Haswell Z87 Motherboard Reveals Round-up

[ShintaiDK]

ShintaiDK are you planning on getting any Haswell equipment?

Yep, I already ordered all the parts besides CPU and mobo for a MiniITX build. And a good thing too, the 480GB mSATA M500 will first arrive on june 7th.

 

[phillyman36]

Yep, I already ordered all the parts besides CPU and mobo for a MiniITX build. And a good thing too, the 480GB mSATA M500 will first arrive on june 7th.

Have you decided on which mobo your going for?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Have you decided on which mobo your going for?

Intel DH87FB.

 

[Magic Carpet]

mSATA/mPCI slots seems to be pretty popular on 8 series boards. So for bluetooth/wifi you can buy a laptop card.

Wouldn't it be nice to have Wi-Fi / Bluetooth integrated into the chipset itself? ;-p

 

[ShintaiDK]

Wouldn't it be nice to have Wi-Fi / Bluetooth integrated into the chipset itself? ;-p

Thats why the board got 2 mSATA/mPCIe slots

 

[CakeMonster]

So... considering the roundup on AT's front page.. It seems that it can be hard to get what is the perfect mobo for me. I won't hold my breath but I'm crossing my fingers for something like this:

Intel NIC
6x Intel SATA3 (HDs are huge now, I don't need more)
DP output (I need 1600p support if I ever use the IGP, actually I'll need 2xDP)
Decent onboard sound
Wifi (n is fine) - this one is just nice to have, not important
1 full PCIE3 16 slot (couldn't care less about CF/SLI)

The thing is, I want as little as possible of additional third party stuff that will need shitty drivers and draw extra power and hw/sw resources. So no additional SATA controllers, no 2nd NIC, no PCI controller, no non-intel USB, etc.

As for OC, I want the Z87 chipset because of that but as long as I can get a decent OC that doesn't pull too much power I'm fine. I don't care for the high end OC stuff with expensive components that will only get me a few extra %.

If anyone have an idea of a mobo that will satisfy this, let me know. And I'm curious if I'm the only one who is thinking like this?

 

[meloz]

I have only just begun reading Haswell Z87 Motherboard Preview, and I already find a point to disagree with IC:

In previous years, motherboard launches have ranged the full gamut from the $60 to over $200 at launch, even reaching $400 as the platform develops. Within that is the cost for the chipset (a not-significant cost), the production, the modules, the extra controllers and all the licensing for extra features such as SLI or HDMI.

Depends how you look at it, I suppose. AFAIK the chipset still makes the single most expensive component on the motherboard. To me that is a significant cost, albeit it is 'hidden' in that consumers do not care for cost of individual components on the motherboard as the price of the motherboard itself.

 

[Aikouka]

As for Mini-ITX boards, out of the Anandtech round-up, I would probably go with the ASRock board. I still use my Streacom case, and for an easier build, you really want to avoid anything being above the socket (when considering IO on the left). My current Ivy Bridge machine has the SATA ports up there, which is doable, but it's certainly not fun. Some boards put the 24-pin power connector up there, which just doesn't work.

As for normal boards, I'm considering updating my main desktop to Haswell, but I'm not too sure which one I like. I'm thinking probably the ASUS Z87-Deluxe or possibly the ASRock Extreme9. I'd prefer something like an Extreme6, but I'd like the possibility of SLI without being locked into 8x even with a single GPU.

 

[phillyman36]

I'm still debating on whether to get Haswell. I usually get Asus boards but really hate the gold color. I haven't really paid attention to other mobo makers (Gigabyte and Asrocks as far as bios/driver and software support go). The only thing i remember is reading something about someone saying Evga bios haven't been great(something i read in a forum a while ago so don't have any hard evidence to post)

 

[bankster55]

Raja@ASUS just posted a pretty good comparison of the new ASUS Z87 mobo. The Deluxe is for sale at NE for $289, in stock

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1764942

 

[Dahak]

I'm still debating on whether to get Haswell. I usually get Asus boards but really hate the gold color. I haven't really paid attention to other mobo makers (Gigabyte and Asrocks as far as bios/driver and software support go). The only thing i remember is reading something about someone saying Evga bios haven't been great(something i read in a forum a while ago so don't have any hard evidence to post)

I'm in the same boat, i usually go for Asus boards too while I dont like the colors, that I can live with, but for me its the fact that most of the boards, everything from the plus up, have multiple usb3 ports on the back, which is good. BUT, only 2 of them are off the intel controller (2more for front panel on board) when the chipset supports up to 6. Now i know the want to add there asmedia chips for the USB Charge+ and USB Boost, which is fine, but why cant they have 4 intel ones and 2 asmedia.(had to look in the manuals to confirm)

I might end up going with a gigabyte board. Not sure yet depends on how i fell about the other ports not being intel