Best Micro ATX Motherboard?

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The Original Agrajag

The Original Agrajag

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G'day everyone.

I've been scanning the wide world of the web for peer reviews of preferences/experiences with their preferred performance/gaming micro ATX Motherboard as I will be purchasing two of them before the end of the year.

Asus Maximus Gene VII would be my current MOBO of choice with
Intel i5 4690k
2x4 gb high performance ram
Non reference R9 290 or GTX 770/780
250 gb SSD
500 gb HDD
750/850w PSU
Hyper 212 EVO
24x Drive
Windows 7
All chilling in a sexy Obsidian 350d with some LEDs

Thoughts?

I've chosen to build two rigs using M ATX instead of ATX for the following reasons:

Aesthetics
Preference for high performance single GPU setup.
Hopefully better price to performance? (Quality over Quantity)

That being said...

I would like to know your preference of M ATX board but more importantly...

WHY???

(reason I made this thread)

Cheers!!!
 
Solution
smackers_12


Alright, i really wouldn't bother with x99 if you are not using heavily threaded applications. the rog series (the gene is part of this) are part of the top tier of motherboards. Asus' TUF series boards are also good boards (the matx version is called the gryphon), Asus generally make great boards and most of their high level boards are great. Where i live (aus) the z87 gryphon, gigabyte ga-z97mx-gaming 5 and msi z97 g45...
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smackers_12

smackers_12

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The most full featured board in matx right now would be the evga x99 micro, however for gaming the maximum gene is your best bet. I dont know what you mean by "Preference for high performance single GPU setup." but two motherboards of the same level should perform the same with the same graphics card
 
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The Original Agrajag

The Original Agrajag

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The Asus Gene does look good but it is a $30-60 price jump from its competitors. I wonder if its justified?

For many reasons I prefer having a single Beast of a GPU than a multi GPU setup so the extra slots on the ATX seemed redundant for my build.
 
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The Original Agrajag

The Original Agrajag

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Does anyone know if the ASUS M VII GENE is the top dog in this form factor or is there anything that's even higher tier for me to look at? It looks to be the highest quality M ATX board that my preferred retailer stocks ATM but I would be willing to shop further afield, if for nothing else than comparison.

Anyone have any personal experience with high performance M ATX cards?

Cheers.
 
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smackers_12

smackers_12

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I think the gene is top of the z97 boards although the gryphon is also strong, however the x99 micro has more features and there will be some more x99 matx boards coming soon if your into x99. You really dont need lga 2011 for gaming but if you are doing any heavily threaded workloads it might be worth.
 
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smackers_12

smackers_12

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I dont have an x99 but if you are using heavily threaded programs it will be an improvement. If you are just gaming z97 will be great and there will be a very small improvement stepping up to x99 compared to the price increase
 
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The Original Agrajag

The Original Agrajag

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I like the look of the 2011 chipset boards but I see your point and I'm both without the need for multi-threading and my preferred budget is at breaking point with the rig(s) I've selected. You see, I'm building two similar rigs side by side even though my wallet will probably apply for a divorce afterwards....
 
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smackers_12

smackers_12

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Alright, i really wouldn't bother with x99 if you are not using heavily threaded applications. the rog series (the gene is part of this) are part of the top tier of motherboards. Asus' TUF series boards are also good boards (the matx version is called the gryphon), Asus generally make great boards and most of their high level boards are great. Where i live (aus) the z87 gryphon, gigabyte ga-z97mx-gaming 5 and msi z97 g45 and the gene are really the only widely available high tier matx z97 boards. gigabyte boards are decent but that is a very gamer oriented board (the gene is also to a point). MSI boards are ok but in the past they have had some build quality issues and i stay away generally. You probably wont go wrong with either of the Asus boards. I still like to read reviews before i buy. Keep in mind that customer reviews on newegg etc will be skewed negatively as most people wont write a review when their tech shows up and works but will if it does not.
 
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Solution
smackers_12

smackers_12

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The gene also has some features like gaming focussed ethernet and higher grade audio on a separate pcb. If you are not really interested in this the gryphon is probably a safe bet, the TUF series boards are supposed to be about reliability.
 
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The Original Agrajag

The Original Agrajag

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Cheers for the info.

I have had a look at the Gryphon but I was worried as the spec sheet from ASUS shows a very limited list of supported DDR3 data rates, only up to 1866 as far as I can tell. But then I realized that most boards are using sneaky marketing and only offer higher than 1866 with an OC. Sneaky buggers! I guess that's why forums are the only way to get to the right info.

I can't find out if the Gryphon would achieve higher data transfer rates with an OC. Do any of you know?
 
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The Original Agrajag

The Original Agrajag

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Rog series looks like the one then as I'm a bit of a features slut... lol. I'll keep looking into the Gryphon as I'm building two micro ATX rigs and while I'd like both boards to run the same brand of MOBO the needs of each rig are not identical. Cheers for the info Smackers!
 
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