Midlevel gaming boards - which is most mature/stable?

[src1425]

Will be rebuilding my son's PC for Christmas and, after experiencing a ton of problems as an early adopter of the P67 boards, I'm looking for a mature, midlevel, Z77 gaming board. I've had more luck with Asus than Gigabyte (both times I've built with Gigabyte the first board I received was DOA), and my only other mobo experience is with DFI. Any suggestions for whichever series seems to have worked out most of the kinks and have the fewest problems? Looking to spend about $200, although I can go a bit higher if it's really worth it.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Guest]

I hear AsRock has some good Z77 boards, why dont you give them a look. try this link http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293

 

[smorizio]

doa parts can happen to anyone. i gotten bad board from intel before myself. i find msi..gigbyte and asus make the better mb out there for home builders. asus has better bios on there mb.find msi mb use better parts. on msi if you dont need a lot of pci slot the micro atx g45 is not a bad board for it price. the asus boards...i have a sabertooth mb do have the new usb flashback it a great new feature if your bios goes south. dont need a cpu just power and a usb stick to reflash your bios. also keeps people from bricking there mb. the other part of your sons build to make it real stable make sure you buy 1.5v ddr-3 1600 ram. make sure the ram on the mb tested list or the vendor has tested it on the z77 chipset. the other issue is make sure you size the power supply right..newer mb now using digitial power for the mb..they may not like ac ripple as much as the older voltage regs.

 

[inzone]

ASUS Maximus V Gene LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
$199.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131830

This would be an excellent board for your sons computer reuild , it has the ROG software and features and it has two x16 slots if running two video cards is an option at some point. It also has the Lucid Logic MVP which combines the onboard graphics with your video card for a 60% graphics boost if your not going to se the second card option. Between Black Friday and Xmas there is bound to be a sale or rebate offer and you can end up with a lower price.
I have had Asus , Gigabyte and MSI and of those I always come back to Asus , they make a solid stable board that has a ton of features and the actual board is solid.
I think Gigabyte makes the heaviest boards of any and you know you got something very solid , although they are still second best and have had severeal issuse with just about every Ggabyte board I've had.
The MSI boards are the opposite in that they are very thin and flimsy , I as putting a water block on the cpu out of the case and the board was bending to the point I had to take it off and tighten it in the case when attached to the MB plate , very flimsy. Maybe they use good chipsets and caps but the skimp on other things and this was one of thier top models the Big Bang X-Power.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

I think I would go with the Asus P8Z77-V http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131820 it is a solid ATX board with a lot of good features.

 

[src1425]

ASUS Maximus V Gene LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
$199.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131830

Interesting - I would have never considered a micro ATX board, I've only worked with ATX. Does the smaller board make things more cramped/harder to work with?

 

[inzone]

No , it's basicly the same as the ATX regular size boards only shorter because there are less slots. All the features and connections are there the same as the other boards. If you have a lot of things your going to connect like 6 or 8 hard drives and sound cards lan cards and other things then you could have a space problem but for a simple straight forwqard computer with average connections it should be fine.

The board is 9.9"x9.6" so it's a square board and the Asus P8Z77-V is 12"x9.6" so the width is the same it's just 3" shorter and that comes from taking out two slots.
Plus it's packed with features, I tend to like the ROG Themed boards , they have a lot of nice usefull features and are great for overclocking.

 

[src1425]

Sounds promising. This will be a very straight forward build, 1 SSD, 1 HDD, 1 optical drive, single GPU, and onboard sound. Any substantial pros and cons between the Maximus V Gene and the P8Z77-V Pro?

 

[inzone]

For pros there is the ROG theme , features and software which is enough for me. If you have a side window the black and red theme looks good. Both boards are around $200 so they will be good with sufficient features.

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/Maximus_V_GENE/#overview

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8Z77V/

These are the two product pages for the boards and you'll see right away that the Maximus V Gene is made for gaming and has gread onboard sound setup , plus game first lan feature While the P8Z77-V is a good board for all around use. The other baord that was recomended is the P8Z77-V and not the Pro model which is more expensive.

 

[src1425]

Best answer selected by src1425.