Best bang for the buck, reliable 1150 MoBo

[Caveman]

So... Leaning towards the Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H - is flashing a board difficult? Are instructions provided?

I will be primarily on a wired connection, but want capability for wireless as well... Is that standard these days on most MoBos?

 

[John Connor]

On Gigabyte MOBOs you can use one of two options, flashing the BIOS with a program called @BIOS or using Qflash. Using Qflash is what I would do. Just format a USB drive to FAT32, put the BIOS on it plug it in and press the key at start up for Qflash.

MOBOs don't have built in WIFI. You will need an adapter.

 

[Totori]

Hi!

I'm in the same boat. I'd like to order my MoBo today from NCIX Canada.
http://www.ncix.com/products/?minorcatid=107

They have D3H @ $110, UD3H @ 140, Extreme4 @ $130 for their sales. What exactly am I paying for in the differences here? I read that sound quality is much better on the Maximus, but could I not just buy a sound card for the difference in price?

I plan on OCing and will likely have a 4770k and a 780 Ti or 290x.

 

[Jacky60]

The MSI Z87 GD-65 is a really well equipped good value 4770k/Haswell overclocking board. It seems to have a loads of stuff commonly associated with much more expensive boards overclockers.net has a review and its won loads of accolades on tech websites.

 

[Charlie98]

They have D3H @ $110, UD3H @ 140, Extreme4 @ $130 for their sales. What exactly am I paying for in the differences here? I read that sound quality is much better on the Maximus, but could I not just buy a sound card for the difference in price?
.

If you are going to buy a sound card... don't cheap out. Onboard audio is what it is, if you are an audiophile you'll need to upgrade no matter what.

 

[Totori]

If you are going to buy a sound card... don't cheap out. Onboard audio is what it is, if you are an audiophile you'll need to upgrade no matter what.

What do you mean by that? Don't cheap out on the sound card or MoBo?

 

[John Connor]

Sound card.

 

[dnut_00]

MOBOs don't have built in WIFI. You will need an adapter.

I must be misreading this somehow. There are quite a bit of Mobos that do, in fact, have on-board Wifi chip. Gigabyte Z87N and H87N being primary examples.

 

[Charlie98]

What do you mean by that? Don't cheap out on the sound card....

The typical audio chipset (Realtek, et al...) on most boards are adequate for most users, even those with 2.1 desktop speakers (like me) or something similar. There isn't really any reason to spend the money and go through the trouble of installing and configuring a $20 sound card... to get, essentially, the same level of audio output. If you are an audiophile... music, movies, instrument playback and recording, etc, you would be going for a high-end sound card (not a $20 one.)

 

[XiandreX]

That one is my choice

I can't speak for the z87 range but my z77-g45 has been superb.

 

[stuff_me_good]

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but I've been planning to buy z87 mobo and so far the ga-z87x-u3d seems the best bang for buck board. My only concern is the fan control of it, since none of the hw sites that review any mobo don't take any opinion about fan control what so ever.

Can you adjust all fans, not just the cpu to go let say 600rpm to fans max rpm depending on temperature? I'm talking uefi setting, I don't want some shitty bloatware fan control to my windows.


The other mobo I was thinking is ga-z87x-ud4h and my concerns raised because in here some people say that gigabyte fan control is pretty limited and by getting high priced mobo only you get proper fan control. http://www.overclock.net/t/1402930/ga-z87x-oc-vs-ga-z87x-ud4h. They say that even basic asus mobos have better fan control than this expensive gigabyte model.

 

[BertolomeoDiaz]

I prefer Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H to MSI G45, because of the additional USB ports, 2 eSATA ports and me not trusting Killer chip.

what´s wrong with it? i have it and it seemed to have improved ping really well
then again i had to deinstall my avast free antivir or the computer would crash, and i blame the killer 2200 software, cause when that was disabled, no crash

works with kaspersky though

have you read anything fishy about it? i´m really interested

 

[dnut_00]

Eh... just some bits here and there. Nothing I can give you a link to. Some driver issues IIRC.

Then again - it was some time ago.

 

[BertolomeoDiaz]

ok, thx anyway,
i was really annoyed with the new rig for a short time, as i had bad instability
and i think it was killer 2200 + avast antivirus, cause when either was turned off it would work, had to do quite some trial and error, though, before i found out,

thought it was the xeon in non workstation approved board or other bad scenario

chose to stick with the lan chip and went kaspersky for antivir
i can see why it (killer 2200) might come up as being buggy in forums and reviews, who knows what software else it interferes with

 

[Remobz]

killer 2200 software is buggy as hell! many people reporting issues with it

 

[BertolomeoDiaz]

yea, but it really reduced ping in world of tanks from ca.70ms to ca.30ms compared to am3+ mobo i used before

 

[MaximumRico]

I had (or have, need to mail it still) a MSI Z87-g45 gaming. the G65 has a few more ports, nothing more as I recall. Anyways, it arrived half DOA since half the RAM slots don't work, so I'm pretty irritated. The KillerNic software from the CD/website has bloatware that makes it garbage, it might be decent if you use the drivers only but fortunately I bought this from Amazon so I'm dumping it and looking for something else. First MSI board I've tried, and I think it'll be the last.

I'm looking at probably Asrock, since my last 3 have been Asrock extreme versions and have been great, but Amazon doesn't really have many options on them. I'd even go with a pro3 but again.. for whatever reason Amazon doesn't have many or they are way higher priced than they should be. I don't intend to SLI anytime soon, though I'm considering getting a soundcard to see the difference as I've never used one.