Differences of Z87, H87, H97, and B85

[dialgarocksful]

I'm fairly new on Intel mobos. But, AFAIK Z series is for overclocking. What does H87/H97 stand for and how does B85 perform to the other series. I'm currently planning to get another system with either 4590 or 4690K

[Clyne]

Just get the cheapest Z87 Asus board with USB flashback or any Z87 with the latest BIOS as that will save you money over Z97.

Z97 is basically Z87 with support for Haswell refresh with some little more features. 

[Lethal Seraph]

Motherboard chipset. It tied to what kind of cpu chip you can use it with.

[Aytex]

if your not going to overclock go with a h87 h97

if you are then go with a z87/z97

 

idk how bXX series preform 

[JerkyMcDilerino]

if your not going to overclock go with a h87 h97

if you are then go with a z87/z97

 

idk how bXX series preform 

Bxx Chipset is for budget business.

[Oshino Shinobu]

In general Z series chipsets are for high end CPUs, with support for overclocking, SLI (not all of them) and other technologies. 

 

H Series chipsets are the consumer platform, with less features than the Z series (quite a lot still have overclocking abilities, but are not really designed for it). They do not have support for SLI. 

 

B Series chipsets are for business and office type PCs. Generally made for the sort of system that will be mass bought and put in offices. 

[Syte]

The MSI B85-E45 and its competitors are the best board in my experience for anyone not planning on doing any major overlocking and wanting to get a decent Haswell Chip (G3258, i5 4590, i7 4790)

 

The value is amazing at $65 CAD before MIR and I've put over 100 of them into PCs and never had a single problem of any sort with any single one. They even support basic overlcoking to get your 4590 up the 3.7GHz and have good voltage control too. Solid Audio, great product. 

 

 

LGA1150 doesn't have "Northbridge" like older motherboards (that's now handled by the CPU) so motherboard does not directly affect performance, if you're building within any budget under $1000 CAD get an H81 or B85 that's cheap and of solid quality and an i5 4590 + GTX 960 for gaming. If you're looking at a cheaper budget range get a G3258 as the B85 supports fully unlocked overclocking with the Pentium-K and I've managed to get 4.8GHz stable on air with this chipset. (1.31v)

[dialgarocksful]

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Thanks guys. I'm getting a black (or black/red) themed system. Looking for a set that is either:

 

- mATX board + 4590/4690K + Single high-end GPU (I'll pass my HD7750 to that system temporarily, but for the GPU it will be 750Ti or 970) + Corsair Spec-01

- ATX board + 4590/4690K + Same GPU specifications + Fractal Design Define S

 

Both boards I'm looking for must have 4 DIMMs and prolly $120US or $150US. I won't be SLI'ing since I don't play much AAA games, and I only have a 2x1080p monitors