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CPU upgrade advice

ManuMitra
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Go to solution Solved by Zyndo,

Well the B150 is a business class chipset and the H170 is a consumer class chipset. largely speaking these would be quite similar. the H170 would come with better/more USB 3.0 support, native Raid capabilities, more PCIE lanes and the like. the B150 whilst aimed at being a business class chipset, since its so cheap and shares many similar features to the H170, it has also been remodeled by some companies as a "gaming" chipset. For the purposes of gaming, the H170 is definitely the better choice, but in alot of cases it will be more expensive (but not by much) for the features you get. people who (typically) use the B150 set are making low end budget gaming builds, but if you're making a medium to high end gaming build, the H170 would be the way to go.

But the big thing at the end of the day is price, and whatever is within your budget is what you should get. I would recommend the H170 over the B150 because it has features that I consider useful (such as native RAID). However if you think the H170 has a bunch of unnecessary fluff that you wont use in comparison to the B150, then there is no reason for you to spend the little bit of extra cash to get a H170.

Here is a link to a quick and dirty rundown of the two chipsets (and actually all 6 skylake chipsets). Whilst your individual motherboards will put their own bells and whistles onto these chipsets, this should give you at least a starting point of what to look for. another thing to keep in mind is some features will differ from board to board. A high end B150 board MIGHT have more usb ports or m.2 or things like that than a mid-low end h170 board (IF the manufacturer decides to make a board like that)

 

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Z170-H170-H110-B170-Q150-Q170---What-is-the-Difference-635/


If you're looking for a simple "what do I buy", I would personally recommend the H170 (but again, that's because there are features on it I would use and I deem valuable). However, as you said your budget is tight, and there is NOTHING wrong with a B150 board if it has everything you think you need.

On www.newegg.ca Your suggested Gigabyte G1.Snuper B7 B150 board costs 139.99 CAD (Canadian Rupees)
A similarly priced H170 gigabyte board like the Gigabyte G1 Gaming 3 H170 board is 129.99 CAD (Canadian Rupees)

 

In this comparison, the H170 G1 gaming matches every feature the B150 has or surpasses it. This H170 board is directly better in every way (unless you're really into green and black aesthetics) and its 10$ cheaper (at least in Canada, your mileage may vary on that one)


TL:DR

 

I would HIGHLY recommend getting this motherboard if you can afford it. There are certainly some cheaper options if you're really strapped for cash, but this quite inexpensive as motherboards go, and has everything you could possibly need. There is also nothing wrong with your choice of the B150 Sniper board you mentioned, looks like a fine board (although the one I linked is better and cheaper, at least in Canada at the moment).

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/product/wBZ2FT/gigabyte-motherboard-gah170gaming3

 

If you need something cheaper, let me know and I'll do further research into some REALLY cheap skylake boards and see what gold nuggets I can find.

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5 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

Well there are many other features H170 gives you. It gives you Intel SRT (Smart Response Technology) which can allow you to set up hybrid storage solutions (pairing a SSD with a HDD to create, essentially, a SSHD out of two, larger drives. It then shows up as a single drive in windows, but will automatically take the most used files/most important ones and place them on the SSD for faster operation, and take the lesser used or less important ones and keep them in HDD storage). It gives you more chipset PCIE lanes (this wont affect your Graphics card) but will affect pretty much everything else in your computer. now, odds are on a budget system the B150 will have more than enough chipset lanes for your needs, but you would have to keep this in mind if you're the kind of guy who likes to saturate every PCIE port possible, run SATAe/M.2 drives, and/or other things that run off the PCIe bus.

There ARE more reasons, its why I linked that page for you, so you could make up your own mind. But if you're unaware of the reasons then chances are you wont know that you're missing out on anything.

I didn't mean to confuse the matter for you. Your G1.Sniper B7 will do well for your needs and budget. Of the boards you listed it has the best on board audio, and all around features. If you need on board USB type C connector, then the go with the Asus board (that its only unique feature, also keep in mind it has only 2 chassis fan headers on the board). If you want the most USB connectivity, get the MSI board. The MSI board also has chassis intrusion detection, although this is something I find entirely useless for me, perhaps its something you could find useful. the MSI board also comes with the most fan connectivity. If you're the kind of guy who likes a bunch of fans in his system, you may want to steer away from the asus board.

But honestly, out of the ones you listed, the Gigabyte board is probably the one you want. You could also go for the MSI board (it IS slightly better), but just get whichever is more affordable. Motherboards don't really affect performance the say way CPU's, GPU's, and RAM does. a $500 vs a $50 board will, as far as raw performance goes (assuming you aren't overclocking) pretty much identical. getting a cheaper board won't slow down your computer. It will just mean that you may miss out on some features, or connectivity options. However a lot of times people  don't actually NEED, or even use, these features or connectivity options.

So after ALL this back and forth in this thread, it looks like you probably picked the best board for your needs without any help from us lol. Go with the gigabyte board ;)

Great answer, such detailed explanation. Very informative but concise. I am really grateful to  you for the all the help and the time you devoted to my query. well yes I went through the specs and kinda did a self study and found the B150 suits my needs. well the fan part, I am not the type of guy who would deck up the system with bunch of fans, the fans that I fan on my chassis and system are , the 3 chassis fans, 1 radiator fan, 1 cpu fan header to be used by the AIO pump that's it I don't need anymore, plus the chassis fans connect to molex points so that's sorted. I need help with one more thing though the gigabyte is providing cFos lan and msi h170 is providing killerLan does this tech make any diff? if they do which one is better?  or are these just marketing gimmicks

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Well, I don't really know all that much about the intricacies of various ethernet ports. Largely speaking, for every day use they would be indistinguishable from each other. That's really only the sort of thing you would need to worry about if your whole computer revolved around that ethernet port (things like servers for example) even if one of these were TWICE as good as the other, in every day usage you would see zero performance difference. Most peoples internet performance and networking performance is typically limited by the applications they use, or the bandwidth they have, rather than the hardware itself.

So I don't know which one is technically better, and it would require a lot of research to figure out which one IS better. They would both perform quite similarly I would think, especially since they are on similarly priced boards. Its something I doubt you have to worry about.

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5 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

Well, I don't really know all that much about the intricacies of various ethernet ports. Largely speaking, for every day use they would be indistinguishable from each other. That's really only the sort of thing you would need to worry about if your whole computer revolved around that ethernet port (things like servers for example) even if one of these were TWICE as good as the other, in every day usage you would see zero performance difference. Most peoples internet performance and networking performance is typically limited by the applications they use, or the bandwidth they have, rather than the hardware itself.

So I don't know which one is technically better, and it would require a lot of research to figure out which one IS better. They would both perform quite similarly I would think, especially since they are on similarly priced boards. Its something I doubt you have to worry about.

Ok thanks a lot , sorry for pestering you so much. Really thanks a lot. 

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