Bang for the Buck Z97 Motherboard Showdown

[nicklmg]

ASRock Z97 Ext.3

NCIX: http://bit.ly/1HUrkCW

Amazon: http://geni.us/1W2g

 

Gigabyte Z97X-SLI

NCIX: http://bit.ly/1ruc6lG

Amazon: http://geni.us/48N6

 

MSI Z97 U3+

NCIX: http://bit.ly/1tcTNNs

Amazon: http://geni.us/2Mhp

 

ASUS Z97-C

NCIX: http://bit.ly/1y0qUeg

Amazon: http://geni.us/3LHY

 

There are a bunch of great motherboards available for right around $100 nowadays, and in this series we intend to break down the differences between a few of them. First up, the physical overview.

 

[Speedyv]

Nice!

A series that can genuinely help people on a budget.

[alby800]

$100! damn, these motherboards cost $170+ here in Aus

 

edit - NVM, only the Gigabyte one

[Aniallation]

Click here

[Guest Philosophy]

I cannot wait to watch it in the morning, just going to bed now

[nicklmg]

$100! damn, these motherboards cost $170+ here in Aus

 

edit - NVM, only the Gigabyte one

Yeah title was a bit misleading - pricing varies too much by region to say "$100 mobos"

 

Better now.

[alby800]

Yeah title was a bit misleading - pricing varies too much by region to say "$100 mobos"

 

Better now.

wow, I feel like I did something useful, YAY

 

better title btw

[Emceeschw3pp3]

This is really cool because, I was already considering the Gigabyte one. I think a good follow up to this would be a video about each board's bios and how simple/difficult overclocking is made within the bios.

[melias24]

Great video for beginner who don't know what motherboard to buy! 

[Mujteba]

Yeah title was a bit misleading - pricing varies too much by region to say "$100 mobos"

 

Better now.

Thumbnail still says $100

[Amuss]

I had just bought the msi board 2 days ago for 38 bucks for some reason it seems that the prices went up by a lot.

[Mujteba]

This made me lol quite a bit actually:

 

[nicklmg]

Thumbnail still says $100

YT takes a while to update public thumbnail. It's been updated on my side.

[Faceman]

Fan headers and warranty length.  Two very often overlooked aspects of motherboards, I'm glad you guys included those.

[Maheshvara]

A nice video You should do more budget videos Not all of us are filthy rich

[Charezon]

Excellent! A series I'm really looking forward to... where's part 2?  Hurry! 

 

MSI + USB3 = WIN

[IIILvLZeroIII]

The Asrock pro 4 has a sucks bios

[simulacrae]

Well im hoping the Gigabyte one does well ... as I just got it... 

[ammarez]

at 00:33 the heatsink was installed upside down, it annoyed me more than it should.

[Takata]

A nice video You should do more budget videos Not all of us are filthy rich

I'm looking to build on such a slim budget that even these boards are a tad expensive.   I hope this series presents some helpful advice that is also applicable to H87 or B85 boards.

 

Aside: Is there anything wrong with simply going for the cheapest motherboard that seems to have all the things you want (like, enough RAM slots, enough fan headers, enough expansion slots in the right places, enough warranty, and good enough reputation for RMA processes)?

 

Aside: This Z97 board is noticably cheaper than others on the same site: http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=425458  Now I'm not looking to buy it, but if I was, should I be concerned about the conspicous lack of large heatsinks compared to most other Z97 boards?

[Lynx]

why no BIOSTAR and ECS?,  especialy BIOSTAR!, it's a great budget OC mobo out there, it even get 9.9 at TechPowerUp http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Biostar/HiFi_Z97WE/12.html

[Maheshvara]

I'm looking to build on such a slim budget that even these boards are a tad expensive.   I hope this series presents some helpful advice that is also applicable to H87 or B85 boards.

 

Aside: Is there anything wrong with simply going for the cheapest motherboard that seems to have all the things you want (like, enough RAM slots, enough fan headers, enough expansion slots in the right places, enough warranty, and good enough reputation for RMA processes)?

 

Aside: This Z97 board is noticably cheaper than others on the same site: http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=425458  Now I'm not looking to buy it, but if I was, should I be concerned about the conspicous lack of large heatsinks compared to most other Z97 boards?

If it's all of those, then it's okay

 

That Mobo is a little bit special. That's the cheapest Z97 Mobo around, and AsRock released it to pair it up with Pentium K. It's basically rebranded Z87 Mobo, since it lacks M2 slots, SATA express, it doesn't have any way of using multiple GPU's (CF and SLI) in one system etc. It's basically the cheapest variant for OC'ing, and it's good to pair with a cheap Pentium K. 

 

Also, if your budget is so tight, then go with AMD, not Intel

[MourningSouls]

I really wish I got the MSI H97M board now, that blue looks really damn good.

[rcarlos243]

Just a tip on how to properly review a motherboard.

 

-Which VRM components does it use? How many power phases does it have? is the power delivery Analog, Digital, or Hybrid?

-How hot does the VRM get when overclocking and overvolting a CPU?

-how much voltage does it give to a cpu on auto (some motherboard massively overvolt the cpu vcore in auto resulting in excessive heat that could cause overheating or throttling).

-does setting the CPU vcore remain static when input a manual voltage or does it automatically undervolt (like in auto to save power in idle or offset voltage).

-how accurate is the voltage?

-if you set the turbo to max available multiplier on a non k cpu for all cores, does it actually maintain that multiplier at all cores on full load or does it throttle by 2 multiplier (e.g. Intel Xeon E3 1230 V3 has a max multiplier of x37 and if you set x37 for all cores to achieve 3.7Ghz, it would only work at x35 3.5Ghz on full load for all cores unless you use a modded motherboard bios).

-does the overclocking software for the motherboard actually work? if so does it read the current settings correctly (e.g. the base clock on the bios is at 99.98Mhz but overclocking software from manufacturer reads it at 100Mhz). If some settings are changed on the overclocking software from the manufacturer (like multiplier or baseclock or voltage or whatever), is the settings applied in real time or does it require a reboot?

-who manufactured the CPU socket?

-does the motherboard coil whine?

-does the fan connectors have a true PWM signal?

-does it use BOT or UAS driver for USB on old operating system like Windows 7 (very important for USB performance).

-other stuff like dual bios, debug led, onboard switches, dip switches, etc...

 

helpful links:

-http://sinhardware.com/images/vrmlist.png

 

-http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3-uas-turbo,3215-3.html

 

-http://www.anandtech.com/show/2859

 

-http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/01/17/has-intel-socket-pin-burnout-returned-to-lg/1

 

-https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Ffaceit.lt%2F2014%2F09%2Fhaswell-e-garantija-gali-negalioti-jei-naudosite-asus-motinines-plokstes%2F&edit-text=

 

-https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Ffaceit.lt%2F2014%2F09%2Fpirmieji-nerimo-signalai-haswell-e-procesoriu-savininkams%2F&edit-text=

 

-https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://faceit.lt/2014/12/intel-turi-problemu-mikroschemu-rinkiniu-tvarkyklemis/&usg=ALkJrhi-tYkaJ_klreTaS--Ii0IJQfsGpg

 

-http://kingpincooling.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1037 (example on how to properly review a motherboard)

[kameshss]

Really a nice rundown!

May be in next part, you can compare the overclocking performance and temperature comparisons.

Nice one!

 

Peoples in LTT forum really need this video!