Help finding a Z77 Motherboard

[Trajan45]

Hi all,

I could use some help finding a good Z77 motherboard. I'm building a new system, so far I have a i5-3570K, power supply, and 256GB Samsung SSD. I'd like to use the Fractal Designs R4 case. I'm not opposed to spending more on a motherboard for quality (within reason $150-$275 range).

Some requirements:

1) I'll be using the SSD as the boot drive and I'd like to add 2 1TB+ HD's in Raid 1 for data storage. I'd like them all to be on SATA III but I'm noticing a lot of motherboards are only offering 2 SATA3 and 2 SATA2 in raid configs.

2) I'm planning on OC'ing the 3570 to 4-4.2GHz

I was looking at the gigabyte sniper3 which seemed to have a ton of SATA3 ports but it's an ATXe type which won't fit in the R4. I was also looking at the ASrock Extreme4 but lately there have been quite a few bad reviews on newegg for quite a few ASrock boards on quality. After reading through reviews on ASUS P8Z77's, ASUS ROG's, Gigabytes, MSI's, etc my brain is a little fried, haha.

Any suggestions or inputs are welcomed, thanks!

 

[TechBoy101]

Hi Trajan45,

Have you had the chance to look over the GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UP5 TH?? It has 3 SATAIII's and 2 of them can support RAID 0/1/5/10 with the 3rd supporting RAID 0/1. This satisfies your first requirement.

OC'ing are you planning on using Air cooling or liquid cooling? The board itself can be overclocked and in addition it uses Digital PowerStages (IR3550). It keeps the board cooler overall as it produces less electrical waste. (This is super beneficial for Waterblock cooling as there would be very little to no airflow around the VRM's.

Let me know if you have any other questions

 

[kleinkinstein]

The UD5H is the best priceerformance Z77 mainboard, period.

 

[SolMiester]

I have grown quite fond of ASRock boards, lots of features for the price. Currently running Pro3 at home and Pro4 at work, which has 4xsata3 and 2x sata2, the extreme4 has 4 of both....and they are one of the quickest to boot by some margin!....

 

[know of fence]

The Z77 chipset only supports two SATAIII headers, any additional connectors come with extra controllers added.

Suffice it to say that 2 fast HDDs in RAID 0 can barely reach of SATAII speed 3 Gbit/s = 375 MB/s

One 10K RPM Velociraptor drive can reach up to 220 MB/s sequential reads & writes.

 

[Trajan45]

The Z77 chipset only supports 2x SATAIII, any additional connectors come with extra controllers added. Suffice it to say that 2 fast HDDs in RAID 0 can barely reach 1/10th of SATAII speed (3 GB/s * 1/10 = 2 * 150 MB/s).

Thanks, I was thinking the same thing last night. Can 2 mechanical hard drives even fill a SATA3 channel? It looks like they can't even fill a SATA2 channel. So my first requirement is kind of moot since almost all motherboards in the $150+ had 2 SATA2 ports that could be configured in RAID 1.

I'll take a look at the UD5H, seems like a lot of people on this forum like it. I've also been looking at the ASUS P8Z77-V Pro or Asus Maximus V Gene as people on SPCR like both boards (they have something called Fan Expert 2 which allows 3rd party software to control fans).

EDIT: I'm not sure on the heatsink yet. I'm either going with CM 212 Evo/Noctua heatsink or try out a Corsair H60/H80.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

ASRock all the wayyyy

 

[Barfo]

ASRock all the wayyyy

Sure, if you like cheap built stuff.

 

[Synthet1X]

AsRock is the best "cheap" z77 around.

 

[Trajan45]

I'm leaning towards the Asus Maximus V Gene right now. It's got enough SATA ports to do the config I want, it has a small form factor that I can may allow me to re-use the board in an HTPC years down the road, and a good integrated sound card.

The review for the UD5H on anandtech was strange. A major flaw in the DPC, bad software, middle of the road performance but good features and price so it gets the bronze?

 

[feedtheducks]

I would go for the MSI Z77 M-Power mobo. So sexy.