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Current favourite MBoard 4th gen?

F

[F2C]MaDMaXX

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 1, 2005
Messages
282
I'm trying to build my first Intel system in over 12 years, i'm going for the 4770k or the 4670k, depending on availability (don't ask)

Anyway, I'm trying not to break the bank with the motherboard, but whilst i want the lower end of the market, i'd like whatever the current solid offering is.

Who makes good Z87 chipset boards these days? I'm just looking for solid performance/reliability, i don't particularly care about over-clocking as i'm unlikely to do much with that, if at all.

I mostly surf and game with the system, i don't need sound or graphics as i'll be using my own, i can't think of any other requirements or things i don't need/care about on the board.

I saw the Asus Z87 A, the price seemed ok, does anyone have any thoughts or other suggestions?

Thanks.
 
I think if I had a new build to do I'd go Sandy Bridge. 4th gens have issues that casual users wont understand or want to deal with, Ivy Bridge runs hot just like Haswell. You'll be wondering all kinds of things about the most complicated BIOS setup ever devised if you go z87. If you aren't going to overclock and you are locked into a 4th gen proc, I think I'd go H87 chipset.
 
As an owner of an Asus Z87-A, I'm a bit biased when I say this but I highly recommend it if there's a good chance of you overclocking. Otherwise if not overclocking at all, I'd recommend going with the AsRock H87M Pro.

Though if you want a chance to overclock, the ASRock Z87 KILLER FATAL1TY seems like a solid choice at $120 ($20 cheaper than the Asus Z87-A).

HardOCP reviews:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...ler_fatal1ty_motherboard_review/#.UwbxxfldVWx
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/06/03/asus_z87a_lga_1150_motherboard_review/#.Uwbx0PldVWw
 
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Bluesun, i am 'stuck' with Haswell, but whilst my usage is casual, i'm not really a casual user.

What kind of problems isn Haswell having? i thought it was a really good chip? What's the deal with the H87 Vs the Z87?


Dangman, yeah, i'd read the Asus review, they seem to like it, i just wanted to make sure i wasn't lacking in the feature department with it being the base model, seems like the Asrock won't work as great right out the box.
 
Haswell has an Integrated Voltage Regulator that likes to overvolt the chips completely out of spec even at stock settings on heavy loads like benchmarks and stress tests. It's a massive newbie-catcher and part of the reason Haswell has this only partly true reputation for insane heat. The real facepalm issue is, at least on z87 boards, AUTO, Adaptive, and Offset voltage setting modes (or the vendor's equivalent) are fundamentally flawed. The only voltage setting that will keep your chip form overvolting above your desired value is Manual. Thus z87 requires a good deal of testing/research/experimenting to configure properly and it's great if you are up for that, but it sucks if you don't know what's going on.

There's all sorts of settings that can improve performance depending on whether or not you are usiung legacy OS or win8.1 and they are just a pain in the ass to figure out.

H87 isn't THAT different, but it doesn't have the overclocking functionality, and it's cheaper.
 
Interesting points on the overvolting, i'll have to look into that.

I looked at the H87 and decided that as i'll have a K chip, there isn't much point in me dropping the Z87 chipset as at the end of it's life (as my current AMD chip) it will be overclocked regardless :)
 
If you're not particular about overclocking, Haswell chipsets are still more robust than Ivy Bridge purely from the 6x native SATA III ports imo. I held off until Haswell because I've had trouble with off-chipset SATA controllers in the past where drives would randomly drop on reboot or waking from sleep, it's just more reliable with integrated SATA III. Same goes for USB 3.0, it is native only in Haswell chipsets.

I'm really liking my MSI Z87 MPower Max although I haven't had time to OC it just yet. I think the MSI G45 Gaming is a great deal right now if you can get it around $140.
 
It seems people are pretty happy with their ~$200+ boards, which is good :) But i can't believe that something cheaper can't give more or less the same results, just without some of the prettier refinements.

Thanks for the G45 suggestion, i'll check it out.

I should at this point also note that i do need one PCI slot, sorry i forgot to mention that.
 
[F2C]MaDMaXX;1040644637 said:
I should at this point also note that i do need one PCI slot, sorry i forgot to mention that.
Click to expand...

Intel officially gave PCI slots the legacy designation with Haswell gen so those boards are a little rarer. These would probably be your only options:

Newegg filtered search (Z87, ATX, 1-2 PCI, $100-$200)
 
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Well I'm going to give a shout out to the AsRock Extreme4. I liked it a lot. The onboard sound was the weakpoint I found. That search seems to count PCIE slots as PCI... I know the Extreme4 had one for sure but the Z87-A does not.

The BIOS is way more user friendly on the Extreme4 than ASUS new UEFI.

Hehe, I think I'd grab the open box Ex4 on Newegg for $108 and free shipping with premier trial membership.
 
Bluesun311 said:
That search seems to count PCIE slots as PCI...
Click to expand...

That search shows the Z87 boards that have 1-2 PCI slots in addition to the PCIE slots. I've only built in ASRock once (an FM2 setup), and it was DOA, so personally I don't think I'd be going back to ASRock. I heard Asus has been having problems this gen although I don't know the specifics. So that pretty much leaves MSI and Gigabyte. I've never built in Gigabyte but multiple times in MSI and they have always been solid for me.
 
Interesting, the Z87 *does* have a PCI slot, you can see it on their site and it's also listed under it's specs...

I'd also been checking out the Asrock Extreme4, wondering how good they are these days? Interesting you say they have a bios still instead of the UEFI. I'll check it out some more, thanks.

I only need the PCI slot for my old soundblaster, otherwise, if the onboard sound was anywhere near as good, i'd use that.
 
I thought onboard audio nowadays was pretty good, at least for gaming. A lot of the midrange and higher stuff even have EMI shielding and headphone amps built in. The vast majority are Realteks, I think ALC1150 is their best one currently.

edit: traditional BIOS instead of UEFI BIOS? you know what that means for Win7 users...lol
 
Yeah, the onboard realtek stuff these days is a lot better, but most of which is still not up to scratch.

Actually, no i don't know what UEFI means for win7...?
 
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