New build ASUS H97M-E/CSM

Mercilessming · February 6, 2015

Thanks in advance First time for a real post.

So I am thinking about Building a new Rig been over 6 years since I last bought a Motherboard. My system build would have an ASUS H97M-E/CSM which Supports per website the i7 4790K edition, however requiring a newer version 2001 firmware from June 2014 update. My question is it still like the old days, If I get a board with older firmware would it not boot to a ver low setting to allow me to update firmware or would I have to have a CPU support by Mobos shipped firmware (Seems I remember some AMD stuff clocking way down to unidentified CPU until you update BIOS)???

Board Was Released May 2014

Firmware Version Needed for Official Support June 2014I7

4790k release about June 2014

So the likely hood of the board being shipped with so original firmware version being slim I guess, but seeing it isn't highly demanded board inventory might not move as quickly??

I realize I with lose with H97 the overclock ability of the chip I am buying I just want the highest Factory Clock of this K 4/4.4ghz overclocking just never has been my thing since the 3dfx Voodoo Pentium days.

New Potential Build

Intel Core i7-4790K Asus H97M-E/CSM

G.Skill Ripjaws X Series (2 x 8) 16GB x 2 kits

Intel 730 Series 240GB

Fractal Design Define R4 Blackout

EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

Cougar Vortex 60.4 CFM 120mm Fan x 2

Would be Coming from

Asus M3a97 Pro

Phenom II 9654x 2gb

G.skill DDr2 800 cl 5

Would recycle my EVGA GTX 750 SC for few games I rarely ever play (Civ 5, D3)

I know how Synthetic benchmarks can be but I am hoping feel confident? of seeing a World of Difference....

I imagine some will say why 32gigs of Ram WAY, well I do sometimes run Virtual Machines, and like Ramdisk for some SQL and .NET compilations and scratch quick stuff. And I always have like just maxing everything out then besides Videocard and/or harddrives not doing anything with upgrades. and Skylake coming means chances of viable CPU upgrades for board will not happen.

rpbooth · March 6, 2015

I just got the same board today. H97M-E (CSM). I am using 32GB of G-Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600 RAM but with an E3-1231v3 Xeon 3.4 GHz instead of the Core i7. The Xeon doesn't overclock and there's no built-in video on the chip (consequently it runs at 80 watts TPM and cost only $256). The video card is my Asus STRIX GTX 970 and I am waiting for payday (and April) for the release of the 256 and 512 GB Samsung 850 Pro M.2 SSDs. The only problem I see is the rather close location of RAM to the CPU socket but if you are water-cooling (or have a tall air cooler) this won't matter.