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Choice of 3 mobos

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Last response: April 27, 2012 7:12 PM in Motherboards

moakus

April 26, 2012 5:36:51 PM

I am looking to update my old AMD computer, which I built 6 years ago, to a newer Intel SB or IB system.

I do some gaming: Black Ops, MW3, Civ. 5, etc, but I have never used or felt I needed max settings. Other than this gaming the computer is mostly used for basic stuff: internet surfing, spreadsheets, word documents, etc.

I am planning on purchasing the SB Core i5 2500k processor or equivalent IB processor when they show up in retail stores on the 29th.

The only motherboard feaure I am interested in is the overclocking utility for K series processors, which is why I am deciding between the Z68 and Z77 chipsets. I plan to do light overclocking with air cooling (current processor is stable OC'ed from 2.8 to 3.2).

Anyway, I am on a serious budget (looking for a mobo<$100) and torn between the following 3 motherboads:

Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 - $89
http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GA-Z68AP-D3-Intel-1155-M...

Biostar TZ68K+ - $80
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/ite...

BIOSTAR TZ77B - $80
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

The biostar one from newegg is tempting because of such a low price for a z77, but I don't really think I will use any of the features in the z77 that are not already in the z68s. I guess I am looking for advice on which of these 3 mobos is the best quality and/or value. I don't have any experience with Biostar or Gigabyte. My current mobo is ECS and I probably would not buy an ECS one again.

Thanks for the input.

More about : choice mobos

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tha_vice

April 26, 2012 8:17:16 PM

One thing I would consider is since you're changing over to the intel IB is : does your current hardware I.e. memmory, video card, HD etc... support the newwer hardware or vice versa, the memory standard would be a deciding factor on wheter or not you can take your existing Stuff and put it on a new board.

But if I had to choose between Biostar ,and Gigabyte, i'd go with Gigabyte. Heatsinks look better too.

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moakus

April 26, 2012 8:24:35 PM

Thanks for the input. I forgot to mention that I am planning on getting new memory too (DDR3 1600), so a new mobo, CPU and memory. I already have a new PSU (600W) and Hard Drive (Seagate 1TB), and I am planning to keep my old case and video card (Radeon 4850).

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foscooter

Motherboard Expert

April 26, 2012 8:26:55 PM

^+! Agree.

Z68 motherboards needs DDR3-1600 RAM, but it's only 8GB (2x4GB) for $50.00ish.

Do you have a PCI-e video card? Or you can use the oonboard GPU of the SB/IV CPUs, if the mobo have display ports. I didn't look.

Do you have (at least) SATA II hard drives?

What kind of power suplly do youo have.

As you can tell, upgrading to a new system means A NEW SYSTEM: CPU, mobo, RAM, Video, PSU, and most of the time, a case.