneck be noticeable?" and the answer is no.

If i buy a good wifi card, will i have the same result that i could have with an onboard wifi card ?

The wifi card is usually better in performance.

If it dies, you can easily replace it. If the onboard one dies, it's gone and you'll have to buy a new wireless card.

 

[Jack-OF-Blades]

Yes i'm going to overclock it a bit i think.

Do you know a good motherboard that would be much cheaper ?

And i can't find any review about any wifi card...

 

[ksham]

Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 or Gaming 5 are good and overclocks well. As for wireless card, do you have AC support or only up to N? I would hope that you have Wireless N.

 

[Jack-OF-Blades]

I'm sorry, i don't understand what you're talking about ^^' ( AC support and wireless N)

 

[ksham]

What router do you have?

 

[Jack-OF-Blades]

How do i know that ?
And i'm not in my home actually ^^'

 

[kira70591]

Either is great, Z97 really does not overclock any better than Z87. Main difference between the two are storage features. Z97 supports M.2 flash storage and PCIe storage as well. At this point, might as well go with the Z97 because there is minimal difference in price between the two and Z97 is the newer chipset.

However, if you can grab a great deal on a Z87 board, do not hesitate to get it.

What kind of budget are you working with in regards to mainboard choice?

 

[Jack-OF-Blades]

In the 1500 dollars range i guess ( my money is in euro in fact).
The Z97x are not really much cheaper than the Asus one, where i live, unfortunately.

I have another question, do the I5 4690k really cooler than the I5 4670k ?

 

[Jack-OF-Blades]

Also, what exactly is the SATA Express ?

 

[kira70591]

It is a new interface for storage. You can connect your SSD to it and it will run over a PCIe lane which allows for much greater throughput up to 10GB. I would personally look at a MSI board such as one of the "Gaming" series such as the Gaming 5 or 7 or if you wish to overclock a bit you can go with more of an enthusiast board such as the MSI Z97 Mpower. I have been nothing but pleased with MSI boards for my last couple of builds and I currently use the Z87 Mpower and have used this board in about 4 different rigs and all of them have performed flawlessly.

The 4690k does run a bit cooler and you should be able to squeek a little bit more headroom out of it for overclocking; however, the performance between the two are very similar at stock speeds. If the price is minimal between the two, go for the 4690k.

 

[Jack-OF-Blades]

So if i want to buy a SSD, it greater to take a Motherboard with sata express ?
Will i be overcloking limited with with a msi Z97 gaming 5 ?

 

[ksham]

It is a new interface for storage. You can connect your SSD to it and it will run over a PCIe lane which allows for much greater throughput up to 10GB. I would personally look at a MSI board such as one of the "Gaming" series such as the Gaming 5 or 7 or if you wish to overclock a bit you can go with more of an enthusiast board such as the MSI Z97 Mpower. I have been nothing but pleased with MSI boards for my last couple of builds and I currently use the Z87 Mpower and have used this board in about 4 different rigs and all of them have performed flawlessly.

The 4690k does run a bit cooler and you should be able to squeek a little bit more headroom out of it for overclocking; however, the performance between the two are very similar at stock speeds. If the price is minimal between the two, go for the 4690k.

By the way, capital B is always "Byte". Please use lowercase "b" for bit. Gigabyte is NOT the same as Gigabit. If the current connection is 6GBps, there would be no need for SATA Express because that alone is already more than fast enough for quite a long while. And I believe SATA Express runs up to twice as fast, so 12Gbps.

So if i want to buy a SSD, it greater to take a Motherboard with sata express ?

Yes.

Will i be overcloking limited with with a msi Z97 gaming 5 ?

You'll be limited by the CPU before you are limited by the motherboard.

 

[ksham]

How do i know that ?
And i'm not in my home actually ^^'

Find out when you are at home. Provide the brand and model number. Or take a few pictures from all angles.

 

[Jack-OF-Blades]

That's the problem.
I'm a student in a universitary room ( where i'm not for the moment ^^) But the wifi of the residence is very powerfull.

 

[Jack-OF-Blades]

Oh, and what an OC of the CPu will really bring when playing a game ?
Because if in one years ( The witcher 3 for example) or even two, Games make use of HT, maybe going with an I7 4770 non k can be a good idea if OC don't bring much.

 

[kira70591]

I know the difference between bit and byte, I was trying to type out the answer before I had to leave so I was trying to get it out quick. A lot of the board manufacturers have been putting 10 on both M.2 and Express. Probably so they cover their own butts or it was just the very early models and it was a mistake. Very unlikely you are going to achieve that level of performance anyways.

Many CPUs from even two years ago are running just fine without any sort of overclocking while gaming. If you buy top tier now it normally lasts for a few years before it may start to get bogged down by software. At that point, there will probably be a few more chipsets out that offer a compelling reason to upgrade so a lot of time you really do not even need to OC unless you feel the need to or want to do it for fun.

Sure, you may see an improvement in benchmarks but if you are not rendering, you normally do not see much of an improvement in real world usage.

I agree with Ksham, most of the time you are going to be limited by your CPU before you are limited by the motherboard. Just pick a chipset that you wish to get and then the features that you wish to have. Most of them overclock just fine unless you are wanting to push crazy limits.

If you are at a university, they are probably using mixed mode so that all of the students devices can connect whether they have wireless "n," "g," or one of the other types. AC is still pretty new and expensive at the Enterprise level to be rolling out on a University level scale.

If you wanted to go with a locked CPU, you could always go with a Xeon which has the onboard video disabled. Many times you can pick a comparable version to the 4770k up for cheaper. Also, games are starting to make use of more threads / core; however, it will probably still be awhile before makers start to develop with that clearly in mind. If you edit or render video, then I would recommend an i7 as software of that type normally supports multiple cores / threads. If you plan to use it purely for gaming, I would stick with a high tier i5 such as the 4690 or the 4690k.