Favorite "white-box builder" mobo? For 1150 and 1151?

[VirtualLarry]

Do we have any white-box builders or people that work for shops like that, that want to comment on "favorite", or "cheap", "entry-level / budget" boards?

For 1151, the cheaper G4560 3.5Ghz Pentium with HT is generating a lot of positive buzz in the online press.

I would like to build some rigs based on that CPU, but I'm at a loss as to which mobo to use. I would also like to use a PCI-E x4 M.2 SSD, like the Adata SX8000 or Intel 600p, but if you feel that regular SATA 2.5" SSDs are more cost-effective, feel free to point that out too.

Looking to build "Facebook / desktop rockets", on a budget.

(Was previously using G3258 CPUs, in Biostar H81 boards, among others, overclocked to 4.0+Ghz.)

Willing to spend a little more on an "Optane Ready" B250 board, as compared to an H110 board.

Also, would be nice if the boards all have HDMI, and VGA, if possible. But HDMI is a must.

There's one client in particular that I seem to have mostly lost their business, after selling them an AIO with a small-core AMD APU in it. Which then got stuck for several hours trying to revert some "major Windows 8 update" (probably the update to 8.1, although the customer denied it), and pissed them off so much that they returned it, and even after I re-formatted and put an updated Windows 8.1 on it for them, they didn't want it back.

I think that their newest machine, is a Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge Pentium OEM box from BestBuy, probably still with a HDD in it.

Would like to build them something modern, that will "knock their socks off", but still be affordable.
(Yeah, an i7 would be nice, but I don't think that they normally spend that much on a PC. Though, I could be wrong. Their P4 machine cost like $800 or $1000.)

 

[daveybrat]

This is the motherboard that i'm looking to pair up with my G4560 when it arrives:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128980

This has every connector you'd need Larry. VGA, DVI, HDMI. Plenty of USB 3.0 ports.

I've had good luck with Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock H110 and B150 motherboards lately, so i'll stick to those brands for the new B250 boards.

 

[VirtualLarry]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASRock-B250...TX-Motherbo-/381916015460?hash=item58ebf7eb64

For a little bit more money, I was looking at the one, with dual PCI-E x16 slots, and dual M.2 PCI-E sockets.

 

[daveybrat]

I like that motherboard as well Larry. It has Intel Lan which is very nice. I'm going for cheap though, so even a $10 difference makes a big deal for me.

 

[VirtualLarry]

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138407

That's the H81 I was using.

 

[escrow4]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASRock-B250...TX-Motherbo-/381916015460?hash=item58ebf7eb64

For a little bit more money, I was looking at the one, with dual PCI-E x16 slots, and dual M.2 PCI-E sockets.

Interestingly it only comes with ALC 892 which is getting on a decade old instead of ALC 1150. That said my default choice for mobo's is Asrock first because cheap and Asus second as I no longer think Gigabyte is decent quality, especially their firmware. MSI I have never bought and they are only recently being sold here.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Interestingly it only comes with ALC 892 which is getting on a decade old instead of ALC 1150.

True, but that's NOT their highest-end B250 board either. Have you looked at their "Fata1ity" line? Those probably have the ALC 1150.

 

[cbn]

True, but that's NOT their highest-end B250 board either. Have you looked at their "Fata1ity" line? Those probably have the ALC 1150.

This board with ALC1220 was the least expensive ASRock board I could find with better than ALC892 out of the following 2xx Series line-up:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007627 50001944 600567584 601292371&Manufactory=1944

 

[cbn]

. I would also like to use a PCI-E x4 M.2 SSD, like the Adata SX8000 or Intel 600p, but if you feel that regular SATA 2.5" SSDs are more cost-effective, feel free to point that out too.

I would go with M.2.....this way the build differentiates itself from a budget LGA 1150 or LGA 1151 Pre-built from Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, etc. (reason: I don't think any of the new budget LGA 1151 Pre-builts come with a M.2 PCIe 3.0 x 4 slot)

P.S. Besides M.2, it would be interesting to see what other features are different on those ASRock DIY 2xx series boards compared to a budget pre-built?

 

[Murloc]

I would go with M.2.....this way the build differentiates itself from a budget LGA 1150 or LGA 1151 Pre-built from Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, etc. (reason: I don't think any of the new budget LGA 1151 Pre-builts come with a M.2 PCIe 3.0 x 4 slot)

P.S. Besides M.2, it would be interesting to see what other features are different on those ASRock DIY 2xx series boards compared to a budget pre-built?

but is any customer going to notice the difference from a normal sata SSD?

 

[cbn]

but is any customer going to notice the difference from a normal sata SSD?

Depends.

P.S. The WD Red Pro (used in the video) is a 7200rpm drive.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, that's the video I was kind of thinking of, that was posted in the Memory and Storage forum a while back.

It does seem like the M.2 PCI-E drives are faster, even if subtly so in most cases. I want to build "Facebook rockets" for people. Although, if $20 extra for a 128GB PCI-E M.2 SSD over a $50 120GB SATA 2.5" SSD, is too much, then I guess it's too much.

 

[cbn]

Yeah, that's the video I was kind of thinking of, that was posted in the Memory and Storage forum a while back.

It does seem like the M.2 PCI-E drives are faster, even if subtly so in most cases. I want to build "Facebook rockets" for people. Although, if $20 extra for a 128GB PCI-E M.2 SSD over a $50 120GB SATA 2.5" SSD, is too much, then I guess it's too much.

Isn't the price premium actually smaller than $20 now.....Assuming both drives (NVMe and 2.5" SATA) have MLC and DRAM buffer?

 

[UsandThem]

Too bad PC Chips is gone, and ECS tried to re-brand itself as a 'premium' motherboard manufacturer. It seemed like they almost tried to give those things away with CPU purchases back in the day (especially PC Chips).

They were terrible quality of course, but were a great choice when "every dollar mattered". When I used to build and sell PCs in the 90's and early 2000's, I used quite of few of them for budget builds.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Good riddance to garbage mobo makers like PC Chips, purveyors of "fake cache" motherboards.

 

[cbn]

It does seem like the M.2 PCI-E drives are faster, even if subtly so in most cases. I want to build "Facebook rockets" for people. Although, if $20 extra for a 128GB PCI-E M.2 SSD over a $50 120GB SATA 2.5" SSD, is too much, then I guess it's too much.

I think what will happen is PCIe 3.0 x 2 SSD will cost the same as SATA SSD.

And perhaps for 120GB/128GB SSD having PCIe x 2 rather than PCIe x 4 will not affect read performance in some cases. In fact, looking at the following info on the ADATA XPG SX8000 it would appear the 128GB size cannot use over 2 PCIe lanes:

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/adata-xpg-sx8000-512gb-pcie-nvme-m2-ssd

As we mentioned earlier, the Adata XPG SX8000 512GB has promised sequential read and write speeds of 2,000MB/s and 1,000MB/s respectively. If you go for a lower capacity version then these speeds drop – with the 128GB version promising 1,000MB/s and 300MB’s, while Adata claims the 256GB version can reach speeds of 1,900MB/s and 600MB/s. If you want even more speed, then the 1TB version is promised to reach 2,400MB/s and 1,000MB/s.

 

[Spicedaddy]

How much do these things end up costing your clients? (including a Windows license and your time for building it)

If they're businesses, order Dell Optiplex 3000 series and clone the spinner to an SSD.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I charge $50 on top of parts cost for building, and another $50 for installing the OS/drivers.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

Having looked at a few reviews, it would seem the 600p is slower than the 850 Evo in every way short of very short duration sequential reads. Considering what most users will notice is definitely NOT very short duration sequential reads, I feel like the 850 Evo is a smarter buy for a similar price.

I haven't looked at the SX8000 yet, but it would have to have tried real hard to be as bad as the 600p.

 

[Spicedaddy]

I haven't used it, but if I was building budget systems I'd use something like this:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...80&cm_re=GA-B250M-DS3H-_-13-128-980-_-Product

 

[piasabird]

I never build an intel computer with anything less than an i-3. I just build them for myself. One way I saved money doing this is by using deals that offer savings from Micro-Center. I purchased a combo for my last computer with an Intel i-3 and a gigabyte H110N Motherboard. By doing so The motherboard only cost $35 with the qualifying Intel CPU. I could spend more on the CPU (Intel i-3 6100) because together the deal was a savings of about $35.00. The newer 6100 requires a motherboard with DDR4 ram. However, I picked up 16 GB for a fairly good price. Since the free upgrade for windows 10 was over I purchased windows 10 retail version on USB for $125. I opted to use an ITX MB and a cube case with no DVD drive. However, I still used a spare DVD drive to install the Chip Set drivers temporarily.

 

[piasabird]

This Video seems goofy to me. They dont say how much memory they used or anything. I very seldom have a need to boot a computer anyway. I mostly stream video from different sources and I get no lag on my hard drive. Maybe an SSD or an M.2 will boot faster, but so what? I dont sit around booting computers for fun.

 

[lopri]

Good riddance to garbage mobo makers like PC Chips, purveyors of "fake cache" motherboards.

What is that "fake cache" thing, if you don't mind? I vaguely remember PC Chips (at CompUSA, I think?) brand.

 

[UsandThem]

What is that "fake cache" thing, if you don't mind? I vaguely remember PC Chips (at CompUSA, I think?) brand.

http://redhill.net.au/b/b-bad.html

 

[lopri]

Thank you, Usandthem.