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Which motherboard should I go for?

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NathanielWalker
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2020/07/05 02:49:25 (permalink)
I'm building a new PC. I'm going with i7-8700k.
I'm not interested in RGB, not interested in how "good" the motherboard looks, but from a purely quality/reliability/function perspective, can you guys help me narrow down which motherboards to look at? There's 
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    kougar
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    Re: Which motherboard should I go for? 2020/07/05 08:57:22 (permalink)
    With a lower price processor you might consider some of the B460 motherboards, Z490 is expensive unless there was something you needed from it. 


    Have water, will cool. 
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    castrator86
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    Re: Which motherboard should I go for? 2020/07/05 09:14:56 (permalink)
    kougar
    With a lower price processor you might consider some of the B460 motherboards, Z490 is expensive unless there was something you needed from it. 




    He's building with a 300-series CPU... recommending 400 series with LGA 1200 is wrong.
     
    If I'm doing a budget build I tend to stick with ASUS boards, as they tend to have a pretty good baseline quality. What really matters more is what features & ports you need for your build...
     
    Do you need 6+ SATA slots for storage? Does using an M2 drive disable any SATA ports? Do you need multiple PCIe slots for add-on cards in conjunction with a GPU? Does your case support full ATX motherboards? How many RAM slots do you want/need?
     
    Lots of answers to these questions that can help narrow down what board is for you.



    #3
    bob16314
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    Re: Which motherboard should I go for? 2020/07/05 14:22:47 (permalink)
    Ah yeah..Decisions decisions.
     
    Determine the features you'll want/need..Also, if you're planning to overclock, BIOS features are very important..You should download and review the mobo manuals/BIOS guides to help you make a final choice..Might wanna read some reviews too..Search the retailer for mobo DIY Combo's and Bundles where you can get things like a mobo and RAM together at a discount.
     
    ASUS Search/Compare
    MSI Search/Compare
    Gigabyte Search/Compare
    Newegg Search/Compare
    How to choose a motherboard - Newegg
    post edited by bob16314 - 2020/07/05 22:34:10

    * Corsair Obsidian 450D Mid-Tower - Airflow Edition * ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero (Wi-Fi AC) * Intel i7-8700K @ 5.0 GHz * 16GB G.SKILL Trident Z 4133MHz * Sabrent Rocket 1TB M.2 SSD * WD Black 500 GB HDD * Seasonic M12 II 750W * Corsair H115i Elite Capellix 280mm * EVGA GTX 760 SC * Win7 Home/Win10 Home * 
     
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    RainStryke
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    Re: Which motherboard should I go for? 2020/07/05 20:39:51 (permalink)
    You can usually depend on ASUS to have good products but frustrating support... luckily they usually maintain enough quality you never have to deal with them. For Z390, Gigabyte got me with the built-in audio DAC feature that works through USB and headphone jack. I highly recommend the Gigabyte Z390 Master. The MSI Z390 ACE is also a great motherboard, but some of the board features like the overclocking knob is pretty silly. Full disclosure with my recommendation though... I never had any issues with my Z390 Master. Not sure if anything changed recently, but a few months ago I discovered Gigabyte completely got rid of their live support... so if you have to contact them about anything outside of the return range, support is limited to the tools they provide on their website. They take around 3 business days to respond to questions. Their Z490 Master is a bit of a mess... I highly recommend to stay away from that one. I couldn't resolve a problem with the LAN getting disabled every time I enabled XMP.
     
    300 series is not bad at all. I love my Z390 boards, pretty sure i'll be hanging onto them for a while.

    With current stock, i'd probably recommend this:
    https://www.newegg.com/asus-rog-strix-z390-f-gaming/p/N82E16813119188

    Main PC | Secondary PC
    Intel i9 10900K | Intel i7 9700K
    MSI MEG Z490 ACE | Gigabyte Aorus Z390 Master
    ASUS TUF RTX 3090 | NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super
    32GB G.Skill Trident Z Royal 4000MHz CL18 | 32GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB 4266MHz CL17
    SuperFlower Platinum SE 1200w | Seasonic X-1250
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    #5
    MSim
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    Re: Which motherboard should I go for? 2020/07/06 04:05:12 (permalink)
    Checkout sites like https://pcpartpicker.com/ to see which motherboard other people are using for  i7-8700k. Look for reviews for motherboards on your shortlist. Don't forget to see how many USB 2.0/3.0 headers you need for AIO Cooler and case front panel USB ports.
     
     


     
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    knightsilver
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    Re: Which motherboard should I go for? 2020/07/07 12:27:55 (permalink)
    MSI gets my vote...
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    RainStryke
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    Re: Which motherboard should I go for? 2020/07/07 14:45:32 (permalink)
    If you can afford it, this is actually a pretty good deal:
    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HMGVR8D?
     
    But you would need an EATX case.
     
    One thing to note... I can't stand boards without post codes and that seems to happen in the $250+ range. I would recommend the ASUS STRIX Z390-E GAMING board over the F variant because of that.
    post edited by RainStryke - 2020/07/07 15:00:20

    Main PC | Secondary PC
    Intel i9 10900K | Intel i7 9700K
    MSI MEG Z490 ACE | Gigabyte Aorus Z390 Master
    ASUS TUF RTX 3090 | NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super
    32GB G.Skill Trident Z Royal 4000MHz CL18 | 32GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB 4266MHz CL17
    SuperFlower Platinum SE 1200w | Seasonic X-1250
    Samsung EVO 970 1TB and Crucial P5 1TB | Intel 760p 1TB and Crucial MX100 512GB
    Cougar Vortex CF-V12HPB x9 | Cougar Vortex CF-V12SPB-RGB x5
     
    3DMark Results:Time Spy|Port Royal

    #8
    kougar
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    Re: Which motherboard should I go for? 2020/07/08 17:31:24 (permalink)
    castrator86
    He's building with a 300-series CPU... recommending 400 series with LGA 1200 is wrong.



    Yikes, yeah you're right I goofed. Didn't pay attention to older 300-series, not even sure what the difference between Z370 and Z390 is. At this point Intel's boards are just a mess. 


    Have water, will cool. 
    #9
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