Whats difference between motherboards series?

tigershrimp

Honorable
Jun 21, 2014
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I'm about to purchase a motherboard, not really into them, the much I know is they're the one's which hold parts together and thats ALL I need (ofc I will need integrated network card inside it..all nowdays motherboards have em)

Currently i got a gigabyte H61M rusty dusty aged board which got LGA1155 socket into which nowdays CPUs can't stick in,thats why decided to buy new one.

How does B85,H81,H87,Z87,H97,Z97 differ from one another? well i know by number of features but meh.. any performance-wise difference? longevity difference?

I prefer getting cheap motherboard since I've gotta save somewhere! bought AU-850PRO PSU, GTX 750 Ti stock OC graphics card and.. forgot how much i paid for the i5-4590. Not a rich man..fine a very poor man here and I definetely aint need 200$ mobo, moreover prices here are like.. way higher than in US.

What i need from the motherboard:

Integrated network card, as much as i know,every mobo has em.
Atleast 1X SATA 3.0 for 6GB/s speed
Durability and more durability, aint wanna see it breaking under pressure, sometimes I'm having 10-20 hour gaming streak and I ain't wanna see it cracking down, my current one didnt, expect the same.
Some more durability (the more the merrier)
No pesky malware ( looking at you,MSI,you guys should make software, not hardware, considering how good you are at first one and pretty poor on the second)

Now ain't sure if any of these are a suitable but these models catched my eye, tell me if there's any other ones which are just as good for less or better for slightly more:

ASRock H81M-VG4 43$ in my place
GA-H81M-S2PV 57,5$ here
GA-H81M-HD3 68$ here
ASROCK B85 Anniversary 80$ here
ASRock B85 PRO4 84$ here
ASRock H97M ANNIVERSARY 86$ here, currently my #1 choice
GA-H97M-HD3 96$ here
ASRock Z97M Anniversary 97$ here
ASRock Z97 Anniversary 110$ here
GA-Z97P-D3 116$ here


Also got a question: heard some people saying that if I'd buy Z97 it will support CPUs of next gen (broadwell) is that true? so if id go with B85,H81,H87 or H97 i wouldnt be able to use broadwell and would need a new motherboard again?

 

Xyos

Distinguished
They denote the chipset type the motherboard is using to communicate with the CPU. Depending on the chipset will dictate in most cases what kind of CPU and RAM the board will take.

For instance the new X99 boards only take CPU's that fit in the intel 2011(3) socket. You will be limited in certain types of cpus/ram you can get depending on the board and its chipset.

In general, Motherboards are not complicated. At best they can give you "dual bios" options, or "better overclocking capability" but for the most part they are pretty similar. Choose what type of CPU you want, then choose the accommodating board.

LGA 1150 is cheap now and is great bang for the buck. I would suggest getting a CPU of that type and the accommodating board.