So many socket 1150 motherboards... where to start?

[Sophia]

I could use some guidance in choosing among the endless number of socket 1150 motherboards. I'm all for competition, but do we really need 321 variations (per Newegg)?

I doubt I'm up to date on all the newest features, but I'm looking for at least these things:

• 
  ATX or mATX 1150 (for G3220 or i3)

• Using Vista x64 for the time being

• Durability – We use (or hand-me-down) computers for many years. My current one (Asus M3A78-EM) is six years old and it will be replacing one that was nine years old.

• I’ve sought out four ram slots in the past, but with so much memory these days, perhaps that is less of a consideration.

• I would not rule out upgrading a cpu in the future, but looking at my past three builds, two of them I’ve upgraded the motherboard/cpu/ram as a unit. (The other died at a needlessly young age from capacitor plague.)

• I won’t be overclocking

• At most one graphics card

• Will add an ssd sometime in the future

• At least three sata ports (1-2 hd and dvd drive)

• Front usb ports

• Although not necessary, it would be convenient if there were enough audio ports to plug in headphones and speakers at the same time and/or front audio ports via a drive bay somehow.

Any advice?

 

[Kenmitch]

To narrow down your result 1st you need to decide on form factor.

Next would be to read the reviews on the boards that look interesting to you.

Next you'd want to look for driver support for Win Vista. This might be a hurdle to jump over. Looking at the drivers listed on my GB motherboard there is no Win Vista drivers available. Vista is kind of old these days so I'm not sure about support with other vendors.

Once your this far you should be able to make a educated decision on what works best for you.

The longevity part will be the hardest one. The saying they don't make them like they used to comes to play. Even the best MB's will have a certain lemon factor.

Most of the must have things you mention are included on all MB's these days. Front usb port support, sound, etc.

 

[crashtech]

I've seen a lot of compatibility between Vista x64 and Win7 x64 drivers, so that might not be a big problem.

Settling on a form factor is a good start as mentioned. Eliminating lower-tier brands is also something I do, limiting my selections to the brands I am comfortable with. Here's a poll showing which brands participants here prefer, draw your own conclusions.

Then you narrow down by price and features. Generally avoid the lowest priced boards, they are usually missing features you may not even notice until the thing is in your hands. Finding a better quality board on sale is a good bet, narrow it down to a few and post your findings.

 

[coffeejunkee]

If you don't overclock you don't need Z87/Z97 so you can scratch those.

mATX H87/H81 seems suitable but Vista is tricky. You can gamble and hope Win7 drivers work. Or maybe it's time to say goodbye to Vista. H87 has more ram slots and usually a couple more usb ports, otherwise it's the same as H81. Or wait a bit for H97 motherboards. They'll be a bit more future proof with new drive interfaces.

The hard part is choosing between a brand since they're all pretty much similar these days. Then again, you can't really go wrong (except maybe ECS, I wouldn't really recommend them unless you have a very tight budget).

 

[Joepublic2]

The main concern with reliability is capacitors. Get a board that uses all polymer capacitors. Lots are available today; there's no excuse to get a board with electrolytic capacitors anymore IMO. Even if you're on a strict budget you should still save up the extra 20$ for a board with all polymer caps (if there's a few small electrolytic caps clustered around the audio chipset they're being to clean up the power because they're superior in that application; not a big deal as if one/some go it shouldn't stop you from using the board, just the onboard audio).

Polymer caps look like this:
http://i.imgur.com/BFSkGgt.jpg
Notice how they're almost perfectly cylindrical and there's no vent scoring on the top, as well as the info being printed directly onto the aluminum shell.

Electrolytic ones look like this:
http://i.imgur.com/csnsuWA.jpg
Notice the (usually) cross venting pattern on the top, and the plastic wrapper that has information about the cap and how they're pinched at the base

 

[crashtech]

Good point about the caps. I think if you stay away from the cheapest offerings of any brand, and eliminate brands like Biostar and ECS, you have eliminated 99% of the boards with electrolytics.

 

[mistersprinkles]

In the same price range as an i3, you can get an FX 6300 and an M5A97 R2.0 and end up with a much more powerful system. Intel sucks for low end. If your budget is less than $200 for a CPU, you should be looking at amd.

 

[crashtech]

In the same price range as an i3, you can get an FX 6300 and an M5A97 R2.0 and end up with a much more powerful system. Intel sucks for low end. If your budget is less than $200 for a CPU, you should be looking at amd.

Only somewhat true once that AMD CPU is overclocked for all it is worth, which requires a large aftermarket cooler. If you feel free to express such derogatory opinions about Intel products, just wait and see what some will say about AMD's CPUs, none of which can come even close to matching an Intel CPUs IPC at any price.

 

[Kenmitch]

If you don't overclock you don't need Z87/Z97 so you can scratch those.

mATX H87/H81 seems suitable but Vista is tricky. You can gamble and hope Win7 drivers work. Or maybe it's time to say goodbye to Vista. H87 has more ram slots and usually a couple more usb ports, otherwise it's the same as H81. Or wait a bit for H97 motherboards. They'll be a bit more future proof with new drive interfaces.

The hard part is choosing between a brand since they're all pretty much similar these days. Then again, you can't really go wrong (except maybe ECS, I wouldn't really recommend them unless you have a very tight budget).

For the long haul the xtra $20 or so might be worth it for a z based board.

 

[mistersprinkles]

Only somewhat true once that AMD CPU is overclocked for all it is worth, which requires a large aftermarket cooler. If you feel free to express such derogatory opinions about Intel products, just wait and see what some will say about AMD's CPUs, none of which can come even close to matching an Intel CPUs IPC at any price.

Cool your jets, Tex. I'm right in saying that low end Intel sucks. AMD overall sucks but their lowend beats Intel's.

AMD may still be in the stone age with pins on their CPU and a northbridge and an inferior lithography process but their cheap CPUs still beat cheap Intels.

If you could use all 6 cores, you're telling me you don't think an FX6350 could beat an i3 dual core? Come on.

 

[crashtech]

If you could use all 6 cores, you're telling me you don't think an FX6350 could beat an i3 dual core? Come on.

Problem is, very few will do that outside of machines built for a dedicated purpose. For general computing and most gaming, Haswell i3 ties or wins. From the results I've seen, generally speaking one i3 core with HT is worth at least 2 AMD cores.

There aren't a lot of Haswell i3 benchmarks, nobody really takes them seriously. But they seem more than an incremental improvement over the Ivy i3s, here's a link to an article so readers can decide for themselves.

 

[coffeejunkee]

For the long haul the xtra $20 or so might be worth it for a z based board.

Yeah I did say wait for H97 (but you don't have to, I see they're available already) but the ones with an M.2 slot aren't that much cheaper than Z97. Guess it's back to 320 options again.

 

[you2]

How large is your case; if you are building a small desktop system I would go with m-itx or m-atx (depending on case you choose). It sounds like your build will be lower powered (less than 100 watt; esp if you are using hd4000/hd3000 as your gpu (one advantage of intel over amd)).
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I've build a coupel of systems with asrock m-itx h81; the older one is 1155 is about a year old; the newer one is only 6 months old - no issues yet.
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Using a ssd later is not a big deal if you are ok with using sata port (rather than m.sata). Which board/chipset mostly dependso n features you want (number of sata ports, usb ports, usb 3.0 ports; if you require m.sata2; and if you are using intel gpu then check what video connectors you want (dvi, display port, hdmi, vga). I personally tend towards display port but the systems I build had to have vga for intended target.
(I like display port to make it easy to drive 27 inch monitor).
-

 

[Kenmitch]

Yeah I did say wait for H97 (but you don't have to, I see they're available already) but the ones with an M.2 slot aren't that much cheaper than Z97. Guess it's back to 320 options again.

I wouldn't worry about it. Looks to be one of those drive by threads anyways. Doesn't look like the OP has been back anyways.

 

[Levelog]

Honestly I'd recommend against an H81 board. They are very lacking in features, and at least with the ones I've worked with do not support USB 3.0. I would say jump to the H87, or H97, but if those are out of budget, the B85 is an excellent choice. Don't look away due to that fact it's technically geared towards business line products, it packs a solid amount of features in for a lesser price. This is one I've built about 40 systems with, and have had no problems with outside the normal realm of user error.

 

[crashtech]

There are many H81 boards with USB 3.0 rear panel and front panel headers, but one cannot expect to obtain that by choosing the least expensive option. B85 boards are fine, but they pack anachronistic features like parallel ports, which is fine I guess if you have legacy equipment like many offices. I tend to think that some H81 boards offer very good value IF you stay away from the stripped-down cheapies. You have to be very diligent in examining the feature sets.

 

[bononos]

Cool your jets, Tex. I'm right in saying that low end Intel sucks. AMD overall sucks but their lowend beats Intel's.

AMD may still be in the stone age with pins on their CPU and a northbridge and an inferior lithography process but their cheap CPUs still beat cheap Intels.

If you could use all 6 cores, you're telling me you don't think an FX6350 could beat an i3 dual core? Come on.

After Haswell, Intel i3 doesn't suck anymore and its better value compared to the 63xx for the average consumer/gamer.

 

[you2]

Actually I think I3 is a bit overrpriced compare to celeron (ala g3220 and similar). I find the celeron the sweet spot for the low end and the i5 the sweet spot for the high end (for intel). AMD has better gpu at the low end but tends to run warmer and eat more power.
-

 

[coffeejunkee]

Honestly I'd recommend against an H81 board. They are very lacking in features, and at least with the ones I've worked with do not support USB 3.0. I would say jump to the H87, or H97, but if those are out of budget, the B85 is an excellent choice. Don't look away due to that fact it's technically geared towards business line products, it packs a solid amount of features in for a lesser price. This is one I've built about 40 systems with, and have had no problems with outside the normal realm of user error.

H81 chipset has usb3 ports too, albeit just 2 (H87 has 6, B85 has 4). Yes, H81 is lacking in features but it's cheap too. If you never use more than a ssd + hdd, why pay for 6 sata3 ports?

Afaik there has been no announcement of H91 chipset so it seems H81 will be the entry-level for a little longer.

 

[Sophia]

Next you'd want to look for driver support for Win Vista. This might be a hurdle to jump over. Looking at the drivers listed on my GB motherboard there is no Win Vista drivers available. Vista is kind of old these days so I'm not sure about support with other vendors.

After looking at several major brands, I suspect I will find no "official" support for Vista whatsoever since it is no longer in "mainstream support". Perhaps that is not a bad thing since I should probably put that copy of Vista on an old XP machine I have.

 

[crashtech]

After looking at several major brands, I suspect I will find no "official" support for Vista whatsoever since it is no longer in "mainstream support". Perhaps that is not a bad thing since I should probably put that copy of Vista on an old XP machine I have.

That sounds like an excellent plan! I always found Vista to be a bit clunky anyway, 7 was a huge improvement.

 

[Sophia]

How large is your case; if you are building a small desktop system I would go with m-itx or m-atx (depending on case you choose). It sounds like your build will be lower powered (less than 100 watt; esp if you are using hd4000/hd3000 as your gpu (one advantage of intel over amd)).
-

I have a lonely Antec SX630II case up in a closet. Is there any reason not to stick with it? Two front fans, one rear, no side ones. I confess I have dreams of m-itx, but I'm pretty frugal.

 

[you2]

The only reason to not 'stick' with it would be if you wanted a smaller case. I'm not sure if the PSU will be an issue; it has more than enough power but I'm unsure if the standards have changed between pentinum 4 and haswel; I suspect not. Hum. It even has 2 sata connectors; but if you add optical or second drive you might need an adapter to convert one of the other plugs to sata (many MB comes with them; else they cost $2 at microcenter).
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That's an atx case; but I guess you knew that. Anyways you can build this system for about $250 if you go with g3220 or g3240 (microcenter has very good prices on them - around $50). There is a chance that any MB you buy will be DOA (or die in the first couple of weeks) but I suspect any of them will be 'durable' esp given that youa re not overclocking or driving a lot of heat thruogh the system.

I have a lonely Antec SX630II case up in a closet. Is there any reason not to stick with it? Two front fans, one rear, no side ones. I confess I have dreams of m-itx, but I'm pretty frugal.

 

[coffeejunkee]

I have a lonely Antec SX630II case up in a closet. Is there any reason not to stick with it? Two front fans, one rear, no side ones. I confess I have dreams of m-itx, but I'm pretty frugal.

I would say yes, because it uses small fans which cause a lot of noise. But these modern cpu's run so cool it doesn't really matter. Just make sure you get a motherboard with enough controllable headers to connect the fans (can use a splitter to connect 2 fans to 1 header) so you can control their speed.

 

[dac7nco]

Durability – We use (or hand-me-down) computers for many years. My current one (Asus M3A78-EM) is six years old and it will be replacing one that was nine years old.

This will last that long:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813132099

I've used ASUS "corporate stable" boards in the past; my Mom had one of my socket 775 machines for eight years and three CPUs... this one is sabertooth based, and will likely live longer than a pet.

Daimon