B85, H81, H87 or Z87

Derick Lew · Mar 5, 2014

I'm building a gaming rig soon and I do not know which to pick from. I saw some reviews that state B85 is more on business while the 'H' series are more on performance. So tell me guys, which to pick and what brand.

The parts I'm building with are :
Intel Core i3-4130
Nvidia GTX-650 ti boost
or
Amd Radeon R7 260x

Mostly I play games like BF4, Dota 2, Crysis 3 and some RPGs

Tell me which part to choose in terms of price and performance and reason. I know I'm asking a lot but I'm going to use this motherboard for a long period of time. I am not fans on any model, so just recommend the motherboard if you think the board works best on my build.

P.S. My budget is around 100$

Thx

Someone Somewhere · Mar 5, 2014

Any board will be fine for that, as you won't be using any of the special features (OCing and SLI/CF) of the Z87. I'd get a cheap H87 or B85 board with four RAM slots.

I'd also suggest funneling some of the money saved on the MB into the GPU.

I'd pick either an ASRock, Asus, MSI, or Gigabyte board.

Bad_Kitty13 · Mar 5, 2014

here is a quick comparison of the chipsets and you forgot q85 and q87

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

and there is no need for you to go z87 because you have a locked processor listed
h81 has to many options cut out and around same price as b85/h87
b85 q85is goodfor budget builds
q87/h87 are nice for medium range builds with single card set ups and a locked processor
z87 is the mother of all jk but seriously if you want to reserve an option to sli 2/3/4 cards together and over clock

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-motherboard-csmh87mg43
msi is a decent brand, you can go up to 32gb of ram and put up to a 4770 in this puppy and can support 2 card cfx (read article above)
good upgrade path

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asrock-motherboard-h87m
if you want to go a little cheaper get this board but is restricted to 16gbs mem

Bad_Kitty13 · Mar 5, 2014

Someone Somewhere :

on h87 you can sli/cfx 2 cards but it doesnt support 3 or 4
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Z87-H87-H81-Q87-Q85-B85-What-is-the-difference-473/

Someone Somewhere · Mar 5, 2014

Hmm, somewhere I got the idea you couldn't do x8/x8 SLI/CF on an H87. I don't think many manufacturers make boards kitted out with the switches, though.

Bad_Kitty13 · Mar 5, 2014

for the sli no you have to look for them but the amd cfx should still be free through the lanes on the mobo if its the same thing as the 77 series

Derick Lew · Mar 5, 2014

Well my area don't have the Q series(not living in US). And H87 cost nearly the same as the Z87 ones in my countries.. So should I choose B85 which is cheaper or go with cheaper boards like Asrock?(Because Asus and Gigabyte have high price while MSI has less option to choose from, in my area)

Bad_Kitty13 · Mar 5, 2014

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1150

here is a breakdown of features by chipset series to help you decide

Someone Somewhere · Mar 5, 2014

I'd go with an ASRock B85, if that's what's cheap where you are.

Looked through the four big brands (Asus, ASRock, MSI, GB) and none of their high-end (didn't check every single board) H87 boards do x8/x8 dual GPU operation.

You can run Crossfire, but one of the cards is stuck on a PCIe2.0x4 slot, which is kind of bad. And it wipes out all your x1 slots, normally.

Bad_Kitty13 · Mar 5, 2014

it looks like you just lose 2 usb 2 sata 3 but still good for a single card and a cpu upgrade down the road
some of the softwares to raid anti theft etc...

Derick Lew · Mar 5, 2014

Oh ok, but I won't be doing cross fire or SLI tho... One question, is the mini atx board good in performance? Because some of them cost a lot cheaper...

Someone Somewhere · Mar 5, 2014

Micro ATX. Perfectly fine, though there's a little bit less expansion room. You should be fine, though.

Bad_Kitty13 · Mar 5, 2014

he can do mini itx too it has 2 expansion slot
micro atx has 4 expansion slot
both have same performance so long it is same chipset series

Bad_Kitty13 · Mar 5, 2014

Derick Lew :

yes you can as the performance is based off the chipset and not the board itself so long as it is a b85 it will have same internal make up as all other b85 boards there might be less/more sata/usb connection

Derick Lew · Mar 5, 2014

I don't think I'm upgrading anytime soon, so I guess I'll go with the mini built since micro one isn't available here neither =.=
Btw, thx for all the answers and useful infos!

Someone Somewhere · Mar 5, 2014

It seems strange, but Mini-ITX is smaller than Micro-ATX. There is no Mini-ATX.

Derick Lew · Mar 5, 2014

Yeah, they're selling mini-ITX, but luckily I found one store that sells micro-ATX

Thx all!

Bad_Kitty13 · Mar 5, 2014

Derick Lew :

no probs

davcon · Mar 5, 2014

Great low cost B85 mobo with PCI Express 3.0 for gpu.
http://ca.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4567#sp
I've built on this board with an i5 4570 and 7870.
The only downside is you can't use anything faster then 1600Mhz ram(which really isn't a minus).

Derick Lew · Mar 6, 2014

Thx for the extra infos dav!

B85, H81, H87 or Z87

Honorable

Titan

Admirable

Admirable

Titan

Admirable

Honorable

Admirable

Titan

Admirable

Honorable

Titan

Admirable

Admirable

Honorable

Titan

Honorable

Admirable

Judicious

Honorable

Share this page