Keep the Z68 or get a Z77 board?

[Wogdog]

This is just a quick question. I just upgraded my sandy bridge I-3 2120 to a I5-3570 ivy with 16gb of Corsair Vengeance 1600 DDR3. I also ordered a Gigabyte Z77 but was shipped wrong board from Amazon, they sent a Z68 board. So I just changed the CPU and memory on my existing board Intel DZ68DB. It does do the 1600 on memory and has USB 3.0 support. I don't plan on overclocking at all, just gaming, Civ5, Skyrim, and soon to get the new Sim City game.
Should I go for an Z77 board or would this system be good enough to last until next year tax time? When I can afford the next major upgrades.

My current setup is I5-3570,16gb 1600mhz RAM, Intel DZ68DZ mb, EVGA GTX660 SC video.

Don't mind my signature, if it shows up, very old and out of date

 

[bankster55]

thats very odd
Amazon shipped you now discontinued Z68 mobo instead of Z77?
Hard to believe.
Was it brand new in box with all extras?
I would go for the Z77 if only for continued availability of new bios updates, with better Win 8 compatibility options.
Or you could send mobo back and wait for Haswell in June.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Z77 also got native USB3.

If they shipped you the wrogn one, RMA it.

 

[cantholdanymore]

Do you like your old board with the new CPU/memory? I doubt you'll see any improvement by switching the board. Keep the money

 

[Face2Face]

If they sent you the wrong board then send it back. Going from a Z68 to a Z68 is not worth it I have a Z68 board and it has PCI-E 3.0 and everything I need. I would never consider upgrading to a Z77, there is no need for me too. Well unless it died....

 

[Wogdog]

Actually the board was one of their Warehouse Deals, repackaged. Had the Z77 manual and driver disk, but it had the older Z68 board inside. I have already RMA'd it back. First time I have had to ever return something to Amazon. So now I have everything in place and working, I'll stick with the original Z68, as it don't seem the upgrade to Z77 will do too much, unless I get another GTX660, then I'll get a board I can SLI on.

 

[Charlie98]

...now you know why it's such a Deal!

I keep toying with the idea of upgrading my Z68 to a Z77... but I can't justify it.

 

[Face2Face]

...now you know why it's such a Deal!

I keep toying with the idea of upgrading my Z68 to a Z77... but I can't justify it.

Considering your board supports Ivy bridge, there really is no point. if you want to upgrade might as well just wait until Haswell is out. Even then, I am going to wait until the next CPU cycle.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Remember any warranty issues. In case they would reject it later on due to being the wrong board/serial than sold.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Meh. Not enough of an upgrade to bother with. Swapping motherboards can mean driver weirdness or a Windows reinstall; I just want my computer to work.

 

[ArmyVet88]

z77

 

[fixbsod]

Z77 -- nets you PCIe 3.0 and you paid for it anyways!

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

It all comes down to the PCI-E 3.0; if you have a video card and processor (3rd generation Intel® Core™ processor) than you find value in having Z77. If you dont have those than it doesnt matter if you move to Z77 or not.

 

[Face2Face]

It all comes down to the PCI-E 3.0; if you have a video card and processor (3rd generation Intel® Core™ processor) than you find value in having Z77. If you dont have those than it doesnt matter if you move to Z77 or not.

I guess I am lucky I bought a Z68 board that supports PCI-E 3.0

 

[x2ezx]

Wait for the next generation or two.

 

[SPBHM]

there is almost no difference from z68 to z77... native USB 3.0 in practice is not really that important... and apart from that, what is the difference!?

both only support PCIE 2.0 (from the PCH), 3.0 comes from the CPU, there are many z68 MBs that can work with PCIE 3.0 when using ivy bridge, and 3.0 is hardly a significant advantage anyway...

but obviously, if they sent you the wrong product, you should try to solve this problem.

 

[Arkaign]

there is almost no difference from z68 to z77... native USB 3.0 in practice is not really that important... and apart from that, what is the difference!?

both only support PCIE 2.0 (from the PCH), 3.0 comes from the CPU, there are many z68 MBs that can work with PCIE 3.0 when using ivy bridge, and 3.0 is hardly a significant advantage anyway...

but obviously, if they sent you the wrong product, you should try to solve this problem.

This. I actually 'downgraded' from a Z77 to a Z68 due to my Z68 board having better features (Intel Gigabit Lan is a must for me, Realtek and others seem not nearly as good). My 2700K also does 5Ghz with this Z68 (Asus Deluxe Gen3), and would only hit 4.8Ghz with the Z77 (some midrange Asus model). Weirdly, the 3770 that I dumped would hit 4.5Ghz with the Z77, but only 4.4 on the Z68 without major heat issues. Hated that chip though, I'm sure delidding would have solved my problems with it, but 80c+ with an H100 is retarded. My 2700 runs much colder, at higher clocks, and benches far better at 5Ghz than my 3770 did at 4.5.

Games, SSD benches, boot time, etc, I see no real-world difference. USB3 may be better with the native USB3 controller on the Z77, but I don't do enough with USB3 devices to see a huge difference there.