Basic Z77 gaming motherboard......

[Meghan54]

OK...I'm building up a basic gaming machine for a friend. CPU will be an i3-2100, 8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR3-100 RAM, 500GB Seagate Momentus XT hard drive, an XFX 6670 video card, and an Antec Neo Eco 520W ps.

It's now down to a motherboard and the budget's tight. The main choices I've narrowed it down to are:

AsRock Pro4... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157296

Biostar TZ77A... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138353

Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128547



Leaning towards the AsRock, but the Biostar is interesting. The Gigabyte, while in consideration, isn't really. Suggestions? Recommendations? He really wants a Z77 board so the possibility of cpu upgrade in the future exists.

Thx!

 

[gus6464]

AsRock

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Asrock pro 3

 

[DominionSeraph]

Buying an i3 for future upgrading is kinda a bad choice. People upgrade to the top tier of the socket, not the mid-bottom tier, so reselling will probably be difficult. And an i3 will probably be sufficient for 99% of games for the next 4 or 5 years.

Here's what I'd suggest:

The drive isn't a hybrid but there's a $30 difference in price. Personally I'd rather put the $30 towards a real SSD than have a hybrid drive.

 

[AsusGuy]

AsRock Extreme 4 is a great motherboard with great OC potential and easy to understand UEFI BIOS.

 

[Meghan54]

Well, the die is cast.

First, thanks to all for the suggestions....not that they made any difference in the end. That's because......

Second, the word "friend" in my OP should have been in quotes as this was a system for one of my wife's relatives who is about half my age and knows "everything", and nothing more than a scum-sucking troll (she doesn't like him any more than I do). But I had to play nice.....family and all.

Anyway, this is the setup he decided upon, despite asking for advice and me asking y'all:

Now, I only used Newegg to show what he decided upon....not all the parts were purchased from Newgg.

He damned near forced me to drive him to Boston and take him to MicroCenter....had to---good of the family, according to the wife. Anyway, he walked out with the 2500k and the AsRock Pro4 motherboard combo.....$169 for the cpu, $69 for the motherboard. Not bad, but not my first choice at all. I wanted him to buy an el cheapo motherboard like the aforementioned H61 board or something like it, an i3 2100 cpu and a good gpu.

Nope, he was convinced he had to get the 2500k to game.....like WoW is gaming. He found an open box (returned) Sapphire 7770 for $98, and finally a Thermaltake V3 case for $27.99 after a $10 MIR.

The rest of the listed parts are coming from Newegg....the DVD-RW, the Spinpoint hd, and the memory (such a waste of $$...some generic G. Skill 1333 would have been quite good enough. Idiot.)

Anyway, he was trying to keep under $500 and damned if he didn't almost do it. Wrong mix of parts, but did keep to budget.

Again, thx all.

 

[Magic Carpet]

As the saying goes, don't do business with family. Been there many times. Thanks for sharing, good read.

 

[DominionSeraph]

He damned near forced me to drive him to Boston and take him to MicroCenter....had to---good of the family, according to the wife. Anyway, he walked out with the 2500k and the AsRock Pro4 motherboard combo.....$169 for the cpu, $69 for the motherboard. Not bad, but not my first choice at all. I wanted him to buy an el cheapo motherboard like the aforementioned H61 board or something like it, an i3 2100 cpu and a good gpu.

Nope, he was convinced he had to get the 2500k to game.....like WoW is gaming. He found an open box (returned) Sapphire 7770 for $98, and finally a Thermaltake V3 case for $27.99 after a $10 MIR.

The rest of the listed parts are coming from Newegg....the DVD-RW, the Spinpoint hd, and the memory (such a waste of $$...some generic G. Skill 1333 would have been quite good enough. Idiot.)

Anyway, he was trying to keep under $500 and damned if he didn't almost do it. Wrong mix of parts, but did keep to budget.

Uhhh... but he did really well. Unless there was a correspondingly good deal on an i3 ($100 with a free motherboard would be the equivalent to that i5 deal), I can't fault him for going with the i5 for longevity purposes.
It probably would've been better for him to budget another $50 and get a 6870 (10% more total cost for ~30% speed bump), but if this is for WoW it really isn't needed.

 

[Meghan54]

As the saying goes, don't do business with family. Been there many times. Thanks for sharing, good read.

Yeah, family and business typically don't mix well.

Appreciate the comment.

Uhhh... but he did really well. Unless there was a correspondingly good deal on an i3 ($100 with a free motherboard would be the equivalent to that i5 deal), I can't fault him for going with the i5 for longevity purposes.
It probably would've been better for him to budget another $50 and get a 6870 (10% more total cost for ~30% speed bump), but if this is for WoW it really isn't needed.

I tried to skew the decision toward a better gpu, but he was steadfast about the $500 budget and the 2500k, esp. considering the everlasting $50-off-the-mb deal Microcenter. Hard to pass up on it...I'd probably have done the same thing he did. Moving back to the next chip down MC had, the i3 2100, would have saved him $80 ($169-$89), but would have negated the $50 off the motherboard, and that "savings" was just too much to resist.

I'd wanted him to do buy down and take the 2100, and tjen use the $30 savings toward a better gpu. His counter was he didn't want to forgo the OC'ing of the 2500k and its increased performance, and "besides, the 7770 isn't a horrible gpu", given his 19" LCD monitor.

So, he's happy and MC emptied his wallet. Everyone wins......