GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H or ASRock Z77 Extreme6 or other

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masterosok

Gawd
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Apr 1, 2008
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I am thinking about picking up a i5-3750k and was curious which motherboard to get between the GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H or ASRock Z77 Extreme6, or possible another one if anyone has any suggestions for a better board in the 150-170 price range.
 
ASRock boards used to be trash, but they seem to be decent these days.

I don't have any trouble with my non-reTIMed 3570k on an ASRock Pro4. 4.2GHz on stock voltage. 4.5GHz overvolted, but more may be possible. Picked it up way below your price range.

I still have preference toward Gigabyte for reasons I can't articulate, but the Z77 ASRock boards seem fine.
 
ZMX said:
I still have preference toward Gigabyte for reasons I can't articulate
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Same...for myself, I think it's because of their dual-bios and general board layout. I've never had a problem fitting heatsinks on their boards, I've always been able to keep my case wires neat and tidy without having to put them in weird positions, and I've also found that there's always a straight shot for the 4/8 pin CPU power cable to run up from the bottom of the board to the top along the left side...it's like they design the board to have a little valley that you can put the cable in, so that it rests behind the notch in PCIe cards between where the PCIe connection is, and where the backplate is. Having a backup bios always ready and waiting also provides a bit of peace of mind.

They're also usually a bit on the generous side with the pack-ins, as far as cables and additional port brackets are concerned. Not necessarily in quantity, but rather in quality. Their SATA cables are always stiff enough that they stay exactly how you position them, yet still malleable enough to be twisted and turned into whatever weird contortion you need them to be. The mobo in my sig came with a REALLY nicely painted black 3.5" bay device that has two USB 3.0 ports on it...looks great on the front of my Storm Scout case, and the finish on the metal looks like it would blend in perfectly with a black Lian-Li case.
 
I am happy with my purchase and a lot of the things you mentioned are the reasons why. They seem to "get it" when they lay out their motherboard were as other companies make it impossible to keep things neat with their positioning of things. I swapped out all my old SATA cables with the ones that came with the board. They have clips that secure them in place on each end. I like they way the used a static guard and foam on the I/O shield instead of those annoying brackets that you have to bend back in order to get the motherboard to line up with the port holes.
 
masterosok said:
I like they way the used a static guard and foam on the I/O shield instead of those annoying brackets that you have to bend back in order to get the motherboard to line up with the port holes.
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Ah yes, totally forgot to mention that! Their recent (last 2 years or so) I/O shields are definitely the best I've found due to exactly what you just described.
 
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