New MoBo for old Core i7 3770K?

[ProApp]

Greetings everyone!  The LTT Forums were the first place that came to mind to ask this:

 

I currently have a Intel Core i7 3770K @ 3.50GHz Ivy Bridge that is running in an Asus P8Z77-V PRO (LGA1155).  I'm running 32GB of Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 799MHz (10-10-10-27) ram.  

 

I'd like to replace the motherboard with something as good or better than the current  Asus P8Z77-V PRO.

 

Why replace the Mobo?  I noticed bent pins on the CPU socket and figured it would be best to replace it.  I'm having difficulty finding boards that will use the CPU and the RAM that are still available for purchase.  I would prefer NEW compared to used or open box, BUT i do understand that I cant be all too picky.   I just really wanted some input as to "the best" board currently available to replace the current motherboard.

 

I'm not sure it makes a difference, as i've not seen a way to run dual CPU's if they aren't Xeons, but I actually have TWO of the above systems, and can use components from both, so that means i have 2 CPUs, 8 sticks of 8GB DDR3 Ram (total of 64GB) and two  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 cards.

 

This rig is primarily used as a file server, and video transcoding. 

[mxk]

What's your budget? Honestly it might be more worth it to pick up an AMD Ryzen system or get Zen 2/Ryzen 3000.

[SPARTAN VI]

Do you have a photo of the bent pins? Some savy folks here may be able to tell you what the pin(\s) do, and whether or not they're even significant. If it doesn't impact stability/performance, then I wouldn't bother to replace it. 

[GabeThePCHelper]

Is the computer still functioning with bent pins?

[Eastman51]

Finding brand new boards for old sockets/CPUs is like trying to buy a GPU for a reasonable price during the crypto currency boom.

They're going to be expensive AF.

 

You're better off getting a used board off ebay for a better price. 
Or just get a brand new Ryzen system, iirc with current pricing for brand new boards you could probably get a Ryzen CPU, 16GB 3000Mhz DDR4, and a decent AM4 board  for the price of a replacement for your ancient i7

[SpookyCitrus]

Basically whatever you can find, and have the budget to afford. Looking for a fairly priced Z77 board is going to be tough on it's own but you're looking for one that's better than your current board and brand new. I'd say it wouldn't be so difficult if you didn't care if it was used or not. There are plenty of nice boards on Amazon and Ebay but nothing new, all used. The other thing you should take into account is the price of the boards, since they are no longer manufactured the prices are double what they were retail when brand new, a lot of the higher quality boards that were $100 or a little more are going for $220 plus used. And if you find a brand new board that's also a higher quality one it will probably be way overpriced. If it were me and the system was still functional with the bent pins I wouldn't bother replacing the motherboard. And if it is non functional you could do a rebuild on the system, replacing the motherboard ram and cpu, and go for a Ryzen build. You can get a Ryzen 5 2600, 16GB 3000mhz DDR4 Ram, and a B450 motherboard for around $340. I mean your looking around $200 to $300 for a nice used Z77 board, $350 to $400 plus for a brand new one, or $340 for a complete rebuild with modern components that would perform much better than that old i7.

[Mick Naughty]

A z77 sabertooth. Or a Maximus board of any kind. That’s what I’d get. 

[alarmingtugboat97]

Asrock z77 extreme4 and up...

 

[ProApp]

So on the main rig, I do know there are 3 bent pins.. I know one of the bent pins directly relates to if the board will boot with 4 sticks of ram... With it bent, I can't boot more than 2 sticks of RAM (AKA 16GB), it will jot boot and blinks a memory error... After I unmangeled it as best I could, I can boot with all 4 sticks in totaling 32GB of RAM, but there are some stability gremlins running around in the system with random system freezes, some that end up freezing the entire network until the machine is restarted), and some with RAM consumption sitting at 99.9% usage for a while, and then finally locking up when it hits 100%....

 

So, yea, there are some issues, but this is not a production machine, it's only used as a personal media server...  When the machine is running, and behaving 'properly', it's plenty fast, but although it is just a media server, it is also connected to and managing 2 very large 'storage spaces', which seem to be very resource intensive just to boot and manage... 

 

There are a lot of variables, and I do know the proper procedure to troubleshoot, and pinpoint whatever the issue is, but truthfully I'm not intrested in going through that process on this project.   Hence why I went to the idea of just replacing the board, which will prompt me to do a clean windows install, bla bla bla.. 

 

I do not have much experience buying used hardware, but I agree with all of the above, my criteria was a bit to strict... I can learn more about the world of used hardware if there is a perticular board I should consider.

 

 

 

I do like the direction everyone went in regarding fixing the current board, but I think I should rephrase the question: 

If it was 2012/2013, and you already had a 3770k and 32GB of RAM, what mobo would you have gotten?   :)