Motherboard prices

[mhonor]

I've been researching building a new gaming PC, trying to find out what the best price/performance components are, posting on this forum, watching build vids, etc.

At first I was going with Skylake, but there seems to be a general consensus that Haswell is more or less just as good, and that you can save some money on previous gen motherboards / RAM.

 

I'm on board with this, so I was looking into either a 4690K or Xeon E3-1231 v3, but the thing that keeps throwing me off is that it seems like older gen motherboards (Z97, H97, even B85) aren't much cheaper than mid-range Z170 / H170 boards and in some cases not cheaper at all, plus being not as widely available on Amazon, Newegg, or Microcenter for example. Is this a recent thing or am I not looking in the right places?

 

I am kind of fixated on getting the most for my money, and Microcenter has great bundle deals for an i5-6600K + mobo right now. This is starting to seem like the best choice even though I agree with and want to follow the advice of helpful members of this forum to go with a Haswell build. 

[runit3]

This happens with every generational release. MOBO manufacturers are already on to the next gen before they even finish up with the last production runs. Everyone is on the Intel treadmill. All the Z97/H97/B85 boards left with retailers are old stock, expect them to completely disappear within the next few months outside of refurb resellers and second hand.

 

At this point buying Haswell is a mistake (IMO) DDR3 will be useless for a future upgrade, and if you're even considering a 1231v3 there's no CPU upgrade aside from a 4790k -which will also be going away with the MOBO's from retailers.

[Jacktastic-Mofo]

An i5-6600k + A Z170 motherboard is a pretty good choice, what do you plan on doing with your PC? Is it souly for gaming?

[Guest]

I am also a drunk cat, sir. 

[mhonor]

43 minutes ago, Jacktastic-Mofo said:

An i5-6600k + A Z170 motherboard is a pretty good choice, what do you plan on doing with your PC? Is it souly for gaming?

Ya, mostly just gaming and everyday PC tasks. I'm not running any series workstation programs or video editing / encoding, but I've heard that the Xeon is a great deal for hyperthreaded processor. The thing is, looking up socket 1150 mobos to pair it with, the quality ones were in the $100-130 range and at that price I might as well go with a Skylake build. 

[runit3]

49 minutes ago, mhonor said:

Ya, mostly just gaming and everyday PC tasks. I'm not running any series workstation programs or video editing / encoding, but I've heard that the Xeon is a great deal for hyperthreaded processor. The thing is, looking up socket 1150 mobos to pair it with, the quality ones were in the $100-130 range and at that price I might as well go with a Skylake build. 

If you're going with Xeon you don't need a Z series board. Any H97 will have mostly the same feature sets aside from overclocking and RAM over 1600, nearly all are under 100 USD new.