Too darned Mobos to choose from!!!

X

Xa3phod

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 19, 2012
Messages
170
I'm not a fanboy nut ASUS has served me well with its P8P67-Pro M these years. I want to upgrade to Skylake and holy crapola does ASUS has a crapload of Mobos to choose from. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure it out, but I can't make heads of tails.

ASUS SABERTOOTH Z170 S LGA 1151
ASUS SABERTOOTH Z170 S LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com
This one looks good, its only $189.

ASUS Z170-A LGA 1151 Intel Z170
ASUS Z170-A LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com
This one also looks good for $154.

Then you have the
ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII HERO ALPHA for $288!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132699
and
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132586
ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII RANGER $195!

Dunno, I thought Rangers were Heros...oh well.
There are a ton more, but I don't have the time or the patience to list them all...and I'm not married to Asus...I don't mind Gigabyte or Asrock..or whatever.

What I do want is intense gaming performance, moderate overclocking ability. I don't care what color it is, I don't care if it has LEDs flashing all over the place, just want it to work...

Advice?
Thanks in advance.



 
Sabertooth boards are meant to be rock-solid in terms of reliability, the others are various degrees of overclocking/gaming boards.
 
Thanks for the response.

So, if you had to choose one for gaming/moderate overclocking, but I would like durability..which would you choose?
 
Sabertooth all the way... 9 out of 13 of my machines are built with sabertooth Boards from intel x58 all the way to my lastest Z170, and even my AMD platforms are Sabertooth 990FX. always reliable, great overclocking, great features. Im a truly Sabertooth fanboy.
 
I'm planning to go z170 once the new Pascall cards are announced. Already decided on the Sabertooth for my mobo.
 
why do Asus boards only carry one m.2 Drive? I really want a minimum of 2. :(
 
In the market for a Z170 board myself. You're right their are too many! But I have narrowed it down to that Sabertooth Z170 S or the Asrock Extreme 7+.
 
I'm just going to assume you're limiting yourself to ASUS, because there's even more motherboards that you're not considering. Plus, if I start listing MSI motherboards with military grade components, you're going to be even more confused. LOL.

For overclocking? Well, how extreme is your OC going to be? I'd say the Maximus boards are great for extreme overclocking... they can handle LN2 (Liquid Nitrogen, I think) and they're also packed with tons of features that few people need. The cheaper Maximus Ranger is probably good for overclocking too, but maybe less expensive.

Here are the differences between those two Maximus models, if you're interested. This is based on the Newegg specs list. I'd be pretty confident in the OC ability of both boards.

Hero advantages:

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity built-in
U.2 SSD interface support
RGB LED headers (for case decoration)

Ranger advantages:

Price
SATA Express
Thunderbolt header
TPM module header

Other than that, they seem to be very, very similar boards. I don't think you could go wrong with either one. I would personally guess that it will come down to whether you want Thunderbolt or U.2 SSD support more. Those seem to be the only features differentiating the two boards, and that's assuming the guy typing up the specs at Newegg didn't miss something.

The other board that's much cheaper is more of a standard model... probably still good enough, but it might not handle Liquid Nitrogen and might give you a slower OC by 100MHz. I think other OEMs have better offerings at this price point, though. It's very competitive down there, while ASUS has the ultra high-end $200+ area sewn up pretty well.
 
Last edited:
That Asrock Extreme 7+ is quite the board. I don't have much experience with Asrock though and from my perspective at least, they seem like a low tier brand.
 
athenian200 said:
I'm just going to assume you're limiting yourself to ASUS, because there's even more motherboards that you're not considering. Plus, if I start listing MSI motherboards with military grade components, you're going to be even more confused. LOL.

For overclocking? Well, how extreme is your OC going to be? I'd say the Maximus boards are great for extreme overclocking... they can handle LN2 (Liquid Nitrogen, I think) and they're also packed with tons of features that few people need. The cheaper Maximus Ranger is probably good for overclocking too, but maybe less expensive.

Here are the differences between those two Maximus models, if you're interested. This is based on the Newegg specs list. I'd be pretty confident in the OC ability of both boards.

Hero advantages:

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity built-in
U.2 SSD interface support
RGB LED headers (for case decoration)

Ranger advantages:

Price
SATA Express
Thunderbolt header
TPM module header

Other than that, they seem to be very, very similar boards. I don't think you could go wrong with either one. I would personally guess that it will come down to whether you want Thunderbolt or U.2 SSD support more. Those seem to be the only features differentiating the two boards, and that's assuming the guy typing up the specs at Newegg didn't miss something.

The other board that's much cheaper is more of a standard model... probably still good enough, but it might not handle Liquid Nitrogen and might give you a slower OC by 100MHz. I think other OEMs have better offerings at this price point, though. It's very competitive down there, while ASUS has the ultra high-end $200+ area sewn up pretty well.
Click to expand...

You seem quite knowledgeable in the two brands i've been looking at for that past two weeks. Frankly I'm a creative director so a lot of what I do is graphics, rendering and such. After many years I've recently decided to build myself a PC that can handle serious prosumer software as well as gaming to the full potential available today. For this I've settled on a single 980 ti coupled with say 6700k, 32GB of 3200 dominator kit, 512 sammy m.2. etc...

I've been bouncing back and forth between Asus and MSI (glancing at Gigabyte from time to time), and I've almost settled on the Asus Z170 deluxe despite it having only 1 M.2 drive slot (I want 2 minimum) and despite some of the negative reviews I've read that I think could be attributed to how new these NVME and M.2 configurations are. What really sold me was that keyboard feature this board has with the macros.

Is there a better option for my money?

TIA!
 
theDeviL said:
You seem quite knowledgeable in the two brands i've been looking at for that past two weeks. Frankly I'm a creative director so a lot of what I do is graphics, rendering and such. After many years I've recently decided to build myself a PC that can handle serious prosumer software as well as gaming to the full potential available today. For this I've settled on a single 980 ti coupled with say 6700k, 32GB of 3200 dominator kit, 512 sammy m.2. etc...

I've been bouncing back and forth between Asus and MSI (glancing at Gigabyte from time to time), and I've almost settled on the Asus Z170 deluxe despite it having only 1 M.2 drive slot (I want 2 minimum) and despite some of the negative reviews I've read that I think could be attributed to how new these NVME and M.2 configurations are. What really sold me was that keyboard feature this board has with the macros.

Is there a better option for my money?

TIA!
Click to expand...

Well, if you're sure you want M.2 rather than U.2, then I can safely suggest these very similar boards:

MSI MSI Gaming Z170A GAMING M5 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com
MSI MSI Gaming Z170A GAMING M7 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

The M7 and the M5 have military class components and are very durable. I've been using an MSI board on a computer I've been leaving on almost 24/7 for the past three years and it's still very stable. MSI boards are known for stability, and that was what was important to me when I was picking a board. I haven't tried overclocking on it, but a lot of other people say these boards rival ASUS boards in that department as well. In your case, they both have two M.2 ports.

ASUS is a great OEM, I usually go with them when I want to spend more than $250 on a motherboard or I'm considering extreme overclocking. But MSI is who I go with for the sub $200 motherboards. Just a personal preference, not something I'd inflict on someone else.

The M5 is pretty much the same board as the M7, but for $30 less, you only lose the following features:

1 fewer HDMI ports on the board
No DisplayPort built into the board
One fewer USB 2.0 ports.
The type-C USB 3.1 port (you get a regular Gen2 in place of it).
Game Boost/Power/Reset buttons for automatic overclocking.

But really, most people use the video I/O on the back of their video card anyway, and those buttons are a convenience feature. Notice how they don't really take away anything substantial from the design?

Oh, and the M5 claims it supports U.2 through a special host card that's not included... I didn't look into that, but it might be something you want look into.
 
First thing I look at for board is the expansion slot configuration.

I usually see what will actually work for what I need and then go from there.

Reviews and specs come after that.

Truth be told is that most motherboards have a really crappy expansion slot configuration.

Limit it down to the ones that don't and you are left with not nearly as many choices.
 
athenian200 said:
Well, if you're sure you want M.2 rather than U.2, then I can safely suggest these very similar boards:

MSI MSI Gaming Z170A GAMING M5 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com
MSI MSI Gaming Z170A GAMING M7 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

The M7 and the M5 have military class components and are very durable. I've been using an MSI board on a computer I've been leaving on almost 24/7 for the past three years and it's still very stable. MSI boards are known for stability, and that was what was important to me when I was picking a board. I haven't tried overclocking on it, but a lot of other people say these boards rival ASUS boards in that department as well. In your case, they both have two M.2 ports.

ASUS is a great OEM, I usually go with them when I want to spend more than $250 on a motherboard or I'm considering extreme overclocking. But MSI is who I go with for the sub $200 motherboards. Just a personal preference, not something I'd inflict on someone else.

The M5 is pretty much the same board as the M7, but for $30 less, you only lose the following features:

1 fewer HDMI ports on the board
No DisplayPort built into the board
One fewer USB 2.0 ports.
The type-C USB 3.1 port (you get a regular Gen2 in place of it).
Game Boost/Power/Reset buttons for automatic overclocking.

But really, most people use the video I/O on the back of their video card anyway, and those buttons are a convenience feature. Notice how they don't really take away anything substantial from the design?

Oh, and the M5 claims it supports U.2 through a special host card that's not included... I didn't look into that, but it might be something you want look into.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the very insightful feedback, I have my work cut out for me. You mention U.2 vs M.2, I don't favor one over the other but I do think m.2 is the future at least for boot media. I've had an intel nuc as a media center box since it was first made available and that thing is still running strong, I've turned is off maybe once of twice a year for the past few years and its rock solid.
 
I like the spacing between the big PCIe slots on the MSI m5; good for air airflow while computing with GPUs.

Not sure if I like the 16/0 vs 8/8 option with two slots. Limit of the chipset ?
 
I recently started searching fora z170 board as well. So many options to choose from. I really like several of the suggestions posted in this thread. Once again the [H] community really shines :).
 
+1 for Sabertooth. I bought a Maximus series board for OC but found it has a ton of features most of which I disable for better OC. It has a lot of "feature adds" but also costs more. If I could do it all over again, I'd pick a Sabertooth for just OCing and gaming.
 
I just purchased my second sabertooth board. You definitely get what you pay for.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top