Quick question about motherboards

[Pebble713]

Shopping for a new z170 motherboard and im curious what the letter after the chipset conotates? Like z170-a, z170-e, z170-p etc. What am i giving up by getting a cheaper z170? I dont really see any differences. (this might be a stupid question, idk. Ive been slowly edging my way into pc life for the last year and i previously knew nothing)

[Guest]

Just some extra different features. For you, just get what is cheapest. Take a look at specs of each mobo to see, some might not have SLI/Crossfire for example some might not have USB 3.1 some might have less SATA ports and so on...

[zMeul]

there is one Z170 chipset

the other naming scheme is marketing BS

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, zMeul said:

there is one Z170 chipset

the other naming scheme is marketing BS

or sometime it stands for form factor too. not really bs tbh

[zMeul]

1 minute ago, deXxterlab97 said:

or sometime it stands for form factor too. not really bs tbh

it's not dependent on the chipset

they can name the motherboard whatever they want; Z170WiFi - does not mean the Z170 suddenly grew a WiFi adapter

[GitGud]

Z series are bascily meant for K series CPUs meant for overclocking, if youre not gonna do any OCing than stay away from it otherwise youll waste money.

[Pebble713]

2 hours ago, GitGud said:

Z series are bascily meant for K series CPUs meant for overclocking, if youre not gonna do any OCing than stay away from it otherwise youll waste money.

What mobo would you recommend? Ive got an i5 6600k and plan on crossfire rx 480s. Like you said, i dont really plan on overclocking. Just some moderate gameplay.

[GitGud]

2 hours ago, Pebble713 said:

What mobo would you recommend? Ive got an i5 6600k and plan on crossfire rx 480s. Like you said, i dont really plan on overclocking. Just some moderate gameplay.

Unless you already got one of those RX 480s, id reccomend going with single GTX 1070 or waiting for AMD Vega cards, CrossFire and SLI isnt the best solution. As for mobo, id say go with the cheapest one you can find supporting AMD CrossFire if youre still after that. Asus H170M-E D3 is great and affordable solution supporting 2 way CrossFire, thats if youre 100 % sure you wont be overclokcing in future.