Comments on z87 1150 board/non gaming 24/7 reliable linux

[you2]

I'm thinking of upgrading my asrock extreme 4 (sandy bridge) system. I'll be pulling the memory from the old system so I'm just looking at the cpu/motherboard.
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I will be using the on-board video (no video card - no overclocking). I will have 6 hard disk and 2 optical disk.
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I can buy at microcenter (bundle $$$)
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I'm mostly looking at the asus pro z87 which is around $170 and the asrock extreme6 (around $140) but would be open to other considerations.
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I slightly prefer the exmtre6 because it has 10 sata ports instead of 8; I slightly prefer the asus pro 87 because the reviews on newegg seem to indicate less user issues (though one person commented on issue with gskill memory which is what I use in the current system)
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The cpu would likely be the i5-4670K but only because it is cheaper than the i5-4570 (at micro center - you get $30 off the mb with the K version)
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I'm not upgrading for performance reason my current system south bridge runs extrremely hot when the disks are active and occasionally has stability issues.
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Both the asrock and asus pro have 1150 for audio (I care about audio) but I do not know if the support chips around audio are the same.
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Currently i do require a pci slot; hum maybe that rules out the asus z87 pro ? I guess I would need the z87 plus which has the alc892 - hum. Well any comments would be useful. I'm mostly concern about stabiilty/reliability and the board meets my pci/sata requirements.

 

[bigsnyder]

In addition to the extreme6:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157377 (not sure if this is available at Microcenter)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128593 (this one appears on Microcenter)

Both boards have 10 SATA and at least one PCI slot and decent sound implementations.

 

[you2]

thanks - btw microcenter is not a requirement - its a long walk but if i can save $50 i'll probably take the walk.
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the first board (asrock fatality) seems similar to the extreme6 but has creative 3d sound; dual gig e-ports; no dvi but it does have display port which works for myself.
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The second one (gigabyte z87x-ud5h) I skipped because of a large number of negative reviews on newegg.
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Interesting will dig more into the fatality.

 

[Ketchup]

What kind of temps are you seeing? If anything, I would think Ivy Bridge would be the way to go for lower temps. When Haswell came out, IIRC, it actually pulled more power than Ivy did, at the same die size. You also wouldn't need a new board, as long as you were running a supporting BIOS.

 

[you2]

The south bridge on my sandy z68 is often too hot to touch. My guess is over 65c - probably closer to 70c or 75c. Probably the heat sink on it is too small for the amount of heat it generates. there is no issue with the cpu which idles below 32c and peaks at 55c when all four cores are at 100%. Board is around 3 years old and is populated with a 2500k running stock speed.

What kind of temps are you seeing? If anything, I would think Ivy Bridge would be the way to go for lower temps. When Haswell came out, IIRC, it actually pulled more power than Ivy did, at the same die size. You also wouldn't need a new board, as long as you were running a supporting BIOS.

 

[Emulex]

if you want reliable, wouldn't you choose a mobo that supports ECC memory properly?

 

[Ketchup]

Temps look about right. Haswell chips get even hotter under load. What cooling are you using?

 

[you2]

stock cooling but case is full tower with decent fans. I thought the southbridge for haswell was a bit cooler ?

Temps look about right. Haswell chips get even hotter under load. What cooling are you using?

 

[you2]

well there is a trade off between reliability and cost but it does bring up an interesting issue we have at work where current software does not currently register a detected but unfixable bit error on our ecc systems.

Also that is a different (but valid) kind of reliability. I'm will to accept an occasional bit error but i would rather not have a system that is constantly down.

if you want reliable, wouldn't you choose a mobo that supports ECC memory properly?

 

[bigsnyder]

Most of the gigabyte complaints have been addressed with bios updates if it matters. There is a gigabyte z87 thread over at overclock.net with more details.

 

[you2]

Are the gigabyte boards more reliable than the asrock or asus boards ? A lot of the complaints on newegg are early deaths (dead after 3 or 4 months).

 

[Emulex]

Probably a combination of non-ideal cooling and running the board too hot, again, OEM systems have great design as far as cooling, and most of us don't have the fluid dynamics skills to make proper airflow to keep all parts of the board/ram/cards properly cooling evenly all the time.

reminds me of my shuttle tiny pc with i7-980x - the cpu ran fine, but the IOHub ran so darn hot it finally kicked it!.

With the enormous amounts of ram in use these days, a bit flip is very likely, and ECC memory can detect and protect against this - not only in RAM, but also to your bus objects (Quadro card, LSI SAS Controller, 10gbe nic) which support end to end ECC.

It is the reason why servers/high end workstations can run forever without crashing!

 

[you2]

Btw I've been saying south bridge runs hot but it is the north bridge I believe. I understand the issue with bit error just that an occasional bit flip is acceptable in my environment (this is mostly a media server used for web access; not use for game or mission critical data) and the cost for bit error protection will raise the price from $300 to 400-500.

 

[Geforce man]

I'd vote for the extreme 6, as I have the p67 Extreme 6 paired with a sandy bridge @ 4600Mhz for almost 3 years now, 100% trouble free. Best motherboard I have ever owned bar none.