I've been thinking about upgrading my system for a while, but my motherboard just died so now the situation is urgent.
My current system:
* Antec Solo ATX Mid-Tower case
* Gigabtye GA-MA790XT-UD4P motherboard, not working
* AMD Phenom II X6 1090T cpu (3.5 Ghz base, 3.8 Ghz turbo)
* Nvidia 9500GT video card
* 2 x 4GB memory, 1333Mhz, 9-9-9 timings (G.Skill Sniper)
* Hard drives: 4 mechanical + 1 SSD (all SATA)
* 1 DVD drive using parallel ATA (aka IDE)
* Corsair (rebranded Seasonic) CMPSU-400CX 400 watt power supply
* PCI parallel port card, connected to HP Laserjet 1100A
* PCIe x1 network card (1gb, Marvell Yukon controller)
* Linux OS
My idea is to replace upgrade the CPU to an i5-4690K, which would also be a graphics upgrade since the integrated graphics should be faster than the 9500GT. To go with the CPU, I'm looking for a motherboard that offers:
* Good quality at a reaonable price. Even with good design and manufacturing, some percentage of motherboards are going to fail, but I'd like to minimize the chance that the timing of my next upgrade will be determined by when the motherboard fails.
* I will overclock the processor, probably not aggressively. I don't necessarily need a Z series chipset, because I don't care whether the board will overclock Broadwell.
* 6 or more SATA ports.
* I would ask for an IDE connector to support older DVD drives, but that seems to be out of the question so I'll probably pick up an inexpensive IDE add-in card.
* I need a parellel port for the printer, which presumably means a PCI slot for my parallel port card. Some motherboards (e.g. the MSI Z87-G41 PC Mate) have parallel port headers, which would be an alternative.
Other things that would be nice, but optional, are:
* Being able to overclock the memory controller (which I understand is only possible with a Z series chipset). My current memory is slow, but when I upgrade the memory it would be nice to be able to take advantage of the fastest memory available at a reasonable price.
* An Intel i218-V or i217-V NIC. The GA-MA790XT-UDP4 motherboard used a Realtek NIC, and the Linux drivers were flaky enough that I eventually bought an add-on card to use instead. Since I already have the add-on card, I could always use it with the new board.
* VT-d. According to Wikipedia, VT-d is only supported if you use the Q87 chip set, but a footnote indicates that VT-d was discovered to work on a Z87 board.
* DisplayPort. My current monitor doesn't support it, but my next monitor might.
A couple of boards I've found in my searches are:
* ASRock Z97 Anniversary - $90
* Asus Vanguard B85 (TUF series) - $97
Both have 6 SATA, at least one PCI slot, and an Intel NIC. The Asus also has DisplayPort, and the Asus web site lists it as supporting CPU (but not memory) overclocking even though it's a B85 chipset. But are the prices too low for a good quality product--particularly for the ASRock board? I'd be happy to spend a bit more money to avoid problems.
My current system:
* Antec Solo ATX Mid-Tower case
* Gigabtye GA-MA790XT-UD4P motherboard, not working
* AMD Phenom II X6 1090T cpu (3.5 Ghz base, 3.8 Ghz turbo)
* Nvidia 9500GT video card
* 2 x 4GB memory, 1333Mhz, 9-9-9 timings (G.Skill Sniper)
* Hard drives: 4 mechanical + 1 SSD (all SATA)
* 1 DVD drive using parallel ATA (aka IDE)
* Corsair (rebranded Seasonic) CMPSU-400CX 400 watt power supply
* PCI parallel port card, connected to HP Laserjet 1100A
* PCIe x1 network card (1gb, Marvell Yukon controller)
* Linux OS
My idea is to replace upgrade the CPU to an i5-4690K, which would also be a graphics upgrade since the integrated graphics should be faster than the 9500GT. To go with the CPU, I'm looking for a motherboard that offers:
* Good quality at a reaonable price. Even with good design and manufacturing, some percentage of motherboards are going to fail, but I'd like to minimize the chance that the timing of my next upgrade will be determined by when the motherboard fails.
* I will overclock the processor, probably not aggressively. I don't necessarily need a Z series chipset, because I don't care whether the board will overclock Broadwell.
* 6 or more SATA ports.
* I would ask for an IDE connector to support older DVD drives, but that seems to be out of the question so I'll probably pick up an inexpensive IDE add-in card.
* I need a parellel port for the printer, which presumably means a PCI slot for my parallel port card. Some motherboards (e.g. the MSI Z87-G41 PC Mate) have parallel port headers, which would be an alternative.
Other things that would be nice, but optional, are:
* Being able to overclock the memory controller (which I understand is only possible with a Z series chipset). My current memory is slow, but when I upgrade the memory it would be nice to be able to take advantage of the fastest memory available at a reasonable price.
* An Intel i218-V or i217-V NIC. The GA-MA790XT-UDP4 motherboard used a Realtek NIC, and the Linux drivers were flaky enough that I eventually bought an add-on card to use instead. Since I already have the add-on card, I could always use it with the new board.
* VT-d. According to Wikipedia, VT-d is only supported if you use the Q87 chip set, but a footnote indicates that VT-d was discovered to work on a Z87 board.
* DisplayPort. My current monitor doesn't support it, but my next monitor might.
A couple of boards I've found in my searches are:
* ASRock Z97 Anniversary - $90
* Asus Vanguard B85 (TUF series) - $97
Both have 6 SATA, at least one PCI slot, and an Intel NIC. The Asus also has DisplayPort, and the Asus web site lists it as supporting CPU (but not memory) overclocking even though it's a B85 chipset. But are the prices too low for a good quality product--particularly for the ASRock board? I'd be happy to spend a bit more money to avoid problems.