Choosing a motherboard

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Unboundstorm

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Hey, I'm sorta new to the more detailed technology world and I'm having trouble choosing a motherboard to buy. A friend of mine at school and I are building a gaming PC and I only need to order the mobo, the RAM and the graphics card, but I'm stuck between two mobos. They are the MSI Z87 G45 and the ASRock Fatal1ty Killer. As far as I can tell, they seem very similar in specs, only differing in a few categories and mostly just buy a few different ports and stuff. My friend recommends the MSI, but on newegg, after the rebates, its $140 but hte ASRock is 115 and, being only a high school senior working a McDonalds a few days a week, money is sorta limited. He says he recommends MSI because he trusts them and doesn't know if ASRock is very reliable or a good brand, so if someone could tell me if the MSI/ASRock is better than the other and which one it is going to be more worthwhile to buy, that would be much appreciated.
 
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IInuyasha74
I would go with one of these three. The MSI board is cheapest here and is solid, doesn't lose any important features and has everything you would need. The Gigabyte board I think is the best if you won't be overclocking. It has a really nice improved audio system. The BIOSTAR is not quite as good of a known company but still pretty good. They have improved audio also but not as much as the Gigabyte board. Its big advantage is that it has the Z87 chipset so even if you wanted to overclock, with this you can.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130700
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128674
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138381

Again, if you do not get a "k" CPU then...
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Gam3r01

Gam3r01

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Both are great makers, ASrock is known for lower prices without sacrificing quality. Both almost have the same quality as Asus.
I would say get the ASrock, its a good motherboard and the MSI is more simply because it carries the MSI name most likely.
 
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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I have only bought a few motherboards in all truth, but I have bought two MSI and ASrock motherboards in the last 1.5 years. Here are a few comments i could say about them.

ASrock:
Seem to be the best priced almost always. They are really cheap.
Often have a lot of ports, both motherboards I got from them had 8 SATA ports and at least 6 USB ports. The cheaper one had only two internal USB headers, but had 4 USB 3.0 ports on the back, and that was for like $50.
BIOS overall feels stable on both. A little sluggish maybe with fairly average features but so far it all performs pretty well.

Cons:
Their customer support might as well be non-existent. If either board dies on me, and one did just a few days ago and they still haven't answered me, you are out of luck. Unless you wanna go knock on their front door, I don't think they will ever answer you. I tried two times before to contact their customer support, because on my ASrock Extreme4-M Z77 motherboard, I am 95% positive that one of my PCI-E ports is dead. That was like 6-months ago and they still never answered me.

MSI:
Looks and feels higher quality.
No issues at all.
BIOS feels very fluid and fast.
I would bet their customer service is better.

Cons:
More expensive usually.




I would also ask are you planning to overclock? If not you have no reason to buy a Z87 motherboard. It will just cost you more money for features you won't use.
 
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Unboundstorm

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Would you be able to tell tell me if all the stuff I'm getting is going to be able to plug into the ASRock board? I'm getting an intel i5 4670 processor (LGA 1150), i know that should fit on it, either the EVGA Geforce 660 signature 2 02G-P4-2661-KR or the Gigabyte GV-N660OC-2GD, and then G.Skill X Series 8GB DDR3 F3-14900CL8D-8GBXM RAM.

And one last thing, will a 735W psu be enough to run all of this comfortably?
 
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Unboundstorm

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Noob question here: I've heard a lot about people overclocking and from the little research I've done on it, it looks to me like it increases the frequency that your processor operates at and makes your computer run faster. (correct me if I'm wrong), but what exactly does it mean to overclock, how do you do it and what are the advantages/disadvantages of it, because based on what I've been reading, i was thinking about possibly overclocking a few months or so down the road but not right away.
 
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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Basically yes that is the idea. The word "overclock" comes because computers work on a clock of sorts. Think of it like your computer running at 3.5ghz does 3,500,000,000 calculations every second. When you raise this to 3.6ghz it is going faster and will will do 100,000,000 more calculations per second than if you don't. Thats simplified, but gets the general idea.

To do it, you would need a z87 chipset, with a CPU that ends in a "k". For example an i5-4570k or i7-4770k. The advantage of overclocking them is that you can get more performance. The i5-4570k is popular because it can beat every i7 CPU except an i7 ending with "k" because it can run at a faster speed like 4.5ghz. To get it to that speed you probably need to increase the power it is using, and give it better cooling though.

Good news is if you go for overclocking on a "k" processor, then Intel has a thing where they will replace one you break on accident by overclocking it too far. If you aren't interested though, I would advise going for an Intel Xeon CPU and a motherboard with a cheaper chipset.
 
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Unboundstorm

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Is there any advantage to having a Z87 chipset other than overclocking? And if not, should i still get a mobo with Z87 since I'm planning on making this computer last a long time by just upgrading parts as they become outdated? (that is to say, should i get it so that when i upgrade the processor, i can just get one that can overclock?)
 
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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See this link.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Z87-H87-H81-Q87-Q85-B85-What-is-the-difference-473/

Pretty much, if you plan to one day use two or more graphics cards, you might see a minor, very small benefit to it. Other than that and overclocking abilities, there is nothing better about it.
 
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Unboundstorm

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Dec 28, 2013
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If i do not go with one of the Z87 boards right now, do you have a few recommendations for a board to get? (I'd like to keep it under $140-150 if possible)
 
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IInuyasha74

IInuyasha74

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May 1, 2013
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I would go with one of these three. The MSI board is cheapest here and is solid, doesn't lose any important features and has everything you would need. The Gigabyte board I think is the best if you won't be overclocking. It has a really nice improved audio system. The BIOSTAR is not quite as good of a known company but still pretty good. They have improved audio also but not as much as the Gigabyte board. Its big advantage is that it has the Z87 chipset so even if you wanted to overclock, with this you can.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130700
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128674
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138381

Again, if you do not get a "k" CPU then I highly recommend getting a Xeon processor instead. Its the same as an i7 but at the price of the i5.
 
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Unboundstorm

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Dec 28, 2013
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Ok. Thank you so much for your help and probably lots of patience with my lack-of-knowledge!
 
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