Z97 vs H97 vs B85

Drcola

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Aug 12, 2014
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Recently sent my motherboard back to the retailer i bought it from for a RMA since it fried.
They can't send me back a new one since they don't sell them anymore, and now i'm in a weird position where i have to buy a new one.

When looking online for the Z97- models that i used to have in my computer, i didn't find many deals on them in my country, either they didn't have them in stock or they were ridiculously overpriced. I did some research and i have other options like for example other H97 or B85 motherboards.

Currently wondering what the best bang for the buck currently is regarding those motherboards since i need one with good performance and also farily priced.

One of my option is the:
ASRock Fatal1ty Z97X Killer/3.1 Intel Z97 So.1150 Dual Channel DDR3 ATX
How good would this mobo be with my specs as ive never tried ASRock before ?

Here are my PC specs if it helps:

CPU: i7 4790k

CPU Cooler: Corsair h110 gt

Ram: Corsair dominator 16gb 1866mhz

Storage: 2x 250gb samsung 850 in raid 0 and 1,5tb hdd.

Case: Phanteks enthoo primo

PSU: Corsair hx1000i

GPU: MSI R9 290 twin frozr

Thanks alot guys !
 
Solution


Z97 will run your CPU out of the box and allow you to overclock it, overall the better chipset.

H97 will run your CPU out of the box, but wont allow you to overclock it, its a lower end budget chipset.

B85 wont allow you to overclock the CPU either and may not run your chip out of the box, it may need a bios update first for which you will need a normal Haswell CPU for, currently you have a Haswell-Refresh CPU.

The reason these boards a few and far between is its basically a dead chipset now, end of life, approx 5 years old.
 
Solution

Thanks for explanation, didn't really find much difference when i researched,
Currently found a good deal on a Asus Z97-PRO GAMER S1150 , for a pretty decent price.. is this motherboard good and the easy overclocking that comes with it ?
 



Yes its a great board, but read ionto overclocking haswell, overclocking is based on how far you want to push the CPU, if you want to push to its limits, then theres a lot to change and tweak, for a small overclock its fairly easy.