Recommendations on Asrock Z87 Extreme4 Aesthetics?

[Blain]

edited

 

[T_Yamamoto]

asrock was the best on p67 and z68. The problem is people become fanboys instead of objectively evaluating the quality of one board or another, and trust bad reviews.

This is all common knowledge, there's tons of search results on all of this and just using a multimeter or looking at the dang board would tell you all of this. I guess it's just not common knowledge on this forum, and people would rather not learn.

Their products are great, much much better than ASUS. They are the best bang for the buck. Also they have more features than most boards at almost every price range.

 

[AustinInDallas]

Their products are great, much much better than ASUS. They are the best bang for the buck. Also they have more features than most boards at almost every price range.

I don't know if they are better than asus quality wise, but from a value stand point they are awesome.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

I don't know if they are better than asus quality wise, but from a value stand point they are awesome.

I personally feel that ASRock has stepped up after they split from ASUS. They've definitely done a great job.

 

[Belial88]

Before the intel K cpus came out I would agree with you 100% on mb power phases.
To me asrock is just a cheap relible mb.
Because the Pro3 is a simple backup pc and only used a few days a week by my wife for a large outlook excel database I bought it.
If I had a intel or amd 6 core I would go with better board.

I don't understand what you mean... An i7-3770K at 5ghz@1.5v can easily consume over 200w. Add in motherboard efficiency of 80-90%, which easily drops to 60-70% on lower quality boards like the Extreme4 and the fact that real world VRMs operate around 50-80C instead of their rated 25C, and you are consuming over 250w through the board.

If you said that you are silly to use anything more than a 100w dissipating heatsink like a Hyper 212+ on an Ivy Bridge/Haswell, you'd be laughed out of the room.

Now granted, AMD chips certainly can run hot and power hungry, but that just means with Intel you can get away with a $100+ board while AMD requires $150+ boards.

Sources: http://www.overclock.net/t/1247413/ivy-bridge-overclocking-guide-with-ln2-guide-at-the-end
http://i.imgur.com/1tEy8Dn.png

Their products are great, much much better than ASUS. They are the best bang for the buck. Also they have more features than most boards at almost every price range.

I personally feel that ASRock has stepped up after they split from ASUS. They've definitely done a great job.

I'm sorry but these comments just reflect to me that you have little understanding of motherboards (which no one effing understands, and is insanely complicated, and I barely even scratch the surface, granted).

Just like the engine is 99% of a car, a VRM is 99% of the motherboard. If you put a nice, souped up, hemi whatever, V8 engine in a car, you better well increase it's suspension, which means better tires, which means might as well put a better body, better paint job, better interior, leather seats, then next thing you know, you got a mustang.

Likewise, if you put a 4+1 IR Digital PWM using doublers and high end drivers with 2x60A@25C low side mosfets, then you are gonna put one a few extra USB ports, extra SATA 3.0 ports, 4x PCI-E x16 physical slots, SLI License, a cool, colorful VRM sink, a high quality sound chip with built-in headphone amps, and on-board OC buttons and a dual bios.

Just like with a car & engine, the VRM is the major cost to the manufacturer of a motherboard. It's what they spend all their time researching and working on, it's what evolves, and it's the most advanced and differentiated component on the board. Literally, it's not even an Asrock board, it's an Intersil board or a Gigabyte International Rectifier board. It's the biggest expense to manufacturer's, and it's the biggest cost to the consumer.

Asrock did step up their game after they split from Asus, they were awesome on AM3, P67, And Z68. I would literally recommend an Asrock Extreme4 P67 to a new Ivy user than a Extreme4 Z77, it was a good board, it's still a good analogue VRM board, and it's definitely higher quality than it's 'successor'. That said, Asrock significantly dropped in quality on Z77. They stepped it up a bit for Z87, but it's still pretty low quality. This is the exact opposite of Gigabyte, who completely flopped and failed on P67 and Z68, but they did an awesome job on Z77 and an even better one on Z87.

That said, there's still a few of those good ole Gigabyte bugs we've come to love and hate on every series, but they've already fixed it with the new BIOS revision. MSI also seems to have significantly stepped up their game for Z87 - they royally screwed up on LGA1155 (on p67/z68 they didn't have manual vcore, due to complaints they allowed it... and removed offset voltage, the one important for 24/7 overclocks, on the i/o level, not to mention atrocious build quality. But msi z87 appears to have both)

Best bang for the buck, by far, on Z77, and Z87, depends on the price range. For low end, Biostar is the best for having full featured boards (as in, full overclockability options) as all the other brands neuter their boards in order to prevent market cannibalization (ie intel not having an i3-K edition to foster i5-k sales). For mid-range Z77 /Z87, Gigabyte is above and beyond, the absolute best value you'll find at any price level, they offer motherboard's with VRMs who's output competes with $200+ high end boards from the other companies.

For high end boards, Gigabyte still has great value, but Asus makes the absolute best boards with the best overclockability and absolute best RAM overclocking, bar none... as long as you are down to throw $250+ on a motherboard. Oddly enough, MSI actually makes a couple extremely high quality boards, they play to the strengths of their analogue PWM and just makes the most insane VRMs in existence with some of their high level boards, although on LGA1155 they were useless because they lacked certain voltage options (the z77 mpower may lack offset voltage for day to day overclocks, but it's a great LN2 bencher).

Did you see asrock in there? No? Yea... because they are awful now. They've been overrun by marketers who just want to pump the board up to people who don't understand how motherboards really operate. Their boards give an overly generous reading for voltage so bad review sites report that they can do the same overclocks on less voltage, when in reality they do it at the same voltage, but just report over .1v less in software! They have flimsy build quality and use way less components on the chips in sound, usb, sata, etc, because they know people won't notice. They play the phase war and use incredibly low quality, cheap, crappy, analogue VRMs instead of higher quality, lower phase counts that will perform better (like gigabyte and asus do), even though they both cost the same to them, all so they can advertise their boards as having higher phase counts, and so they MUST be better VRM amirite? Then, they have the nerve to say they are 'DIGI POWER' when Intersil doesn't even say they are digital. They say they are 12phase boards, when in reality it's a 3 phase board using linked phases and a 4+1 phase PWM (and given the FIVR, haswell can't even use that +1). Now I get marketing talk is marketing talk, but asrock went from an awesome company when they first split, to an awful one.

So for you to say 'oh asrock has more features'.. it just makes no sense. What, more USB ports? Does that even matter, can you not get an adaptor? The average person only uses 1-2 SATA ports, are you the 1% of users who actually populates more SATA or USB or PCI than what a budget board could provide? Who cares if one board has extra USB ports, is that why you are buying a board?

Because if it is, you are ridiculous, that's like picking a sports car based on the number of cup holders.

you can read about why the asrock z77 boards are so bad here, oddly enough: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2326191&page=2

 

[Belial88]

sorry that's so long but i just can't stand blind fanboyism or when people make absurd comments with no sources to back them up.

You would be ridiculed if you went around saying 'just buy any psu, they're all good' or went about saying 'apevia psu's are great, they've done a great job, it's a great bang for the buck!' Motherboards are much, much more involved than power supplies. You can get away with a $20 delta based PSU like a budget antec or CX, even on an extreme ambient overclock, but a low quality motherboard will stop your overclock just like a low end heatsink.

No one says "Apevia PSU's have a lot more features, they are way better'. No, you nutter, the rectifier is crap, I could care less if the cables are sleeved. The problem is people are just oblivious to how motherboard quality affects them, and just like with all computer components, people tend to only try one product every 3-5 years, and then give rave reviews about it simply because it's what they used, even though they have zero frame of reference.

I build computers for a job, I build custom gaming rigs semi-professionally, I never have a motherboard or component for more than 6 months. I haven't tried everything, but it's common knowledge how absolutely terrible the Extreme4 is, and there's a ton of info out there on motherboards. I've overclocked and used enough motherboards to know just how important a motherboard is. When you go from an MSI Z77A-G41 to an Extreme4 to a UD3H to a UD5H, you know what a big difference a motherboard can make (for reference, the ud5h was overkill, it happened to be cheaper due to a special so i returned ud3h).

 

[john3850]

Since the K chips came out you can get a good oc with any decent $100
board.
Why buy a mb for double the price just to get a tiny bit more out of the
chip.
My cpu usage never goes past 80% so those cheap mb are never being maxed
out.
Thanks to mc and ASRrork I get a new platform every year.
When I got my first 500 p3-fc it took 3 mb before I got the maximum oc on
that chip.

 

[Belial88]

Sure, I totally agree with you. Why buy a mb like the extreme4 for double the price just to get a tiny bit more. The problem is the extreme4 is priced like a mid-range board when it performs more like a low end board.

And to get a high overclock, you need a little more. Not a lot more, but a little more. Personally, I say, $90-100 for a 'budget' board like a Pro3 is kind of a rip off when for only $20-40 more, you can get an extremely high quality board like the D3H/UD3H boards that come full featured. I mean, $20 alone for the overclock buttons are useful (no, they aren't very important), you are going to make over $50 in energy savings in 3 years on such a quantum leap in quality.

It's the same reason you get a higher efficiency power supply. Why would you buy a 70% efficient power supply when you can get one with 90% efficiency for only $20-40 more, that will allow you to overclock further, that looks better, that literally does everything slightly better (better sound, better sata, usb, etc, granted, all of which are very minor and irrelevant, sure).

But a low end board is not going to do 4.8ghz+ on the average voltage it takes. Really, a mid-range board won't either, but the recent Gigabyte boards and some of the Asus boards at mid-range have high end VRMs, which is really a great value.

Like I said, I just don't understand how someone can write off motherboard quality. It's literally more important than your power supply in terms of power delivery and efficiency. If you think a motherboard isn't very important, then you should be saying it's not worth spending more than $30 on a power supply.

My cpu usage never goes past 80% so those cheap mb are never being maxed
out.

If that's the kind of user you are, then no reason to get a better motherboard, but you still need to make the best choice, regardless of your price range. So you know that the Extreme4 is a total waste of money, you also know that the UD3H or LE would be too powerful, sure, but which of the budget boards do you pick? Again, you still pick the one with the best VRM - so you might go for the Biostar Tz77A, or MSI Z77A-G41 at $20, or Asus LX, instead of a Pro3 or MSI Z77A-G43.

I just really don't see boards like the Pro3 being a good value when they are only $20-40 cheaper than boards that can handle 1.6v, LN2 overclocks. Like if they were $50-70, it'd make more sense, but they aren't. They are still often $90-100.

 

[Smoblikat]

Sure, I totally agree with you. Why buy a mb like the extreme4 for double the price just to get a tiny bit more. The problem is the extreme4 is priced like a mid-range board when it performs more like a low end board.

And to get a high overclock, you need a little more. Not a lot more, but a little more. Personally, I say, $90-100 for a 'budget' board like a Pro3 is kind of a rip off when for only $20-40 more, you can get an extremely high quality board like the D3H/UD3H boards that come full featured. I mean, $20 alone for the overclock buttons are useful (no, they aren't very important), you are going to make over $50 in energy savings in 3 years on such a quantum leap in quality.

It's the same reason you get a higher efficiency power supply. Why would you buy a 70% efficient power supply when you can get one with 90% efficiency for only $20-40 more, that will allow you to overclock further, that looks better, that literally does everything slightly better (better sound, better sata, usb, etc, granted, all of which are very minor and irrelevant, sure).

But a low end board is not going to do 4.8ghz+ on the average voltage it takes. Really, a mid-range board won't either, but the recent Gigabyte boards and some of the Asus boards at mid-range have high end VRMs, which is really a great value.

Like I said, I just don't understand how someone can write off motherboard quality. It's literally more important than your power supply in terms of power delivery and efficiency. If you think a motherboard isn't very important, then you should be saying it's not worth spending more than $30 on a power supply.



If that's the kind of user you are, then no reason to get a better motherboard, but you still need to make the best choice, regardless of your price range. So you know that the Extreme4 is a total waste of money, you also know that the UD3H or LE would be too powerful, sure, but which of the budget boards do you pick? Again, you still pick the one with the best VRM - so you might go for the Biostar Tz77A, or MSI Z77A-G41 at $20, or Asus LX, instead of a Pro3 or MSI Z77A-G43.

I just really don't see boards like the Pro3 being a good value when they are only $20-40 cheaper than boards that can handle 1.6v, LN2 overclocks. Like if they were $50-70, it'd make more sense, but they aren't. They are still often $90-100.

Maybe you think differently than I do, but 1.6v LN2 isnt really "a little".

 

[Belial88]

I think you mixed up what I was saying.

boards that can handle 1.6v, LN2 overclocks, as inboards that can handle both 1.6v 24/7 ambient overclocks (air, water) AND LN2 overclocks using ~1.7-1.9v.

What I meant, was that the price difference between a Pro3 or Z77A-G43 to a UD3H or Asus LE is only $20-40. Quite a small increase in price, to go from a board that can't do more than 1.35v on air, to a board that can easily do 1.9v on LN2 or 1.6v on air.

The difference between 1.9v LN2 or 1.6v Air, from 1.35v air, is huge, not a 'little' at all. But the price difference, if you buy the right boards, is very little. I mean the price difference from a Pro3 to an Extreme6 is quite large, but from a Pro3 to a UD3H is very little.

On a side note, 1.6v on LN2 is actually quite little lol (that wasn't what I was talking about at all, there was a comma there for a reason). A Pro3 or MSI Z77A-G41 could likely do 1.6v on LN2 just fine (something mid-range boards can do on air easily), as the major problem with low quality VRMs is that they overheat. Of course, you won't be doing 1.8v+ LN2 on them.

 

[Sheep221]

Belial88, you are smart and made a good points about how motherboards should be bought, but you wrote on the previous page that your overclocked 4770K drawn 230W+ when OC'd. I would like to ask how high was the performance increase, because if you did run it from 4.5 to 4.7 GHz(which is overly high for that CPU, but I don't know, you didn't mention your clocks) you still would increase performance just by what, 10% maybe 15? but your power consumption already increased by almost 300%(not to mention other components with increased draw like mobo, chipset and RAM and eventually also faster spinning FANs). In that sense, buying cheaper boards, cheaper heatsinks, 4770 non K and build 2 separate computers connected in parallel setting from them would give you 200% performance increase for much less acquisition cost and power consumption of both of them probably would probably even didn't get over the 200W and noise of their fans together would also be nowhere near overclocked rig. If you speaking of why to have 2 computers instead of 1 overclocked, it is just as relevant as using USB adapter on board without enough USB ports. If you want to have dedicated rig for distributed computing, OC is just bad way to go.

 

[Belial88]

First off, the game I play, SC2, is extremely CPU bound. An increase of 100mhz yields rougly about 2-4fps gain, in a game where a stock i5-3570K hits a minimum of ~30fps (note, minimums are the most important thing in RTS, as it basically means what FPS you have during big battles that are micro-intensive).

On top of gaming, I stream H264, which is extremely CPU dependent. Even an overclocked i7-3770k at 4.5ghz on a standard system, is going to run around 40fps, not to mention that it's not even strong enough to stream 1080p@60fps.

Furthermore, I do a lot of computational work, HWbot submissions (no, I'm not some epeen bencher, I actually enjoy benching the furthest possible on what you can do on a 24/7 setting), and simply enjoy overclocking (imagine that!).

So I'm one of the rare people out there, that actually can appreciate the power of more than an i5-2500K, although even myself, I could do just fine with an i5-2500K, or even a Phenom X4 (and have). However, there is definitely a huge jump in performance for me to use 5ghz overclocks over 4.8ghz, or 2400mhz RAM over 1600.

My point, is that in a game that runs ~30fps on a standard overclocked i5, while streaming which just increases your CPU load tenfold, especially if you have a less-than-optimal upload and thus reduce the preset and increase your CPU load further, every extra 100mhz gains me a good 5+ fps or so, and it makes a huge difference (for reference, I can stream SC2 720@60fps fast preset at 50+ fps, which is very, very good).

Considering that even a i7-3770K@5ghz, 2400mhz CL8 RAM, runs at 45-50fps, yes, every bit counts, because I'm still below 60fps which is considered 'smooth' (god forbid I used a 120hz monitor). And gains of 2-5fps is actually quite large. So 100mhz itself isn't big, but 100mhz overclock with high speed RAM, that makes a difference, and 200mhz with high speed RAM actually makes a very noticeable difference.

Furthermore, I really didn't spend much money to do all of this. I built my i7-3770K, 5ghz@1.55v system for $500 (microcenter, watching deals) total. I used a Z77X-UD5H for $79 from microcenter, a $209 i7-3770K, and $50 PSC RAM, and I got a system stronger than the vast majority of people for about half of what most people spent. I also used an Nh-D14 (yes, I know it's outdated and crappy, but you can commonly find them for only $40-50, as I did).

So with a delid (free), and an Nh-D14, and a high quality board, I was free to pump 1.55v in my chip, it managed to stay cool so I didn't endanger it at all, and got a great overclock.

My 230w+ figure comes from VTT, IMC, IGPU, and motherboard efficiency. Here's a picture of 5ghz@1.5v, where my chip core pulls about 167w (i know, software, but killawatt said same thing). You can see Power Input shows 185w that the board pulled. When I raised voltage to 1.55v, this was more like 180/200w, and that isn't including the ~20w from VTT/IMC/IGPU and ~30w of the RAM.

You can also check Sin's Ivy Bridge Overclock guide, he has the following table:

There's a few others in his guide showing the relationship of overclock, voltage, temps, and power consumption, but a 4.7ghz@1.3v is going to consume a good 130w+.

In all, my power consumption isn't going up 300% - it's not really accurate to compare to stock, but to a moderate overlcock, perhaps. So my power draw goes up by 50-80w. That's a lot less dramatic sounding than '300% increase'. It's definitely a sizeable one for sure, but it's half a light bulb.

not to mention other components with increased draw like mobo, chipset and RAM and eventually also faster spinning FANs)

Yes, exactly why buying a higher quality motherboard is important. That's my entire point. I'm not saying spend more money on a motherboard, I'm saying spend your money on the best board at the price point. A higher quality board, like a UD3H (or the UD5H I used, which is even better), is really not going to consume any more power on a high overclock than a moderate one. My UD5H never went above 50C on the VRMs (i had both software and hardware based thermal sensors on it).

However, like I said, my Z77a-G41 hit over 80C on just 4.5ghz@1.25v, and as we all know by Sin's guide, the above pics, using a killawatt, and studies on the relationship of temps and power draw, especially on mosfets (audiophiles have all this stuff documented, as they use the same mosfets as we do), an extra 10C increase in temps on a 150w component results in about a 20w+ increase in power consumption, quite a big deal as that's certainly a couple bucks a month.

Now there is an increase in power consumption with higher voltage, sure, but a very small one. The difference is that with using a high quality board, you are getting something for the increased power consumption (higher overclock).

Chipset consumes basically zero power, not even 5-10w. Fans barely use any power either, you are talking ~2-3w for a 2200RPM 120mm fan. You literally save energy and money, by running your fans at 100%, and dropping temps, than any increase in energy costs from running a fan at 100% instead of 50% (ie 1-2w increased power consumption). Of course it depends on the cooling that fan contributes, a 5th case fan might not save you money if it only drops your temps 1-2C but that pull fan on a radiator dropping your temps by 5C definitely will.

And only stress testing comes close to heating up your system. Even with my 5ghz@1.55v overclock, sure, when stress testing for stability for 25+ hours, I'm running 5x fans at full blast. But then, I never run them max again, as even in gaming I won't come even 20C close to the max temps I had in prime95 small fft, so I'm running just a single fan most of the time (i even have them set to turn off on low load/idle).

%(not to mention other components with increased draw like mobo, chipset and RAM and eventually also faster spinning FANs). In that sense, buying cheaper boards, cheaper heatsinks, 4770 non K and build 2 separate computers connected in parallel setting from them would give you 200% performance increase for much less acquisition cost and power consumption of both of them probably would probably even didn't get over the 200W and noise of their fans together would also be nowhere near overclocked rig.

It all depends what you can get a motherboard for, and it all depends on what your usage is, but I'm actually extremely value oriented and my set-up is actually very value oriented.

So I spent $80 on my Z77X-UD5H. I could have instead spent $20 on a MSI Z77A-G41. For $60 more, I got a board capable of doing 5ghz instead of just 4.5ghz - a 500mhz overclock for only $60 is pretty good.

I would say that on AMD, (ie phenom x4, bulldozer, etc), 100mhz = $10. On Intel, 100mhz = $20-30. 500mhz increased overclock = $100 - 150. I'd say that makes spending an extra $60 on a higher qualit ymotherboard justified.

For those that don't live near microcenter, the choice is even easier. Spend $90 on a Pro3 or MSI Z77A-G41 on Newegg/etc, or spend $125 for a D3H/UD3H, and get that same 500mhz increased overclock. For only $35 instead of a $60 price difference, it's a no brainer in value.

But thats assuming you got a good chip, so let's say it's 300mhz only. Again, 300mhz = $60-90, that's equal to 60, and more than 35.

A higher quality board consumes significantly less power, as it runs significantly cooler. Let's calculate how much money you save using a higher quality board, using the following calc and the average electric rate of 11 cents/kwh (that's what my rate is)
http://www.handymath.com/cgi-bin/electric.cgi?submit=Entry

A 200w board is $192/yr, although that's not really accurate at all because 90% of the day, even on a heavy gaming day, you run low load/idle (and you sleep for 6+ hours too!), you really only run at max load very rarely on a day of heavy gaming. But whatever, that's nonsense, even though real figures and differences are a quarter of what we describe in the following, for the sake of brevity and argument.

Now a 257w board is $250/yr. Wait, where did I get that figure?

Let's say your chip needs 180w on a 5ghz@1.5v overclock, like mine did, as pictured. A 90% efficient VRM like the Gigabyte UD3H, will consume 200w. Meanwhile, a 70% efficient VRM like the Extreme4 (which is extremely generous, more than likely the board will fry out than run 70% efficient, it'll run 0% efficient) will need 257w to supply 180w to the chip.

Huge difference! So yea, you make that small price difference up, rather dramatically, with electricity costs. In reality, you run full load very rarely (just look at your averaged Core load, it'll be more like 10-30% than 100% even on a day of heavy gaming), so the cost difference is not $58/yr but more like $5.8-11.6 a year, but there's a difference nonetheless. 5 years, $10/yr, $50... I mean which way saves you money, no?

I'm all for buying what's the right value. No where do I say you need to spend a lot of money on a motherboard, I say the exact opposite. All I'm saying here, is buy the better motherboard.

Not to mention, for the ~$30 price increase of the UD3H, you get way better aesthetics, better build quality, better RAM overclocking, etc etc...

Now, are you telling me is it worth it to run 5ghz daily? It all depends on what kind of user you are. For me, it is definitely worth it, when even at 5ghz I can't hit 60fps, and I run a popular stream with lots of viewers in HD. I also paid only $50 for my PSC RAM, they still go for only $50, and I only paid $56 for my 2600mhz CL9 Hynix CFR ram, defnitely worth it.

I paid $500 for my i7-3770K rig. If you can build anything stronger than it for the same amount of money, please, I'm all ears. Good luck building 2 x i5 rigs for under $500!

If you speaking of why to have 2 computers instead of 1 overclocked, it is just as relevant as using USB adapter on board without enough USB ports. If you want to have dedicated rig for distributed computing, OC is just bad way to go.

I don't do distributed computing, I stream and play a heavily CPU dependent game. In which case, overclocking makes a huge difference. It also adds a ton of value. The extra light bulb in electricity cost is definitely worth it to me, and I'm getting a very real return of a noticeable performance boost for that increased electricity cost, whereas the Extreme4 and other low quality boards use more electricitry for the same overclock, or similar electricity for less.

 

[Sheep221]

Got it now, and I'm also aware of heat as cause of increased power draw.
And while I agree with you also on motherboards. The situation is still better than ever.
If you look at just near past(very few years ago), all manufacturers like Asus, Gigabyte, ASrock, MSI, Biostar and more, didn't sell anything that is gaming, overclocking or anyhow premium, most boards in general allowed overclocking and while there were better and worse boards for overclocking and handling certain overclocks, doing good OC was rather skill and alot of luck rather than hardware. The only boards designed natively for OC were sold by DFI and probably EVGA, but that's all. Today even the worst of worst OC boards and CPUs will bring down more stability and less heating and power issues when running heavily overclocked than ever before. So you criticizing ASrock way over for what is really bad. Not so long ago when you were not enough careful with overclocking you could burn the CPU or VRMs instantly, after thermal protection introduction, only boards were endangered by burning but still, overclocking designed CPUs such as Core2 Extreme, P4 Extreme or Athlon 64 FX cost $600-1000 a piece. And not the mention various BIOS, chipsets, drivers and more issues boards at that time had.
The quality of mobos in general went up drastically in last 3 years while their prices went pretty much down. The overpay on Z87 and its bugs are nowhere near problems we once had. While stability and reliability is higher, today's situation however removed most of fun and challenge from overclocking.
OCing crap hardware to perform near the level of top end hardware was something the OC was about. Not buying expensive hardware so you just allowed to move multiplier in form of seek bar, that's not it basically.

For myself, I own P67 ASrock and this one is very solid, there are no problems with it whatsoever. I haven't OCed my CPU yet because I have low profile heatsink installed on it, but I'm going to buy tower type soon and try some OC stuff, just to see how it will work, I'm fine with stock performance for now.

 

[Belial88]

True. I mean when you really get down to it, the Extreme4 isn't a terrible board. It's just terrible in relative terms. You can still do a moderate overclock on it, and it'll still likely last longer than the time you use it, it's just that it's priced similarly to boards with far better build quality and can do extreme overclocks. Most users won't notice a difference, and even advanced users may just get unlucky with chip binning or simply didn't spend the money for better than a mid-range heatsink. It's just such users would be better off spending a lot less.

Z87 boards are really pretty good, and asrock extreme4 z87 is way better in quality than it's z77 predecessor. P67 asrock was pretty awesome.

 

[Aikouka]

I mean when you really get down to it, the Extreme4 isn't a terrible board.

I beg to differ. Unfortunately, I own one, and it's a buggy mess. The BIOS freezes half the time, and I had a hard lock-up last night when trying to access a temperature diode in SpeedFan. This board has been nothing but trouble for me, which is a bummer because I've had good luck with ASRock in the past (I have a P67 Extreme6).

I'm tempted to just buy a new motherboard at this point, because Newegg won't let you return the Extreme4. :\

 

[Sheep221]

I beg to differ. Unfortunately, I own one, and it's a buggy mess. The BIOS freezes half the time, and I had a hard lock-up last night when trying to access a temperature diode in SpeedFan. This board has been nothing but trouble for me, which is a bummer because I've had good luck with ASRock in the past (I have a P67 Extreme6).

I'm tempted to just buy a new motherboard at this point, because Newegg won't let you return the Extreme4. :\

Maybe you got a bad piece, I owned a well reviewed gigabyte board for socket AM2 and I had so many problems with it that I bought another one, and it was even worse, I RMA'd both got refunded cash and bought Asus instead, which was also troublesome to some point but clearly better.

 

[Aikouka]

Maybe you got a bad piece, I owned a well reviewed gigabyte board for socket AM2 and I had so many problems with it that I bought another one, and it was even worse, I RMA'd both got refunded cash and bought Asus instead, which was also troublesome to some point but clearly better.

It's possible. Although, the reason why I mentioned it is that I've seen others with the same BIOS issue (a quick Google search brings up quite a few). I think there is a new BIOS firmware out, but I haven't had the chance to load it yet.

EDIT:

I was tempted to try and get rid of the board, but Newegg will only do a standard RMA, which means my machine will be down for days. Although, I could just buy a new board and try to sell the RMA'd ASRock. :hmm:

 

[Sheep221]

It's possible. Although, the reason why I mentioned it is that I've seen others with the same BIOS issue (a quick Google search brings up quite a few). I think there is a new BIOS firmware out, but I haven't had the chance to load it yet.

EDIT:

I was tempted to try and get rid of the board, but Newegg will only do a standard RMA, which means my machine will be down for days. Although, I could just buy a new board and try to sell the RMA'd ASRock. :hmm:

Yeah this is the problem, my rig stood disassembled for 1 month because of RMA.
Anyway good idea, buy another mobo RMA this one and than sell it.

 

[Belial88]

I beg to differ. Unfortunately, I own one, and it's a buggy mess. The BIOS freezes half the time, and I had a hard lock-up last night when trying to access a temperature diode in SpeedFan. This board has been nothing but trouble for me, which is a bummer because I've had good luck with ASRock in the past (I have a P67 Extreme6).

I'm tempted to just buy a new motherboard at this point, because Newegg won't let you return the Extreme4. :\

yea lol it actually is pretty bad. I mean it'll do a moderate oc but it's truly awful for it's price point. As for the BIOS issues, why don't you try a different BIOS first? Every board has a buggy BIOS version at some point.

If you can afford it, buy another mobo for the time being, when it arrives, RMA the extreme4.

 

[Aikouka]

yea lol it actually is pretty bad. I mean it'll do a moderate oc but it's truly awful for it's price point. As for the BIOS issues, why don't you try a different BIOS first? Every board has a buggy BIOS version at some point.

I have updated the BIOS before, but I meant that I don't have the (as of writing) absolute latest installed. I'm one of those people that doesn't like to restart his PC if he can help it, so it's just one of those things that I need to time along with a Windows Update install.

If you can afford it, buy another mobo for the time being, when it arrives, RMA the extreme4.

I might just do that. I'll have to look around for boards that I like better. I'll probably go with something from ASUS or Gigabyte. I wouldn't mind getting one of those boards with built-in water cooling stuff, but I haven't seen them available yet.

 

[Belial88]

The boards with 'built in watercooling' just means that the 2 VRM sinks (only one of which is necessary, your VTT/IMC/iGPU phases don't heat up even with overclocking since you don't push nearly as much voltage or power in them, even with high overvolts, which just isn't really done on those components) have a water loop tube in them, like they double as a VRM water block.

VRM water blocks go for $20-40, they really aren't expensive. And any board with 'built in water cooling', has a VRM so strong that you could do LN2/extreme overclocks on without using a vrm heatsink at all because the phases will be so strong. I mean, boards 'only' $100-150 are where you start to find boards with VRMs high enough quality to handle extreme water overclocks, suicide runs, and LN2 overclocking.

My point is that 'built in watercooling' is a useless feature. The only boards that would warrant such extreme VRM cooling, would be low end boards that have hot running VRMs. VRM quality and cooling is important, don't get me wrong, it's just sort of like, say, power supplies, where once you reach the point of 'good enough', having more is kind of a waste.

That said, the Asus P8Z77-V LE is a solid board, it lacks SLI if that's important to you (it's odd such a mid-range, good quality board lacks SLI license), and the Asus P8Z77-V LK is good (it's the opposite - has SLI, but a much lower quality VRM and build quality than LE).

For Z77, Gigabyte just blew it out of the park so far, that your best choices in motherboards is the Z77-D3H, Z77X-D3H, and Z77X-UD3H depending on how much you want to spend, what's available to you, and pricing (ie ud3h is best, but being most popular it's usually on some sort of sale where it's the same price, if not cheaper).

Asus makes the best boards out there, by far, but unless you are a serious LN2 RAM overclocker (or very, very serious ambient ram clocker i guess, ddr3 can be benched on air just fine) and/or sub zero overclocker, there's little reason to get more than a mid-range board. And if you are by microcenter, I'd recommend the very crappy MSI Z77A-G41 if all you do is moderate overclocks or not a huge overclocker in general, just because it's $20-40 and so damn cheap.

The best analogy I'd put it, is that MSI and Biostar are like Geos or Hyundai of motherboards, Gigabyte is the Honda (or maybe Lexus or BMW really), and Asus is the Porsche. MSI/Biostar is best for budget, Gigabyte for mid/upper, and Asus for high end. Buy pretty much according to what you do, and how much you like overclocking (if you just want to set your 4.5ghz, a high end board, maybe even mid-range, might not be the best choice for you).

Buying a Porsche boxster? Go for it! Buying a porsche cayenne or Cadillac Catera? Eh...

 

[Aikouka]

Hmm it seems that you are right about the water cooling from what I've looked up.

Part of the reason why I liked the Maximus board is because it matches the red on black motif that I'm going with my new setup. Normally, I'd feel bad about admitting such frivolous details, but this is a thread about motherboard aesthetics!

...and of course, my return period with Newegg ended yesterday. If this latest BIOS is still an abomination, I'll get to deal with ASRock. Yay.

 

[john3850]

Every c2d Gigabyte board that I owned had bios related problems which always led to a dead mb so I now stay clear of Gigabyte.
For what ever reason Gigabyte mb have been the choice for the dice fans.
Most If not all the MSI boards I have owned always had odd ball features and jumpers.
Up untill a few years back when I was unable to work I would never have bought any mb without first checking on the amount of power phases etc.
The Pro3 is the cheapest built board I have ever owned I had to put two noisy black Deltas on the mosfet area of the mb before pushing it.
I was very shocked that Pro3 survived the ibt at 49k-51k and I didnt believe it would last to much longer so it became the wifes pc.
During the geforce3 days I was into 3dmark and there times when I only got a few good runs before doing a clean install do to corruption from no pci lock etc.

 

[Belial88]

Part of the reason why I liked the Maximus board is because it matches the red on black motif that I'm going with my new setup. Normally, I'd feel bad about admitting such frivolous details, but this is a thread about motherboard aesthetics!

There are a ton of red/black boards cheaper than the maximus...

You can also always remove VRM and chipset heatsinks easily and just paint them. Plenty of people do that, actually.

...and of course, my return period with Newegg ended yesterday. If this latest BIOS is still an abomination, I'll get to deal with ASRock. Yay.

Message them anyways, most tech companies are not sticklers for the day. Newegg in particular is very good about it.

If the latest BIOS is an issue, get an older one. Not very difficult to do... BIOS are always updated, BIOS always has issues on every board as new revisions come out and kinks get worked out. BIOS issues only matter if you do a lot of RAM overclocking, generally speaking, otherwise you won't really notice most BIOS issues.

Of course, sometimes there's a USB port not working or a SATA issue, but again, niche and easily fixed.

very c2d Gigabyte board that I owned had bios related problems which always led to a dead mb so I now stay clear of Gigabyte.

Gigabyte used to be awful in regards to software - kind of like the opposite, of say, MSI, who has some of the best BIOS but the most awful hardware. Unlike MSI though, MSI still makes awful motherboards, but Gigabyte has fixed up their BIOS around Z77 (you can hire an engineer, you can't just unhire your IC supplier and hire the competitor who's already obligated to another company...).

For what ever reason Gigabyte mb have been the choice for the dice fans.

I'm not sure that's true, Asus generally is. GB is a close second for sure though, and you'll find a lot of GB fans who say that the price difference isn't worth it, that GB is extremely similar for half the price, etc, but we're talking about $300+ boards. Another difference is you can do LN2 with $100 GB boards, which requires $150+ on other brands.