MOBO help

[tcvalley]

Further thoughts.

 

I have spent most of today looking at the reviews on MOBOs. It seems like I get a good review on PCPartsPicker but when I go to NewEgg they are just the opposite. Most every board I looked at the reviews were horrendous even the 4 and 5 stars : boards not working on unboxing, crashing fatally within a few months, ETC. A very frustrating day.

How in the world does on buy a board and be reasonably assured it will work? What are the best sites for an accurate assessment for computer components?

Tom

[W-L]

Further thoughts.

 

I have spent most of today looking at the reviews on MOBOs. It seems like I get a good review on PCPartsPicker but when I go to NewEgg they are just the opposite. Most every board I looked at the reviews were horrendous even the 4 and 5 stars : boards not working on unboxing, crashing fatally within a few months, ETC. A very frustrating day.

How in the world does on buy a board and be reasonably assured it will work? What are the best sites for an accurate assessment for computer components?

Tom

 

DOA are something that will happen from time to time but are not very common, in general ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte all make good boards, it just depends on what feature you want or look for them to have.

[tcvalley]

I noticed you left out AsRock was that intentional?

If you had the option of H97 chipset or Z97 which would you choose or better yet any suggestions? I know that both cannot be OC but so far the PD3 forums don't say much about that. Also what is in your experience the best site to get accurate reviews?

Thanks for your response.

[Streetguru]

I noticed you left out AsRock was that intentional?

If you had the option of H97 chipset or Z97 which would you choose or better yet any suggestions? I know that both cannot be OC but so far the PD3 forums don't say much about that. Also what is in your experience the best site to get accurate reviews?

Thanks for your response.

H97 is usually cheaper, so go for that.

Only things you really need to look for on a board are it's power delivery, and ya, the reviews.

[W-L]

I noticed you left out AsRock was that intentional?

If you had the option of H97 chipset or Z97 which would you choose or better yet any suggestions? I know that both cannot be OC but so far the PD3 forums don't say much about that. Also what is in your experience the best site to get accurate reviews?

Thanks for your response.

 

Asrock isn't bad either especially some of their higher end stuff it's right up with the rest, their boards are all pretty decent quality but of course every brand has some of the lower end stuff also.

 

As for the chipset itself there are three main ones B, H and Z where the Band H are not overclockable boards, the B series for business is usually the cheapest and budget friendly with nothing very special, the H series usually is more feature rich and has some things of the Z board may have but still lacks overclocking. The Z series board are designed for overclocking and have beefier power deliveries usually and cooling/heatsinks on VRM designed for K series chips.

 

Personally I'm partial to Asus boards for mainly their quite well done UEFI and built in fan control software and capabilities.

[tcvalley]

Thank you so much.

The ASRock Z97 Extreme 3 MOBO has arrived I haven't even opened the box yet. I know I'm asking a lot but in your experience should I send it back and opt for a different board? I'll be using a i5 4460 processor if helps any?

Thanks again for your patience and advice.

Tom