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Motherboard for i5 4690k (z97) for low budget friend.

KaRLiToS

KaRLiToS

Golden Member
Hi,

One of my friend wants a new rig and he wants to get a i5 4690k. His budget is average and he's looking to get a 150 - 175$ motherboard with great overclocking ability and he wants it to last at least 5 years. He only needs one PCIe 3.0 x16 slot.

What do you have to propose for this budget.

Thank you very much.
 
My first thoughts: this generation of boards (Z97) seem less expensive than they should be, but I'd have to look at the specs. I only suggest -- if overclocking is part of the agenda -- find a board with good phase-power-design. Budget boards are still good, but they're likely to have "budget" phase-power design.

If the overclocking plan is mostly "casual" or not part of the equation, find the best Z97 budget board for the best price.
 
At that price point, you have a lot of options. I have had good success overclocking on Asus and Gigabyte boards, but others have good results with the other brands also.

I can make an education guess right now: your friend is going to hit a wall between 4.6 and 4.7 on that Devil's Canyon chip . Any good board in his price range is not going to make much of a difference there.
 
ketchup79 said:
At that price point, you have a lot of options. I have had good success overclocking on Asus and Gigabyte boards, but others have good results with the other brands also.

I can make an education guess right now: your friend is going to hit a wall between 4.6 and 4.7 on that Devil's Canyon chip . Any good board in his price range is not going to make much of a difference there.
Click to expand...

Also, some of our colleagues have discovered in bench tests that the 200/300 Mhz increase from the 4.4 Ghz stock-turbo shows no improvement in benchie-scores.
 
BonzaiDuck said:
Also, some of our colleagues have discovered in bench tests that the 200/300 Mhz increase from the 4.4 Ghz stock-turbo shows no improvement in benchie-scores.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Do you think they were throttling, or is it something else? Honestly I have done the least benchmarking on this build than any previous.
 
ketchup79 said:
Interesting. Do you think they were throttling, or is it something else? Honestly I have done the least benchmarking on this build than any previous.
Click to expand...

It was WGusler's high-CFM H80 project. He had the 4790K clocked to 4.6 Ghz, and the peak temperatures were 70C. So it was a matter of benchmarks -- not throttling.
 
ketchup79 said:
Interesting. Now I can't wait to get home and test, lol.
Click to expand...

I got two Sandy Bridgers -- both capable of 4.7 under my personal choice of temperature and voltage targets. The 2700K runs at the same voltages as the 2600K @ 4.6.

There was a chip lottery, and some folks have been able to clock the 2700K @ 4.8 for 24/7 and reach 5.0 or higher on water-cooling (even an 2xfan AiO). I'm a cautious sort, and if I don't like the next voltage step or IBT-Max temperature -- I don't like it.

If you are that eager and chomping at the bit, suppose you post your results? For volts -- a linpack or IBT minimum load/turbo voltage mid-iteration. Package temperature, avg-of-maximums, or lead-core peak when the test is in the middle of an iteration. What type of cooling -- make/model air cooler/AiO or just radiator size?

I confess, I'm collecting info on those Devils Canyon chips. I'm lookin' at next year for a Haswell E, and I could make a change of plan.

It's easy to develop something like "goal displacement" and make projects for over-clocking just for the sake of nominal Mhz scores. It costs more to acquire computer-power in excess of what you could use in multi-purpose concurrent-running applications.

The DC's are looking better and better. I've even acquired a used-un-abused 3570K this year without deliberate intention for it. I figure -- what's the hurry? Stocks, flows, debits, credits -- etc. I need to set up some Ebay offerings, when I have something big enough to sell replaced by something better.
 
 
BonzaiDuck said:
It was WGusler's high-CFM H80 project. He had the 4790K clocked to 4.6 Ghz, and the peak temperatures were 70C. So it was a matter of benchmarks -- not throttling.
Click to expand...

Not to derail the thread too much, but I did get a chance to do some testing with my $30 cooler:

My chip starts throttling around 4.4 GHz at 1.25 vcore, as it would not go above 100 C, but I could see the speed drop for a split second while running OCCT. Same max temp at 4.5, but drops were more often. The auto-overclock did better on this board than my Gigabyte. It took voltage far about what was necessary, this Asus set it barely above when I could get it to be stable.
 
ketchup79 said:
Not to derail the thread too much, but I did get a chance to do some testing with my $30 cooler:

My chip starts throttling around 4.4 GHz at 1.25 vcore, as it would not go above 100 C, but I could see the speed drop for a split second while running OCCT. Same max temp at 4.5, but drops were more often. The auto-overclock did better on this board than my Gigabyte. It took voltage far about what was necessary, this Asus set it barely above when I could get it to be stable.
Click to expand...

That was my big personal concern about Haswell and E: the cooling requirement. The DC chip has a TDP of 88W, but the core temperatures really climb. Also, it seems prudent to turn off the stress-software's use of the AVX2 instruction-set extension.

But that's where I saw "hope" with WGusler's project. If he could get a 4.6 Ghz overclock and keep the peak temperatures at 70C, it demonstrates how AiOs aren't pushed to their full potential, and also how you can keep these chips cool enough to reach such an OC.

But WGusler also concluded that 4.6 didn't offer benchmark performance gains. It's nice to see that one can garner the extra wiggle-room, though.
 
BonzaiDuck said:
That was my big personal concern about Haswell and E: the cooling requirement. The DC chip has a TDP of 88W, but the core temperatures really climb. Also, it seems prudent to turn off the stress-software's use of the AVX2 instruction-set extension.

But that's where I saw "hope" with WGusler's project. If he could get a 4.6 Ghz overclock and keep the peak temperatures at 70C, it demonstrates how AiOs aren't pushed to their full potential, and also how you can keep these chips cool enough to reach such an OC.

But WGusler also concluded that 4.6 didn't offer benchmark performance gains. It's nice to see that one can garner the extra wiggle-room, though.
Click to expand...

Yes. I have stressed it with games and the latest 3DMark, and it doesn't got nearly as hot, but most around here don't consider that a sufficient stability test.
 
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