What motherboard should I get?

[MatthewLynch]

Hi, what motherboard is better between gigabyte ga-z170x gaming 3 and ga-z170-HD3P. which one will do better with overclocking? or is there any other motherboard in the same price range that you would recommend? 

thank you very much

[Curufinwe_wins]

Motherboard won't matter for overclocking. Straight up.

 

Get the cheapest one you like the looks of and has the connectivity you feel you need.

[Imakuni]

45 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Motherboard won't matter for overclocking. Straight up.

Source please?

 

This used to be true in the Haswell days, with it's integrated voltage regulator. But with skylake, the regulators are back on the mobo, so I wouldn't be so sure that mobos are irrelevant for OCing anymore. So please, if you have a link for an article that did extensive test on the subject, I'd love if you posted it here.

 

Been looking for it ever since Skylake launched, but I'm yet to find one and prove / disprove your statement.

[Curufinwe_wins]

3 minutes ago, Imakuni said:

Source please?

 

This used to be true in the Haswell days, with it's integrated voltage regulator. But with skylake, the regulators are back on the mobo, so I wouldn't be so sure that mobos are irrelevant for OCing anymore. So please, if you have a link for an article that did extensive test on the subject, I'd love if you posted it here.

 

Been looking for it ever since Skylake launched, but I'm yet to find one and prove / disprove your statement.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/mainboard/90929-gigabyte-z170-gaming-k3/?page=6

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/mainboard/87707-msi-z170a-tomahawk/?page=6

 

Look, hexus and others have tested TONS of z170 boards and seen minimal differences in overclocking capability (less than 100 Mhz across the board), compare the OC's reached and note all of the reviews were done with the exact same cpu (per site obviously), so clearly it really doesn't matter.

 

Vrm's have come a long way since Ivy-bridge and most z170 boards are super overbuilt in that department so eventually it just stops being a huge deal.

 

 

[Imakuni]

Right... so a 8phase design mobo can already beat a 7 phase 

14 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/mainboard/90929-gigabyte-z170-gaming-k3/?page=6

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/mainboard/87707-msi-z170a-tomahawk/?page=6

 

Look, hexus and others have tested TONS of z170 boards and seen minimal differences in overclocking capability (less than 100 Mhz across the board), compare the OC's reached and note all of the reviews were done with the exact same cpu (per site obviously), so clearly it really doesn't matter.

Right... so the only results I found were from the Gigabyte Z170-Gaming K3, the Asus Z170 Pro Gaming, the MSI Z170A Tomahawk, the ASRock Z170 Extreme 6. And apparently there's a test for the Asus Z170-K, even though I couldn't find the review for it (but it shows up in the graphs somehow).

 

But anyway. While 5 mobos isn't exactly what I'd call "TONS of Z170s", they already display a 70mhz difference from one board to another; at 4.6ghz 1.35v, that's quite a big deal by my standards. With the potential for Bclk OCing (thx intel), this just helps prove the point that motherboards DO matter.

 

Still, I was looking for a more detailed test on this specific subject, rather than just looking at reviews of a bunch of mobos to compare results.

[Curufinwe_wins]

1 minute ago, Imakuni said:

snip

Look if 70 MHz was a big deal by your standards, then it even mattered on Haswell-refresh.

 

One full multiplier is generally considered margin of error even from product to product within the same stack.

 

You can look at the older reviews to see some more tested at a different voltages (which is not directly comparable).

 

Hard OCP has reviews on what 15? motherboards... But they free-verse the overclocking section and don't have a standardized process like Hexus. And well the two reviewers often have very different results, further exemplifying the within product stack variance.

 

Likewise with HardwareCanucks (which has fewer overall)

 

Tom's hardware has somehow only 4 motherboard reviews out, and outside of a ECS board (which who buys from ECS...) they checked out within 100 MHz.

 

Found some more hidden away on Tom's hardware... the four more I could find also were within 100 Mhz...

 

[Carclis]

The Gaming 3 is the better board of the two which you could guess by it's price. It has 8 power phases rather than 6 and has a beefier cooling system. For overclocking it may make a difference but it would be minor. Your limiting factor for overclocking should most likely be silicon lottery and thermals.