Motherboard purchasing advice

L

lash_larue

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 26, 2006
Messages
149
I'm coming from an E8400 system and looking to build a 2600k based system. I have not had a lot of time lately to stay on top and/or read up on the subject properly but from what I'm seeing everyone seems to say either Asus, Gigabyte, or ASRock. The latter made garbage the last time I kept my finger on the pulse of pc hardware so that's a pretty big surprise to me and even with all the recommendations I would still prefer to stay away from them. I also have a Biostar board here at home that I like, but I haven't seen any glowing reviews on them. I was about to click purchase on the Asus P8Z68 but years back every Asus board I owned was garbage, in my opinion. Granted that's been a long time back but once you get burned a few times you tend to want to avoid that vendor no matter what. I've looked at some the Z77 boards but I hated to hop onto a "new" platform when everyone else is having success with the Z68 based boards. Also do you still have to run DDR3 in 3's (6, 9, 12gb)? I would also like to run at least 8GB of ram and I've read on a few forums where people are saying some Z68 based boards don't do well at all with 4 sticks of ram.

I've read a lot of positive info on Gigabyte boards but I am still undecided. I realize with the 2600k that it's all about adjusting the multiplier and voltage but I know some motherboards have features that others don't - for instance my Biostar board has Memtest built into it which I thought was pretty slick. I've also read about Phase PWM which I am not 100% on. I've read some on it but it's somewhat greek. I gather that ultimately it stabilizes the power to the processor (I think).

My current setup for the last 4 years is a DFI X38 board and an E8400. I've been into overclocking since the celeron 300a days, more so because of the tinkering aspect than anything else. I'm looking to use a 2600k because the prospect of hitting 5ghz sounds very appealing. I have an Antec 900 with custom water cooling so I should be able to keep the temps under control even if it isn't safe for 24/7 use. I've read a little on the new IB chips but I hate to jump on that with it being new and end up with something that isn't very overclocking friendly. I own two E8400's which I bought used from members on this forum who swore they would hit 4ghz on air with no problem, but they lied and I was never able to do that. I've done all kinds of tinkering and neither will post past 3.6 without 1.45v and even then I couldn't get them 100% stable. So I just kinda lost interest in overclocking for a while and started using my 360 for gaming and now after reading about the overclocks on the 25 and 26k's have decided I want to get into it again.
 
Z77 and current ivy bridge use dual channel memory, so sets of 2. Not 3x like the socket 1366 i7's. I had 3x 2GB on my old i7 and so now for the time being I'm just using 2x2GB.

The non K chips have very little overclocking. Not that they are bad chips, just the system is much harder to overclock compared to just adjusting the multiplier on the K part numbers.

Socket 1155 will also fit socket 1156 coolers. So if your previous cooling system was compatible with socket 1156, you can still use it on Ivy Bridge. Made me happy as I had a corsair H50 on my 1366 which has worked just fine for a couple years.

I went with the ASRock Pro4-M. I'm having some issues getting everything working 100%. But I'm not sure if its just a driver issue because of how new everything is.
 
Is there a particular reason everyone seems to favor the Gigabyte boards? I want to go with the flow and pick the Asus but I just have a bad feeling about it.
 
I'm trying to find out about Biostar boards. They're consistently cheaper than other brands, but I have to wonder if there's a (bad) reason for that. Never owned one before; only an Abit and two Asus-es (two of the same model, because the original one died and was replaced under warranty).

Everyone has their preferences. Mine excludes Asus, because my roommate and I have had three die on us, and I've read such terrible things about their RMA process of late.
 
Biostar is nice cheap and sets big oc records. Gigabyte is a big brand and make mostly near perfect boards, but for the lower price they attract a lot of us. Asus has the biggest brand recognition therefore charges the most money. Asus does justify it by having pretty much flawless designs from the getgo, no multiple revisions needed like gigabyte, and carry the best resale value on forums like these. I pay the premium for asus because I want a perfect board everytime and I don't want to hassle around with rma or design flaws requiring mods, or worry about getting a board that doesnt handle an OC well.
 
I'm pretty thrilled with the ASRock board I just picked up--simple set up and the UEFI BIOS is just as nice as the ASUS BIOS, imo.
 
The main thing I don't like about some BioStar mobos is that the memory voltage defaults to a value slightly higher than nominal ratings, i.e., DDR2 will be set to 1.95V instead of 1.8V, DDR3 to 1.60V instead of 1.5V. That's a good idea because it often lets the mobo still boot with lousy memory, but because those mobos don't allow lower voltages to be chosen, it's not possible to test the memory thoroughly. Worse, some of their BIOSes allow setting the memory voltage way above the absolute maximums specified by the chip makers, enough to destroy RAM chips, and I mean something like 2.7V for DDR2, which is supposed to max out at 2.3V. Their tech support said such voltages would not destroy chips. Yeah, right.
 
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