is this motherboard any good?

[dreamcast4599]

picked up a used but tested Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 motherboard for 40$. cant find many reviews online and im wondering if this is a good motherboard? will be tossing a 4790K in it if it matter i just wanted to build an lga 1150 system to play around with below is a link to the mobo if it helps thanks

 

 

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z97-HD3-rev-21#ov

[RONOTHAN##]

It's not great, but then again, this is Haswell and so as long as the board isn't cost cut to the extreme, it's good enough. You almost certainly could've come across something a bit better for the money if you had tried to wait it out, but it's unlikely that would've mattered in the long run. 

[dreamcast4599]

30 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

It's not great, but then again, this is Haswell and so as long as the board isn't cost cut to the extreme, it's good enough. You almost certainly could've come across something a bit better for the money if you had tried to wait it out, but it's unlikely that would've mattered in the long run. 

why is it not a great board?

[DoctorNick]

5 minutes ago, dreamcast4599 said:

why is it not a great board?

Its ok, it's a very basic motherboard and should work fine. Depends on what you're planning using it for, then again haswell is a old platform by now. Might not get the best overclock on this board.

[RONOTHAN##]

12 minutes ago, dreamcast4599 said:

why is it not a great board?

Everything about it is decidedly low end. The VRM is weak compared to other Z97 offerings out there (though as eluded to above, Haswell draws so little power that this rarely matters), the feature set is about as bare bones as you can get, it's likely going to suck at memory speeds, etc. None of that is to say that it won't work for just a system to play around with, it most certainly is, just don't expect the best board in the world with it. 

 

Main reason I was saying you could probably get better for the price is that better boards do come up and sell for less. I've seen a number of Maximus VI and Maximus VII Heros and Rangers come up for around the ~$50 mark locally, and personally have bought three LGA 1150 board for less, two of which I would consider better (Z97 Pro Wi-Fi OC and GA-Z87X-OC). Granted, my local used market is pretty competitive so my pricing is usually skewed low compared to most other places, so take that for what you will. 

[dreamcast4599]

29 minutes ago, DoctorNick said:

Its ok, it's a very basic motherboard and should work fine. Depends on what you're planning using it for, then again haswell is a old platform by now. Might not get the best overclock on this board.

plan to use it to plan some older titles and just have the haswell experience i never got to have my last intel board was lga 775 so never got to experience this platform before now

[DoctorNick]

13 minutes ago, dreamcast4599 said:

plan to use it to plan some older titles and just have the haswell experience i never got to have my last intel board was lga 775 so never got to experience this platform before now

ok then go for it. I think you'll have a better experience going to something newer like 8-9th gen or newer  

[dreamcast4599]

@DoctorNick i already have a ryzen 9 am4 setup this is just to play around with for fun