- Jul 3, 2010
- 40
- 0
- 18,530
Hey all,
I've been looking a lot at Z77 boards lately, and I can't seem to decide what one to buy.
Firstly, I will say that my color scheme is red and black. I would like to get a board that conforms with that, but I will take performance/features/price over color. My budget is $~230 USD.
My first thought was Asrock. The Extreme series is black with a touch of gold, which would fit in OK, and the Fatal1ty series would fit in perfect. I did a bit of research on those boards, and found they had analog PWM, and the Fatal1ty Performance does not have right angled SATA ports...
Then I had a look at Asus and Gigabyte. These do not fit my color scheme, but I suspect the better warranty/features may overshadow the color aspect. The two boards I am most interested in are the Asus P8Z77-V and the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H. The Asus ($320 NZD) is quite a bit more expensive than the Gigabyte ($270 NZD), but is it worth it? The Gigabyte has less power phases (6+4), but has an LED debug screen. The lack of the 2x 3rd party SATA 3 6Gb/s on the motherboard itself does not concern me, as I will only be using the Intel controlled ones. The Asus board has 8+4 power phases, customizable fan speed software, USB BIOS flashback, Intel LAN, and I suspect better on board sound, but lacks the LED debug screen. I would be willing to go for the PRO version of the Asus board, but I really don't see a lot of difference, especially in my case.
Any information and suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as I am a bit stuck here.
Thanks!
I've been looking a lot at Z77 boards lately, and I can't seem to decide what one to buy.
Firstly, I will say that my color scheme is red and black. I would like to get a board that conforms with that, but I will take performance/features/price over color. My budget is $~230 USD.
My first thought was Asrock. The Extreme series is black with a touch of gold, which would fit in OK, and the Fatal1ty series would fit in perfect. I did a bit of research on those boards, and found they had analog PWM, and the Fatal1ty Performance does not have right angled SATA ports...
Then I had a look at Asus and Gigabyte. These do not fit my color scheme, but I suspect the better warranty/features may overshadow the color aspect. The two boards I am most interested in are the Asus P8Z77-V and the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H. The Asus ($320 NZD) is quite a bit more expensive than the Gigabyte ($270 NZD), but is it worth it? The Gigabyte has less power phases (6+4), but has an LED debug screen. The lack of the 2x 3rd party SATA 3 6Gb/s on the motherboard itself does not concern me, as I will only be using the Intel controlled ones. The Asus board has 8+4 power phases, customizable fan speed software, USB BIOS flashback, Intel LAN, and I suspect better on board sound, but lacks the LED debug screen. I would be willing to go for the PRO version of the Asus board, but I really don't see a lot of difference, especially in my case.
Any information and suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as I am a bit stuck here.
Thanks!
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