Which motherboard would be best with i7 3770k

Pedro123

Honorable
Sep 7, 2013
15
0
10,510
Hi I am wondering what would be the best motherboard to be used with the i7 3770k, I am looking for a motherboard that would be in keeping with the build I am doing using a corsair 230t in orange and would be able to fully utilise the power of my crossfire 7870. I have a budget of about £150 and if needs be I can perhaps stretch that to 200.

Key requirements

  • must some what match color scheme (not a deal breaker)
    decent to over clock (am a beginner would like to learn)
    great crossfire potential

Any help would be appreciated guys
 

Pedro123

Honorable
Sep 7, 2013
15
0
10,510
Also not a major thing but would like it to feature the best possible speeds for gaming, so fast Ethernet and possible as many sata 3 internal ports as possible.
 

Tradesman1

Legenda in Aeternum
Basically all mobos these days run 1GB ethernet, the EX 4 has 4 SATA II and 4 SATA III, which should be plenty, SSDs are the only drives that even come close to filling the Bandwidth of SATA II, let alone III (optical drives, regular hard drives, etc don't come near SATA II's bandwidth
 

Pedro123

Honorable
Sep 7, 2013
15
0
10,510
Is the Asrock extreme 4 the entry level card for that series, or are their others that offer more features. I don't mind if It doesn't but need to know if I need to secure extras while I can still get them like wireless cards or sound cards, also are their BIOS options available. In the end I want it to be able to be good over all and be even better at gaming without costing an arm and a leg. Also what is Asrock like as a company I heard rumours of them being a part of asus but nothing concrete do they have a good reputation and what their warranties like.
 

Tradesman1

Legenda in Aeternum
They originated as part of Asus, making entry level mobos, then were purchased and went out on their own, since then they have just been steadily climbing and getting better and better, think it was about 2010 they passed MSI to become the 3rd biggest seller of mobos and have continued to pull away from MSI in sales (and a lot of that is taking sales directly away from MSI (as also have Asus and GB, MSI has been on a downward spiral since about 2008/09. The EX 4 is on the lower end of their offerings in the Z77, and I picked my up prior to the actual launch of the IB CPUs, grabbed it when offered as I had a prerelease 3570K already, to be honest I figured I'd pick up a ROG mobo a couple months after the release, but never had a need to, the EX4 has taken everything I throw at it, which is and has been a lot as I use my rigs to test components for new builds and upgrades for clients, have had 280Xs in XFire on mine as well as 780s in SLI, have run DRAM galore and currently run 32GB of Tridents (2400/10) and run my 3570K at 4.7 24/7...it's been the best selling Z77 and is the best rated for both gaming and business use