New Hardware New Motherboard-CPU-Memory needed

Snipeye said:
So to sum up the overall opinions
1) Can't go wrong with the i5, but the i7 is an option.
2) No on the ASrock board or ASUS. Thus rises Gigabyte (Yay!) or MSI (Okay)
3) 8GB or 16GB, the choice is yours. It's really about even in pricing terms ($80 for 8GB, $160 for 16GB).
Click to expand...

This sums up your choices well. Although I would still steer clear of MSI. (Just my opinion. ;) )

This is a good gigabyte board if you're in that market. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128594

Nothing too fancy yet has thunderbolt support. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128703
 
Last edited:
DragonD said:
I was looking at this board here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128707

Somebody mentioned DDR4.. doesn't the board have to also support that? You can't just plug it in.. no?

speaking of memory...how does it work now. It use to be, you had to use even amount of sticks (2 or 4). Can you run odd counts now? Say.. like 1 8mb stick?
Click to expand...

Only X99 boards need DDR4. *97 boards use DDR3.

You can run odd numbers of sticks but you will find better performance by using even numbers of sticks of the same sizes, speeds, and latencies. The best performance is found when you only use identical sticks from the same lot (packaged together). You can get really technical when it comes to explaining how memory becomes more efficient in different configurations and I don't have the know-how to explain it.

Snipeye said:
So to sum up the overall opinions
1) Can't go wrong with the i5, but the i7 is an option.
2) No on the ASrock board or ASUS. Thus rises Gigabyte (Yay!) or MSI (Okay)
3) 8GB or 16GB, the choice is yours. It's really about even in pricing terms ($80 for 8GB, $160 for 16GB).
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say no to either ASRock or ASUS. I think that Dragon should just know about ASUS' terrible RMA service. Just because someone has a bad experience with a certain brand (talking about MSI specifically) it doesn't mean you should rule them out. Unfortunately when it comes to ASUS, it may come down to a large amount of people having issues with their RMA service.

pillar said:
Also going back to the chipset differences. Since you want a newer gaming machine, just stick with Zxx motherboards. Anything less will be a waste of performance.
Click to expand...

No. If you buy the i5-4670 or i5-4690 you will want to get X85, X87, or X97 motherboards. Not all ZXX boards will work. Specifically, if you buy a Z77 motherboard you will find that your CPU will not fit. Note that if you buy a X85 or X87 motherboard you will likely need a BIOS update that could be hard to apply depending on the motherboard model assuming you have an unsupported CPU and not all motherboards let you update the BIOS without a CPU.

I dont like Asrock because no one talks about it. I think their pricing is cheap (and some of it isnt.) I dont read up on it and my opinion on them will stand till they become more popular.
Click to expand...

Many people "talk about" ASRock motherboards. If you go to newegg and sort Intel motherboards by amount of reviews you will see that ASRock makes the motherboard with the most customer reviews, as well as the motherboard with the 4th most, 10th most, and 11th most reviews. All these reviews mean something, and it is isn't that "no one talks about Asrock". The only other motherboard maker that occupies these top review counts with ASRock on Newegg is ASUS- the next brand is a Gigabyte board has 15th most reviews.

So yeah, there are a lot of people talking about ASRock boards. I would group ASRock along with ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI as a motherboard producing powerhouse.
 
Everyone has a preference and it comes down to what you're comfortable with. I'll give you what's worked for me on the builds I've done for myself and others at least as far as brands and reliability.

Motherboard -- ASUS -- easy set up, reliable, doesn't matter the CPU. Don't skimp here, get a solid mid to high end board and it will last.

Memory -- GSkill, Mushkin. I personally run and use GSkill in my rig and in the last 3 I've built for friends. Hasn't let me down, voltage wise or overclock wise. Two 1600 sticks, 8gb total are plenty.

Heatsink - Noctua -- yeah it costs, a lot, but I've never had one fail in almost a dozen builds. Still cheaper AND more effective than most water coolers . . . if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Even the low profile models rock.

CPU -- pick 'em. Can't go wrong either way. Intel is the champ, has been for about a decade. Can't go wrong with a i5, but the cost sucks. I do run and like AMD chips just for the price point alone, can get a 6300 six core for half the price and it almost equals performance.

Everyone is right, Cyper Monday / Black Friday is coming. Time to save the pennies and look at what's in "store". Newegg will always have something coming up.

Oh . . . and don't skimp on the power supply either. Get a good, solid stable Gold with at least 650 watts and roll on.
 
_Sushi said:
Only X99 boards need DDR4. *97 boards use DDR3.

You can run odd numbers of sticks but you will find better performance by using even numbers of sticks of the same sizes, speeds, and latencies. The best performance is found when you only use identical sticks from the same lot (packaged together). You can get really technical when it comes to explaining how memory becomes more efficient in different configurations and I don't have the know-how to explain it.



I wouldn't say no to either ASRock or ASUS. I think that Dragon should just know about ASUS' terrible RMA service. Just because someone has a bad experience with a certain brand (talking about MSI specifically) it doesn't mean you should rule them out. Unfortunately when it comes to ASUS, it may come down to a large amount of people having issues with their RMA service.



No. If you buy the i5-4670 or i5-4690 you will want to get X85, X87, or X97 motherboards. Not all ZXX boards will work. Specifically, if you buy a Z77 motherboard you will find that your CPU will not fit. Note that if you buy a X85 or X87 motherboard you will likely need a BIOS update that could be hard to apply depending on the motherboard model assuming you have an unsupported CPU and not all motherboards let you update the BIOS without a CPU.



Many people "talk about" ASRock motherboards. If you go to newegg and sort Intel motherboards by amount of reviews you will see that ASRock makes the motherboard with the most customer reviews, as well as the motherboard with the 4th most, 10th most, and 11th most reviews. All these reviews mean something, and it is isn't that "no one talks about Asrock". The only other motherboard maker that occupies these top review counts with ASRock on Newegg is ASUS- the next brand is a Gigabyte board has 15th most reviews.

So yeah, there are a lot of people talking about ASRock boards. I would group ASRock along with ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI as a motherboard producing powerhouse.
Click to expand...

I meant specifically I have not seen reviews from most of the sites/youtubers/articles I look at of ASrock. I dont browse newegg to look at their reviews because I honestly believe a lot of people are computer illiterate and newegg reviews dont do a product justice or injustice.

I am sure just as many people that have had problems with ASUS have had problems with other big name companies. Each company follows a guideline and when becoming a major company you will have people dislike you if you arent able to get a reply within the hour you emailed them. We can sit and bicker back and forth all day on what brand is better and how you seem to think ASRock is superior because of ASUS' bad RMA and I think ASUS is great because I havent heard of ASRock. (Kind of why I just suggested a Gigabyte board.)

I dont hear many bad things coming from a Gigabyte board to be perfectly honest.

Also... Just dont pick some random CPU like frost said... I guarantee you'll start having problems. There is a reason a lot of CPU's are made and different motherboards. Its called socket guys.
 
Cloakedsphere said:
Also... Just dont pick some random CPU like frost said... I guarantee you'll start having problems. There is a reason a lot of CPU's are made and different motherboards. Its called socket guys.
Click to expand...

I didn't read frost as saying we should "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Choose a CPU by it's toe...". He was saying it does not matter if it's Intel or AMD. "Pick one, both are good.. can't go wrong with either one..."
 
.
I've decided to go with the following items:

The motherboard will be the GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD5H

For the CPU, I'm going to to go with the i5-4690K

I thought really hard about the i7. The i7-4790K is exactly $100 more. That's really not very much.

Maybe the i7 would load things a few nano-seconds faster.. but I don't think I will ever notice/see the difference.

The current top i7's, are over a Grand in price. In a few years, they will be "has beens" and cost only a couple hundred. I could pick one up then...

------

I've decided not to go thru newegg. This will be my 4th build. The other 3 I used newegg for the parts.

My current rig is 5 years old this month, so it's been that long since I had to research this stuff.

But, five years ago, there didn't seem to be as big an issue with DOA boards and RMA's. Sure, you read about people with them, and horror stories...but not as many as now.

Anyways, there is a Frys not to far from me. I drive past it when I go into work.

I did the comparisons between newegg and Frys (with buying in store) for the above cpu AND mb.

When you add in shipping for newegg, and tax for Frys to get the "total" bill.. Fry's was exactly $40 more.

That's it. $40.

And if it's DOA.. I just take it back and get another one. Paying the $40 is worth that piece of mind.

----

I'm confused about the memory.

The board specs say it can use DDR3 3200(OC).

That means it can support memory that has been overclocked UP to 3200, yes?

Cause I couldn't really find any DDR3 3200 sticks :P

soo.. when picking memory, the DDR3 1600 seems to be very common. Lots of choices. But.. would say, a DDR3 2400 be faster?

For example, These two comparisons.

Would the 2400 be better? or does the one point difference in the Cas Latency "even" things out?

I think I'll go with 16G RAM. Most likely 2X8.

I think we have reached a point with gaming rigs, where 8G is standard (and needed). Starting out with 16G should last the life of this build. But.. if I need more one day, I'll have 2 empty memory slots to expand into.

----

so, now just need to choose memory :crying:
 
DragonD said:
.
I've decided to go with the following items:

The motherboard will be the GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD5H
Click to expand...

You should be fine with just a UD3H. I think the UD5H is still overkill if you're just doing light overclocking. If you tell me which Fry's you're going to buy stuff from I can tell you which to get. (not sure if Fry's carries the UD3H)

Any memory at 1600mhz, 1866mhz, 2133mhz, 2400mhz with low timings should work fine.
 
Dragon, you're right about the 3200(OC). That's RAM overclocked to 3.2GHz speeds; the motherboard is saying it can recognize RAM that's up to those speeds (getting there is another question). The decision on faster/slower RAM is up to you, but you can't go wrong with either decision; faster performance or cost savings. Won't hurt to look and see how much of a performance gain you can expect to get at the higher level. I like the trio of picks and I can't fault the decision to go through Fry's. Definitely worth my piece of mind to buy local so if I have a problem, I can immediately get it replaced instead of waiting to ship it through the mail and get it back again.
 
_Sushi said:
You should be fine with just a UD3H. I think the UD5H is still overkill if you're just doing light overclocking. If you tell me which Fry's you're going to buy stuff from I can tell you which to get. (not sure if Fry's carries the UD3H)

Any memory at 1600mhz, 1866mhz, 2133mhz, 2400mhz with low timings should work fine.
Click to expand...

I looked at the UD3H. Really hard. It came down to the UD5H, cause it has more ports (more USB, SATA 6, etc).

Fry's has them both in the store near me. I stopped on the way home from work and picked up the UD5H. I also picked up the i5-4690K.

All good. :)

Until I got to the memory.

The motherboard and cpu, I had verified they had in-stock at my local store.

I failed to do that with the memory I had picked out...some really spiffy CORSAIR. They didn't have it in stock :crying:

Course, they don't have the memory just sitting out where you can browse it, so i got put "on the spot" to pick one out.

I don't think I got what I really want-need. (FYI, Fry's doesn't carry G.SKILL)

I ended up getting these Patriot Viper 3 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 15000)

  • DDR3 1866 (PC3 15000)
  • Timing 10-11-10-30
  • Cas Latency 10
  • Voltage 1.5V

I don't want the 15000, right? I want 16000..yes?

ugh.
 
It's faster RAM running at 266 MHz more than the standard 1.6GHz that's the common staple for DDR3. Its fine. If you're having buyer's remorse, you can always take it back and get a different pair.
 
But what does the "PC3 15000" mean?

Won't it be slower than the PC3 16000?
 
DragonD said:
But what does the "PC3 15000" mean?

Won't it be slower than the PC3 16000?
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM

DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500)
DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
DDR3 1866 (PC3 15000)
DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000)
DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000)
DDR3 2400 (PC3 19200)
DDR3 2600 (PC3 20800)
DDR3 2666 (PC3 21300)
DDR3 2800 (PC3 22400)

The designation doesn't completely equal each other as PC3 16000 doesn't equal DDR3 1600, as you can see from the quick synopsis above.

DDR3-xxx denotes data transfer rate, and describes raw DDR chips, whereas PC3-xxxx denotes theoretical bandwidth (with the last two digits 00), and is used to describe assembled DIMMs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top