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Looking for MoBo without software

T

Tobbe

n00b
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
13
Hi

I'm looking for a mobo that doesn't need any additional software installed when paired with windows 8.

I will not be overclocking.
I don't need RAID support.
I need two USB 3 ports and at least six USB ports in total (two can be internal headers for connecting to front USB ports on the case).
I need full speed SLI/Crossfire support.
It needs to be socket 1150.
It shouldn't have any fans.
I want four RAM sockets.
Size does not matter.

Any suggestions that fit my wishes?

Thanks in advance
//Tobbe
 
why wouldn't you want to load drivers? you're gonna need drivers for SLI/Crossfire...
 
I think he means no additional 3rd party software, or can be run with only the versions of drivers that come on the win8 disc, like the budget amd/nvidia drivers and such, in which case he'd probably be looking for something with a realtek ethernet chipset and no wireless, via or realtek audio chip, and standard intel or amd motherboard chipset only, no marvell/jmicron sata controllers, bog standard usb2/3.0, no bluetooth, etc...


best bet would be the first of the boards to explicitly support windows 8, right around retail release....

....aand no, I can't think of one off the top of my head, not gonna be that helpful today, so if you could just go ahead and refine your googlefu, that'd be greaaaaat.png
 
Yes, sorry. "Software" is too broad of a term. Of course I'll need to install drivers. What I don't want is the programs with gauges/meters/knobs etc that often comes with the drivers.

I guess even programs like that are fine as long as you don't have to have them running for everything to work. After initial setup to get everything working I don't see myself tweaking any settings or anything like that.
 
NeuroticTurtle is on the right track :)

For the gfx card drivers I'll install the latest from the card vendor or amd/nvidia

Yes, I want a gigabit ethernet controller that is supported by the drivers that comes with windows.
WiFi is not needed. Neither is bluetooth.
Yes, also the audio chip should be supported by the drivers that comes with win8.
I only need two SATA ports, so no extra SATA controller should be needed.
Hopefully no extra USB controller is needed either.
 
Any motherboard on the market can do that, just download the drivers only and don't install the crap on the CD. I never install all the extra crap because it is mostly useless. Find something with a very basic audio chip so it doesn't have any control panel, or use the Windows default audio drivers if that is on your list of stuff not to have.
 
Tobbe said:
Hi
Size does not matter.
Click to expand...
You have been lied to...

Just about any 1150 mobo will meet those requirements...
what price range are you looking for?
 
About that size... :)
What I mean is that I'll find a case where the mobo fits after I've decided on a mobo :)

The price is a little hard to say anything about as the prices here (Sweden) don't match the prices in the US very well. Everything is more expensive here. But for example the Gigabyte GA-B85-HD3 is within my budget, and that's $90 at newegg. It'd be nice to stay around there, but I can go up to $150 if there's a good reason for it.
 
Make that upper limit $170. Asus Gryphon Z87 just fits my budget if that would be a good option.
 
Not going to find any boards with dual pcie 3.0 x16 for that price...
Gigabyte GA-B85-HD3 only has 1, the other x16 slot is pcie 2.0 x4 electrically.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131988

Why that one... 2x pcie3.0 16x electrical slots... Intel nic.

edit...newegg listed specs are wrong... 1x16 3.0 , 1x16 2.0 ...
meh same as the gryphon
 
Last edited:
I don't think a lot of the USB 3.0 controllers are going to work without MB drivers of some kind. Even the Intel ones were released after Win 8, so it really depends on how old your Win 8 disc is. If drivers are such an issue, why not just slipstream the drivers into your Win 8 install disc? (can you even do that anymore?)
 
Why do you need dual pcie 3.0 x16...

if you are not going to overclock... you won't ever reach the full potential of pcei 3.0 x8....
 
My personal recommendations is MSI Gaming Z87 motherboards, im running mine without any software aside from the drivers, im controlling all my PWM fans (case n cpu) with the bios.

Tobbe said:
Yes, I want a gigabit ethernet controller that is supported by the drivers that comes with windows.
Click to expand...
You are screwed here a little, most of the high end motherboards are coming with either Qualcom Killer E2200 or Intel 217V, both dont have windows drivers on boot (at least on windows 7), both you can download the drivers, but for your personal preference on not running extra software, i feel you wont like motherboards with Killer E2200, the console and software imo are too bloated and in some cases has issues, i personally fine in my laptop the latest drivers work well on Windows 7, but on my desktop i decided to go with dedicated Intel gigabit lan nic, to avoid E2200, and you can probably can too, even with SLI you can use the top PCIe slot 1x for it, and the Intel gigabit lan has drivers support on windows 7 installation so you will have internet upon finishing formating, its up to you if you want to upgrade them to intel latest, i did and no issues.

As an option you can go into a lower end motherboard, that comes with Realtek 8111, to what i remember its supported on windows 7 upon format, should be the same on windows 8, but cross check it.

Here is what i would recommend,
MSI Z87-G55 (Realtek 8111G, never used a G not sure if it has support on windows default)
MSI Z87-G43 (Realtek 8111E)
MSI Z87-G41 (Realtek 8111E)

Tobbe said:
Yes, also the audio chip should be supported by the drivers that comes with win8.
Click to expand...
Here i cant help you, i hate windows 8 so i cant say if either will be, but go with an old Realket 89X, thats the best shot for it to be supported by defualt.

Tobbe said:
Hopefully no extra USB controller is needed either.
Click to expand...
You will need to install USB3 drivers i believe, else just go with USB2 and use windows default.
 
Patriot said:
Why do you need dual pcie 3.0 x16...

if you are not going to overclock... you won't ever reach the full potential of pcei 3.0 x8....
Click to expand...
The reason for dual x16 is that I read that someone got fps drops when loading textures when running two cards at x8 each, but didn't have any issues like that when he pulled one of the cards and just ran one at x16.

(Comment section at http://www.tweaktown.com/asktheexpe...ie_slots_for_sli_geforce_gtx_560_s/index.html)

Abula said:
My personal recommendations is MSI Gaming Z87 motherboards, im running mine without any software aside from the drivers, im controlling all my PWM fans (case n cpu) with the bios.
Click to expand...
That sounds great! Exactly what I want :)

Abula said:
You are screwed here a little, most of the high end motherboards are coming with either Qualcom Killer E2200 or Intel 217V
Click to expand...
What if I lower my requirement to 100MBit. Does that help? I'm guessing not :/

Abula said:
You will need to install USB3 drivers i believe, else just go with USB2 and use windows default.
Click to expand...
I'm not so worried about USB3 drivers. Probably doesn't come with much extra bloat.

Tsumi said:
Haswell CPUs only have 16 PCI-E 3.0 lanes for communication with the GPUs.
Click to expand...
Might have to find a board with an extra PCIe controller then, and live with the need for the extra drivers
 
Tobbe said:
The reason for dual x16 is that I read that someone got fps drops when loading textures when running two cards at x8 each, but didn't have any issues like that when he pulled one of the cards and just ran one at x16.

(Comment section at http://www.tweaktown.com/asktheexpe...ie_slots_for_sli_geforce_gtx_560_s/index.html)


That sounds great! Exactly what I want :)


What if I lower my requirement to 100MBit. Does that help? I'm guessing not :/


I'm not so worried about USB3 drivers. Probably doesn't come with much extra bloat.


Might have to find a board with an extra PCIe controller then, and live with the need for the extra drivers
Click to expand...

that dude who was having issues on dual 560s was not the bandwidth... his cards cannot max x8 links.... his cards are simply not powerful enough to max bf3.

pcie3 doubles the bandwidth anyways... so x8s are x16 of 2.0
Haswell only having x16 lanes means you would need a plx bridge chip on the board to have more x16 slots.

both those nics listed are gigabit... I don't know why the dude said that was a problem... those are far better than the realtek nics....
 
Patriot said:
that dude who was having issues on dual 560s was not the bandwidth... his cards cannot max x8 links.... his cards are simply not powerful enough to max bf3.
Click to expand...

Great :)

Will PCIe 3.0 x8/x8 be enough for two GTX 770? If it is I see no reason to get a mobo with support for dual x16.
 
I don't understand why you can just get any board you want and download the drivers for them rather than use the MB cd.
 
Tobbe said:
So what's the cheapest board with dual PCIe 3.0 running at x16?
Click to expand...

Well, for one, it's impossible with LGA 1150. You need to go LGA 2011 (X79 chipset) to get true dual PCIe 3.0 at x16.
 
Tobbe said:
Great :)

Will PCIe 3.0 x8/x8 be enough for two GTX 770? If it is I see no reason to get a mobo with support for dual x16.
Click to expand...

More than enough. There's absolutely no reason to need dual x16 unless you're running two dual-GPU cards like the 7990 or GTX 690.
 
Thanks for all your input people! :)
I'll probably go with an MSI z87 mobo as Abula had good experience with that.
No matter what mobo I get I'll make sure to install as little crap as possible from the CDs that comes with the board.
 
Tobbe said:
Thanks for all your input people! :)
I'll probably go with an MSI z87 mobo as Abula had good experience with that.
No matter what mobo I get I'll make sure to install as little crap as possible from the CDs that comes with the board.
Click to expand...
Remember i had a good experience on my MSI Z87-GD65, but im using a dedicated sound card and dedicated lan card. The Z87 that i recommened were lower end thus not having new realtek 1150, but older models 8XX, and with Realtek 8111E lan cards, both are old and have very mature drivers, and probably windows 8 will have built in generic drivers that can control them (im not sure 100% as i dont use windows 8), if you go with Z87-GD65, remember that it willcome with Killer E2200 that you will not like as its software is loaded and imo not necessary, but again i avoided it for having a dedicated lan, and the sound i had issues on Asus Maxmimus VI GENE, so for avoding dealing with realtek again went with HT Omega eClaro. Either way, i think MSI is a good alternative, specially their bios is very nice, more so the PWM fan control on the bios is excelent as long as you chose the correct fan (4pin PWM fans not 3pin).
 
Found a good deal on the MSI Z87 S02. What do you guys think about that one? It's got the Realtek 8111G LAN controller. How do I find out if windows 8 have built in drivers for that controller? I've been googling, but with no luck :(
 
I am sticking to my first recommendation of the asus one...

Intel nic beats realtek anyday...
 
Unfortunately the shop I'm buying from doesn't carry the Asus Q87M-E. I could buy it from another place, but it's going to be (a tiny bit) more expensive than the MSI Z87 S02.
 
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