Question about Z77 motherboards

[aayjaay]

I will hopefully be building a PC in the coming months and am unsure about motherboards. Other PC components I plan on getting are the i5 3570k, HD 7850 and 8GB 1600mhz RAM. I will be wanting to overclock the CPU and GPU in the future. Will this motherboard/others around the £70-£80 mark be sufficient?

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/giga...-s-sata-raid-pcie-30-(x16)-d-sub-dvi-d-hdmi-a

Also, what does a £100+ motherboard have that the above one doesn't have? Here's a page with all the Z77 1155 motherboards on scan.co.uk: http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/motherboards-intel/socket-1155-intel-z77

By the way, I'm looking at Z77 chipset motherboards because I've heard that they're the newest and work best with the new Ivy Bridge CPUs. Am I right when I say this?

 

[cmdrdredd]

That'll be fine. Also the Asrock Z77 Extreme4 is a good board. Might have better luck overclocking than the Gigabyte DS3. The Gigabyte UD3H is also a fantastic board. One of the better ones at that price point.

My favorite boards are the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H and UD3H, the Asus P8Z77-V and -V Pro, the Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 and Extreme 6, and of course the Asus Maximus V Gene and Formula (not listed on that site). Any of those will be perfect for overclocking and are proven stable thus far.

Edit: The Gigabyte UD5H has creative sound drivers that allow your on board audio to do EAX if you have some older games that use it. It also has an Intel Ethernet port. The Asus P8Z77-v and Pro also have Intel NICs.

 

[Dkcode]

More expensive motherboards have better power phase which is fundamental for decent overclocking, plus extras like more SATA ports, better LAN and audio controller etc.

That board is only half a board anyway and its fugly, stretch to the D3H at least, it can be had for just over 100 notes.

 

[aayjaay]

So what would happen if I tried to overclock with a board like the one I linked. What part does power phase play in overclocking? Also, what did you mean when you said it's 'half a board'?

 

[cmdrdredd]

The power phase gives the CPU the proper voltages it needs. a higher power phase is more stable in this regard.

 

[aayjaay]

What about manually entering the voltage on the BIOS to meet the CPU's voltage needs? Or is that not how it works? Sorry, I'm a bit of a newb

EDIT: I read some reviews on newegg about this MSI board: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-...-sata-raid-pcie-30-(x16)-d-sub-dvi-d-hdmi-atx

Couple of people said that they easily got their 3570ks to ~4.5ghz with 212s. I'm thinking this board would be pretty good?

 

[cmdrdredd]

I'd prefer Gigabyte and Asus myself, but MSI isn't bad.

When you set voltage in your Bios, lets say 1.27v it goes through the VRMs and everything. The higher the phase count for the CPU the more stable the voltages will be and the less ripple.

 

[aayjaay]

Yeah, this Gigabyte D3H looks pretty good: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/giga...-6gb-s-sata-raid-pcie-30-d-sub-dvi-d-hdmi-atx

I read some reviews. Also looks like a solid board with overclocking capability. Also, what do you mean "less ripple"?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Voltage isn't a steady solid line. It has variations called ripple. It goes up a bit, down a bit, and the VRMS and other parts attempt to stabilize it as best as possible. That is why some boards are more stable than others during overclocking. The voltage is more solid.

Think of it like a heartbeat on a medical monitor. You see the straight line and then a blip and the line spikes up. That's the voltage spike. You want to avoid them as much as possible and better boards are better at eliminating them. Not perfectly, but pretty good. If you look at voltage on a Oscilloscope you will see a line with slight waves in it. That's the ripple. It will look like a fuzzy line, but you want less "fuzz".

I will say get the UD3H Notice the U...Those boards use the new Ultra Durable PCB. It can handle higher temps, has humidity protection, electrostatic protection, the PCB is made with 2oz of copper which helps with signal quality in the traces as well as reduce heat on the PCB.

 

[2is]

More expensive motherboards have better power phase which is fundamental for decent overclocking, plus extras like more SATA ports, better LAN and audio controller etc.

That board is only half a board anyway and its fugly, stretch to the D3H at least, it can be had for just over 100 notes.

Its fundamental for charging more for soemthing that doesn't really benefit you much. I have a P8Z77-V Pro mated to Ivy Bridge as well as a Gigabyte Z77-D3H with Sandy Bridge. The Gigabyte board is the cheaper one with far fewer phases and it's also sporting a more power hungry processor. Guess what... Both machines are temp limited when it comes to overclocking. I was absolutly stunned at the overclocking potential of the GB board and at the same time kind of upset at myself for spending so much on the Asus. Quality > Quantity when it comes to "phases"

Power phases USE to mean something, these days its more marketing than something useful.

 

[cmdrdredd]

The Asus Bios is superior though which means something.

 

[2is]

The Asus Bios is superior though which means something.

Yes, that it is, but really only useful for people who spend days on end tinkering and getting the highest possible performance by fine tuning everything. Few people are even knowledgable to know what most of that stuff does, and even fewer will bother spending that much time messing with it. All the fundamental options necessary for a good overclock exist on both boards.