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New Intel Mobo

C

carlmart

Gawd
Joined
Sep 17, 2006
Messages
691
A friend of mine is flying to the US so I need to know two things:

1) Where do they stock Asus or Gigabyte mobos in Boston, Ma

2) What LG1150 mobo to buy.

The latter is probably the more important question, as this mobo needs to fulfill one important thing at least: it has to have 8 SATA sockets.

The family chipset will probably be Z97 or even a Z87, if the price is good. In fact I'm not sure what improved from the Z87 to the Z97. Can someone tell me?

Going over $200, like on the Asus Maximus or Sabertooth, I'm not sure it's justified. So the likely candidates below $200 options would be the GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD5H, ASUS Z87-PRO LGA and ASUS Z97-PRO LGA.

Any strong recommendations for any of them... or not to?
 
I'm still looking for a secure address in Boston, because Newegg doesn't ship to hotels.

Prices in Microcenter are VERY high.
 
If Microcenter prices are high for you, then I wouldn't buy in the US.

Microcenter usually has some of the better deals.
 
Compared to Newegg's they are almost twice their price.

And stores like Fry's or Best Buy, who equalize their prices to Newegg's after checking, offer better deals. You can buy in the US, just have to know where and why I come here.

Does Microcenter do the same?
 
I don't do Asus MB anymore (horrible customer service) I passed on the Gigabyte GA-Z97X Gaming 7 as I found it has sound issues with 1150 chip. The sweet spot (for me) was the MSI Z97 Gaming 7 here:

http://www.microcenter.com/product/443700/Z97-Gaming_7_1150ATX_Intel_Motherboard

Wonderful board IMHO. Loaded with features & set-up was a breeze. The o/c software is top-notch. This was my 3rd MSI MB. I haven't bought one in years, but this one is a gem.
 
^ yes - MSI G7 would be an outstanding choice. If your friend is here for just a visit and taking it out of country, then hopefully you have a way of testing it before it gets to its new home.
 
Unfortunately I won't have any way to test anything he's bringing.

But the MSI seems like a good choice.

Durability is the matter I worry more about. I don't know how the Asus are doing on that area.

Gigabytes, which have always been my favourite, have proven a bit erratic, which I thought was better on my last Z77. But it didn't get to two years.
 
Asus still makes fine MB's. The issue (as I learned the hard way) is if one goes bad. With an AMD MB I had issues & sent it in 3 times & every one that was sent back was DOA. I spent a decent amount of coin on returns & finally gave-up & bought a new Gigabyte board. MSI use to be considered a "budget" manufacturer, but they have gotten their act together & offer some really nice product now. I finally left AMD for the i7 4790K & I couldn't be happier. Too bad AMD has fallen so, as I wanted to give them my money. The FX 8370 isn't the worst CPU, but for $100.00 more you can get the i7 4790K.
 
Msi z97 here. asus and gigabyte. Have not done me well on rma. Asus declined my rma over a supposedly scratch on the pcb,relented it was non related and sent me a faulty board back. Gigabyte washed an rma mobo sent it back unrepaird. I Never needed an msi rma. So that's what I run now
 
Asus Z97-A/Z97-A USB3.1 (if you need overclocking)
MSI Z97A SLI KRAIT Edition (if you need overclocking)
ASUS H97M-PLUS (if you aren't going to overclock go with this)

All have Intel controllers (incl LAN) and Realtek audio so good compatibility overall.
//Danne
 
Thanks Danne.

I think I will go with the MSI Gaming 7 because it has 8 SATA slots, and I intend to use all of them. I don't like external HDDs.

On my former Gigsbyte Z77 I had 6 and I had to use an external USB box, with a 2.5" WD inside. It ended up showing its use in S.M.A.R.T, probably due to inefficient heatsinking.

So I prefer to connect everything inside the case, properly powered and properly cooled.
 
I would avoid that due to the proprietary Killer NIC, as silk186 mention you can get an ASMedia ASM1061 controller card really cheap ~15$ or so which is the same controller as what MSI uses for expansion.
//Danne
 
diizzy said:
I would avoid that due to the proprietary Killer NIC, as silk186 mention you can get an ASMedia ASM1061 controller card really cheap ~15$ or so which is the same controller as what MSI uses for expansion.
//Danne
Click to expand...

Then what is that I should avoid? Using the mobo's sata sockets?

I don't think a controller card like the ASMedia would improve on them. Why should it?
 
Killer NIC has poor driver support (outside current versions of Windows), that is something that you should avoid. As for the controller, I was just mentioning that you can go with the Asus board or whatever and grab a controller card instead which would be the same thing as the MSI board in that regard.
//Danne
 
carlmart said:
Then what is that I should avoid? Using the mobo's sata sockets?

I don't think a controller card like the ASMedia would improve on them. Why should it?
Click to expand...

Only benefit is that if it fails you just swap the card instead of having to replace the motherboard. Chances of it failing are pretty slim though over the life of the motherboard.
 
OK, that's a very valid reason.

I thought there was something potentially wrong or risky in using so many SATAs.
 
Nothing wrong with the SATAs, I'd be more "worried" about the LAN/NIC.
//Danne
 
In what situation might I have a LAN/NIC problem?

I only use the LAN socket for my home network, and of course web interface.
 
carlmart said:
In what situation might I have a LAN/NIC problem?

I only use the LAN socket for my home network, and of course web interface.
Click to expand...

I think he's referring to the Killer NIC. I had one in an ASRock board I used. I didn't notice a big difference one way or the other. The only major difference is the software (I mean a GbE network adapter is a GbE network adapter as long as it works). Would I pay extra for it? Absolutely not. Would I refuse to purchase a board I liked solely on the basis of the Killer NIC? No.
 
* There are no open source drivers so you're out of luck if you want to run Linux/BSD/*
* You get addition software that just adds overhead
* You need to rely on the vendor to keep updated drivers (aftersales support)
Just a quick search on Google show numerous of users having issue with buggy "Killer" drivers but the stock drivers from QCA appears to work fine (Qualcomm Athero AR8161 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller). So question is, why would you get something else than Intel that works great and have very good driver support?
//Danne
 
Well, due to a mistake I did, when I sent the data to my friend on what to buy, I ended up buying a Gigabyte z97X-Gaming 7. Let's hope I do not regret it...

The board seems quite good and it's already working with no frills.

On the new Intel CPU I ended up using the stock Intel fan, and to my surprise is very slient and keeps temps very low. Maybe that's because I'm not "overing" anything.

In the end, in spite of the 5 five fans rolling inside the Lian Li case, my setup is very quiet, and that is with access cover off, as I am still working on the HDDs I will put inside.

Only critic is how hard is to reach the SATA sockets, so I put cables in all of them.

One thing I do not understand, which I think is common to the Asus Z97 boards too, is the apparently different SATA 6Gb inside. Can I plug any HD or disk on any socket?
 
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