1155 mATX Motherboard

Casterina · 26 May 2016 at 09:53

Hi,

I currently have the 3770K overclocked to 4.5GHz stable with Gigabyte Z77 D3H motherboard but I'm going to downsize to mATX and I think only Z77, Z68 and P67 motherboards can support overclocking but correct me if I'm wrong.

These are the motherboards that I can find second hand but which one is better and can achieve the same overclock as my Gigabyte Z77 D3H motherboard?

Asus P8Z77-M
Gigabyte Z77M-D3H
MSI Z77MA-G45
Asus P8Z68-M
Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z68
Asus P8P67-M

Cheers guys

pastymuncher · 26 May 2016 at 10:50

All of them should manage a similar overclock as your current board but I would be going for a Z77 board if it was my choice. I don't see the point of going from a Z77 board to a older chipset such as P67 and Z68. A Z77 board will be newer and have more features.

The Gigabyte is basically a M-atx version of your current board so should use the same settings that you use now. The downside is that there is no vrm cooling at all so that would rule that out for me.

The MSI has the best vrm cooling out of the three Z77 boards but I really dislike MSI boards due to every single one that I have ever had failing for one reason or another plus there is a very high chance of bricking the board when updating the bios no matter which method you use.

That leaves the Asus. It has a heatsink for one bank of vrm's but not the top set. I like Asus boards. They have a excellent bios and just work. I am biased though as my last few boards from socket 775, 1155 and now 1150 have all been Asus and have been faultless.

There is a back to back review of the Asus and Gigabyte Z77 boards here. It would appear that the Gigabyte has no option to increase vcore. Whether that was fixed in a later bios or not I don't know but it seems a strange thing to miss out on a Z77 board.

Casterina · 26 May 2016 at 13:56

pastymuncher said:
All of them should manage a similar overclock as your current board but I would be going for a Z77 board if it was my choice. I don't see the point of going from a Z77 board to a older chipset such as P67 and Z68. A Z77 board will be newer and have more features.

The Gigabyte is basically a M-atx version of your current board so should use the same settings that you use now. The downside is that there is no vrm cooling at all so that would rule that out for me.

The MSI has the best vrm cooling out of the three Z77 boards but I really dislike MSI boards due to every single one that I have ever had failing for one reason or another plus there is a very high chance of bricking the board when updating the bios no matter which method you use.

That leaves the Asus. It has a heatsink for one bank of vrm's but not the top set. I like Asus boards. They have a excellent bios and just work. I am biased though as my last few boards from socket 775, 1155 and now 1150 have all been Asus and have been faultless.

There is a back to back review of the Asus and Gigabyte Z77 boards here. It would appear that the Gigabyte has no option to increase vcore. Whether that was fixed in a later bios or not I don't know but it seems a strange thing to miss out on a Z77 board.

I have looked at the MSI board online and it seems the G45 is a lower end Z77 board that has limited voltage settings but I found a Asus Maximus V Gene motherboard which seems to be a high end Z77 board and is £50 more than the Asus P8Z77-M, is it worth it?

pastymuncher · 26 May 2016 at 16:06

If it's £50 more than the others, (you didn't say how much they were) exactly how much is it? Keep in mind that this is a dead socket 2.5 generations old now so don't go spending a fortune on a board. It's a very good board but if it's over £80 I would knock this idea on the head until you do your next full system upgrade. Either that or sell your current motherboard/cpu/ram and move to a Skylake based system now.

Casterina · 26 May 2016 at 16:20

pastymuncher said:
If it's £50 more than the others, (you didn't say how much they were) exactly how much is it? Keep in mind that this is a dead socket 2.5 generations old now so don't go spending a fortune on a board. It's a very good board but if it's over £80 I would knock this idea on the head until you do your next full system upgrade. Either that or sell your current motherboard/cpu/ram and move to a Skylake based system now.

The Asus P8Z77-M is £85 and Asus Maximus V Gene is £135. I know 1155 is a dead socket but how much performance/improvements is there between 3770K and 6700K in gaming?

I have no problems upgrading to Skylake as I can sell my CPU, motherboard and RAM for around £320-340 and just have to add about £100 extra on top for new system.

pastymuncher · 26 May 2016 at 19:01

Upgrade then. Those are rip off prices for second hand boards with no warranty. This is the one time that it's not about the performance boost, although you will get a bit of a boost, but more about the economic reasons for upgrading. Why pay that much for a old board with no warranty when you can get a brand new board (although a different socket so need to change cpu and ram too) for cheaper. Sell up while your current parts are still worth decent money.

Sayso · 29 May 2016 at 18:40

Gigabyte do a Z77MX-D3H which has voltage control good luck getting one though.