PCFormat Forum Archive

So finally I am planing to move on from my trusty(but now slow) core 2

First issue is which motherboard do i choose, my budget for this is R1600 and have narrowed it down to these Z77 boards

Asrock z77 extreme 4 @ R1634

MSI Z77A-G45 @ R1444

GIGABYTE GA-Z77MX-D3H @ R1675

There are a number of attractive asrock z77 boards that go for a bit less but the extreme 4 seems like the best idea. The msi board is not bad but has less sata 6 ports than the asrock and less usb 3.0 ports. The gigabyte is in a way already crossed off the list, but being a gigabyte fan I would like one.

There does not seem to be much for under R1600 from ASUS

I would stick with the Gigabyte personally, but if you've already crossed it off your list, then Asrock would get my vote.

That's what I sort of concluded. The gigabyte is a bit pricy for what you get, the asrock offers much more at the same price but I have never owned an asrock so have no idea if it will go up in smoke after a few months or not

Did build a pc for a friend based on the Z77 fatal1ty performance board and build quality seemed ok but I would not recommend that particular model as i found it to be poor value

THE_STIG wrote:That's what I sort of concluded. The gigabyte is a bit pricy for what you get, the asrock offers much more at the same price but I have never owned an asrock so have no idea if it will go up in smoke after a few months or not

Did build a pc for a friend based on the Z77 fatal1ty performance board and build quality seemed ok but I would not recommend that particular model as i found it to be poor value

I've only ever used the seriously budget Asrock boards (didn't even know they had a high end range), but all of them kept running for years. The layout of Asrock boards were always a little cramped in my experience, but no one I ever used one for was even remotely interested in overclocking or serious gaming, so it didn't really matter once you got everything in place.

I only have bad memories of MSI boards.

I always end up defaulting to Gigabyte, even though they have become pricey, because I just want stability.

Well now they seem to do decent performance boards with overclocking in mind, seems to overclock well enough in the reviews I have read. I have never had a bad experience with MSI just that their products were a bit flimsy at one point, looks ok now.

Yep, I have had a gigabyte in my pc's for a long time and none(except the one in the k6) have ever given any hassles but they are just too pricy now, same with ASUS

I've always had a good experience with Gigabyte and MSI

Being the MSI fan the choice is a no brainer... I'd go with the ASRock. The same reasons jumps up as why I didn't go for the MSI Big Bang board when I decided between Intel, MSI and ASUS for my board. USB3 and SATA6 ports. And the ASRock has 6 USB3 ports which is nice.

So there... ASRock based on features.

So what cpu are you opting for?

Asrock it is then.

the CPU is the next issue. The cheapest i5 is about R1800 but the i5 3570k is about R600 more so is it worth going for anything other than the 3570K. I have so far decided that it must be an ivy bridge cpu

I had an Asrock board once. Was none too impressed and told myself I'll never own one again. It was stable and never died, but the performance was really poor- in its defence though, it was an entry level board.

I'm an MSi fan myself, but it the chipsets (and performance) are all the same then the Asrock does seem the best value.

Yep performance if very much the same for all Z77 based boards

THE_STIG wrote:broads

That's a little derogatory. We call them "chicks" these days.

oh noes. Why did I not see that

Stuart wrote:

THE_STIG wrote:broads

That's a little derogatory. We call them "chicks" these days.

Chicks with USB sticks and broads with SATA ports...

I doubt the clock speed difference is justified with the price. I could be wrong but 3.1ghz vs 3.4ghz isn't something to write home about.

True that, the performance difference is pretty small. But the 3570k does have an unlocked multiplier, or is the good old 2500k still a good buy?

THE_STIG wrote:T... or is the good old 2500k still a good buy?

No. Same price, same performance, higher power consumption. In the end that lower power consumption from Ivy does have its benefits. And remember Sandy only does PCI-E v2.2 while Ivy does V3.0 which ends up doubling the graphics cards bandwidth giving maybe 10% increased speed that way in the next year or 2.

If your overclocking you will need a better fan. Ivy is hotter by default from that one review a while back due to the heat spreader being smaller.

Then on the next note... graphics card?

For now I have too keep my gts450. Cant afford cpu mobo ram and gfx all at once. Yep, I wont even remove the stock Intel fan from the packaging, I will continue to use my TX3 and see how that goes

Will also hang on to the case, psu, HDD's, dvd drives and the other bits and pieces

With regards to the ram. Is the Team xtreem dark series 8gb DDR3 1600 kit any good? At R385 it seems the cheapest 8gb kit at rebeltech

If it works, it will be as nearly as good as anything else as makes no difference. Should have lifetime warranty as well.

Yep, claims to have that.

I just found R385 for an 8gb kit of gaming ram to be a bit too good to be true.

You'll get RAM with faster timings and higher speeds, but will pay a lot more. And you'll find much more expensive RAM with the same specs as you have that might OC slightly better, but benchmarking shows that RAM speed does not have nearly as big an influence on performance as GPU and CPU has. I am sure you know all of this already though.

I have cheap as dirt RAM, as you can see in my sig, and have now added 4GB more of can't remember the brand. That essentially no-name Zeppelin RAM has never gone wrong.

One possible thing to look out for though, is that the RAM might advertise 1600MHz, but will actually be set to detect at 1333MHz. You just need to fix that in the BIOS. I left mine at 1333MHz.

I think I will go for it anyway. 8GB with fancy heatsinks for R385 I think is worth the risk.....better than being ripped of by matrix for budget ram, seriously not a fan of them anymore

Don't like them either. Just bought two old laptops and hear from the guy that the previous own bought a new 6 cell battery for the other one from Matrix for R1000 odd. I bought a 9 cell battery for my laptop from eBay for R300, shipping included. Both are non-original parts.

Yep, after discovering places like rebeltech I will never buy anything from them again. Certainly not graphics cards, they insist on selling that cheap(the price sure aint) forsa stuff

For accessories like fans and such they are ok but for motherboards, CPU's and such not so much

As far as I'm concerned, the budget RAM you get at Matrix works as well as anything else.

Stuart wrote:As far as I'm concerned, the budget RAM you get at Matrix works as well as anything else.

Not saying that there is anything wrong with the ram, just that it is more expensive than the same stuff from places like rebeltech. Particularly their gaming ram