The drawbacks of inexpensive z77 motherboards

[Termie]

There are a lot of great motherboards available right now at various price points, but I thought it would be helpful for people to keep in mind that there is real value in more expensive motherboards. Two recently-tested motherboards at Tom's and HardOCP, both from AsRock, exhibited some strange behavior:

From Tom's Builder's Article using the AsRock z77 Extreme4:

Today’s $1,600 build started out as an upgrade to my original $1,000 Performance PC, and should have contained only the components needed to make that build perform better. At the end of the day, however, I had to spend a little more on a motherboard that didn't help my performance, but rather addressed a couple of show-stopping flaws. Those issues were revealed when I paired an E1-stepping CPU with 1.65 V RAM, and then added a very heavy cooler with a very high-tension mounting kit.

Because I had problems with both the CPU memory controller and motherboard flex, I can’t be completely sure that Noctua's NH-D14 isn’t responsible for the whole mess. I only know from experience that the big cooler had a negative impact on at least three of my ASRock Z77 Extreme4 motherboards. And I’m not willing to talk about what might have happened to my fourth motherboard sample in my mad rush to find the problem.

I also know that Intel explicitly states that 1.50 V plus or minus 5% is the limit for Ivy Bridge-based processors, while at the same time validating the use of 1.65 V memory. I further know that the Z77 Extreme4 automatically sets 1.665 V for DDR3-2133, that ASRock’s set voltage levels are slightly lower than its actual voltage levels, and that nobody has given me proof of the E1-stepping Core i5’s ability to cope with voltage levels approaching 1.7 V.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-a-pc-tahiti-le-crossfire-overclocking,3454-15.html

From HardOCP's Review of the AsRock z77 Pro4-M:

I was fine until trying to push past 4.7GHz. I noticed the temperature gap between some of the CPU cores got larger than normal and this indicated to me that the water block wasn’t mounted evenly. Torque on each thread was as close as I could make it, so I’ll chalk this up to the warped PCB. 4.8GHz was possible but throttling incurred which bounced the clocks between 3.5GHz and 4.8GHz. To the board’s credit there wasn’t’ a lock up or crash doing that. I didn’t even lose any threads in the Prime95 tests.

All in all it wasn’t too hard to achieve a decent result. One final note on overclocking is that the board runs fairly hot normally and extremely hot overclocked. I don’t have the tools to measure this as accurately as Kyle does but I could feel the heat dumping off the power phases just by sticking my hand in that area. The heat wave was much more intense than it tends to be on higher end boards. Touching the heatsinks cooling the MOSFETs wasn’t any fun. While it wasn’t as bad as touching a hot stove it was definitely uncomfortable. The board only has four power phases and while ASRock touts it as having DIGI power control this is in my opinion somewhat misleading. Yes you do have digital control but you don’t have the same granular control over the power phases that you do on boards like the Z77 Extreme4.

It’s a cheap board and again costs are cut somewhere. So as long as you understand this board isn’t an overclockers dream by any means but it’s certainly capable. Especially when you factor in the price point.

...

After [stress testing] I went on to install the overclocking software and when I inserted the DVD in to the drive, I got nothing in response. Opening up the drive manager, I saw that the optical drive was no longer being detected while connected to a SATA2 header. After toying around with this for a while, plugging and unplugging both SSD and optical drives, it seems that during my stress testing we "lost" two of the native SATA2 headers. Resetting the BIOS to defaults and removing the PSU from the ASRock Z77 Pro4-M for a while did nothing to resolve this. So this issue occurred during the incubated torture testing; was this a result of traces on the PCB being stressed? I don’t know.

My take on this - AsRock's budget Extreme and Pro series z77 motherboards are great for builders on a budget, but they are simply the wrong choice for builders looking to use bigger cooling setups or going for high overclocks.

 

[_Rick_]

Classic case of "balance your budget".

It often makes little sense, to run a CPU intended to rival a 1000 dollar cpu on a mainboard that was cheaper than the cooler strapped to said CPU.

On the other hand, messed up XMP in the BIOS is pretty much normal (regarding the sudden 1.65V V_mem on one board), even on high end boards. I wouldn't read too much into that, unless the bug doesn't get fixed after it's been reported.
If you do want to run big voltages and amps, then you should probably go for one of the boards with high end power supply stages. It's not surprising that cheaper mainboards cannot offer the same power delivery quality as something over-engineered to that purpose.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

If you're running it flat instead of in a tower case, wouldn't that help the stressing/flex issue?

(Obviously not a lot you can do about lower-quality power-phase thingies.)

 

[dma0991]

My take on this - AsRock's budget Extreme and Pro series z77 motherboards are great for builders on a budget, but they are simply the wrong choice for builders looking to use bigger cooling setups or going for high overclocks.

The ASRock Z77 Extreme4 is not a replacement of the ASRock Z68 Extreme4. Based on its price point and added features, the direct replacement for the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 is the ASRock Z77 Extreme6. The ASRock Z77 Extreme4 still offers great value; just don't expect miracles out of its lower price point which is a result of dropping some extras.

 

[piasabird]

Maybe it is the Ivy Bridge Processors. Using sub-standard power supplies may be a problem also.

 

[blastingcap]

My AsRock Extreme4 (z77) already has one busted SATA port, but it's not enough for me to go through the hassle of RMA'ing it. But let me tell you, I will think twice about buying AsRock in the future.

 

[2timer]

I'm not even sure what OP's conclusions are about the z77 Pro4-M. The z77 is made for overclocking, and it did just that. It over clocked fine up to 4.7 Ghz. Are you upset with Asrock because you couldn't make it go as fast as you wanted?

The one omission from the second quote is that the Noctua cooler wasn't tested against another board. It's not really scientific to use one cooler and one board, and then blame the board. I don't think Asrock should be blamed. They didn't claim their motherboard was "high tension ready," so maybe you should select a different cooling option.

A person who buys these “value" boards should understand that they are within a certain class. Their performance should be compared to other options in the same class, not to $400 options. That's just common sense.

 

[Charlie98]

A person who buys these “value" boards should understand that they are within a certain class. Their performance should be compared to other options in the same class, not to $400 options. That's just common sense.

I never expected my bottom end Gigabyte Z68 board to be a monster OC'er... and I was not disappointed!

the direct replacement for the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 is the ASRock Z77 Extreme6

TBH, I'm confused as all get-out on the high end boards... apples are not necessarily apples using the manufacturer's adjectives... "SuperDouble Mondo Extreme V4x2..."

 

[Vectronic]

I have 2 Z77 Ext4s, and haven't had any of the problems listed happen.

My cooler (Zalman CNPS 9900Max, 755g) isn't as heavy as the NH-D14 (~1100g)... however in some other thread someone was curious about the strength/flex of the board, so I stuck 2 hard drives on top of the cooler (board is mounted vertically)... which came to 1945g.

No effect, nothing broke, and the cooler dipped/dropped by about 1.5mm, I'd say that's sufficient, 2kg of weight is more than any cooler I've seen (and no I don't need a 3kg cooler pointed out, ).

Other people have already pointed out my other thoughts (blaming the board not the cooler, voltage irregularities are normal, etc).

 

[StrangerGuy]

I'm not even sure what OP's conclusions are about the z77 Pro4-M. The z77 is made for overclocking, and it did just that. It over clocked fine up to 4.7 Ghz. Are you upset with Asrock because you couldn't make it go as fast as you wanted?

The one omission from the second quote is that the Noctua cooler wasn't tested against another board. It's not really scientific to use one cooler and one board, and then blame the board. I don't think Asrock should be blamed. They didn't claim their motherboard was "high tension ready," so maybe you should select a different cooling option.

A person who buys these “value" boards should understand that they are within a certain class. Their performance should be compared to other options in the same class, not to $400 options. That's just common sense.

Nonsense. ~$80 boards that OC SBs to 4.3GHz are clearly crap and aren't fitting to the elite LOOK AT ME BECAUSE I CAN SPEND LOTSA MONEY ON PCS GAMERZ caste. Don't listen to those cheapasses like me.

 

[WilliamM2]

I didn't know anyone actually read Tom's articles anymore.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

In general, you get what you pay for, and the motherboard has always been one of the most undervalued components in terms of the importance it has for the quality of the entire system. (The power supply is in first place).

But this isn't a cheapo board. So it is kind of revealing that this is happening.

 

[SaurusX]

I'm rocking the Pro4-M here. It does what I wanted it to do (modest OCing), so I'm happy. I didn't buy this board expecting it to be an enterprise-class board. I paid attention to price and value and made the decision to pull the trigger based on that. With computer components price is a pretty good indicator as to what you're going to get out of it.

 

[A5]

In general, you get what you pay for, and the motherboard has always been one of the most undervalued components in terms of the importance it has for the quality of the entire system. (The power supply is in first place).

But this isn't a cheapo board. So it is kind of revealing that this is happening.

To be fair, hanging a 1.1kg cooler on it will cause a problem in a lot of boards. I wouldn't feel comfortable using something that heavy.

 

[Rvenger]

Pro4-M is designed for light overclocking, hence the amount of power phases. MicroATX boards tend to run hotter since the components are normally more crammed together. That board would be perfect for 4.2ghz and that's what most people are actually satisfied with when they purchase that type of board. No LN2 users will be using that board unless they want to cook breakfast.

My experience on the Extreme 4 was completely different. I owned 2 of them and I had a Havik 140 CPU cooler on it and the PCB did not warp at all. If you have a good backplate, the backplate should endure most of the stress and not the PCB. [H] always has to create drama in their reviews IMO.

 

[tweakboy]

Cheaper components! Will die fast!