So which Gigabyte Z87 motherboard and why?

Seems like the limiting factor for the majority is going to be thermal limits. I suspect even the lower end boards will overclock to 4.5GHz assuming the CPU will. Am looking at the Z87X-OC but given than I'd never delid and have no plans on going under water I suspect it will probably be overkill.
 
Damn im actually considering going with the MSI Z87 MPower mobo now and just shy of £200 and the reason......because the yellow matches my RAM sticks WTF am i thinking!!

Never had an MSI mobo before whats there rep like??
 
lettuce said:
Damn im actually considering going with the MSI Z87 MPower mobo now and just shy of £200 and the reason......because the yellow matches my RAM sticks WTF am i thinking!!

Never had an MSI mobo before whats there rep like??
Click to expand...

There rep is ok, but I think the Mpower range look a bit ugly and not as tasteful as the Z77 Mpower previously.

The Xpower looks nice.

The Gigabyte UD5H has yellow accents :p
 
sniper m5 is what i'm planning on, just hoping to hear some mention of how the sound system handles ASIO. My old realtek mobo sound was worthless with massive lag...and the pci sound card wont go into the m5.
 
lettuce said:
Damn im actually considering going with the MSI Z87 MPower mobo now and just shy of £200 and the reason......because the yellow matches my RAM sticks WTF am i thinking!!

Never had an MSI mobo before whats there rep like??
Click to expand...
Good boards, very simple BIOS layout - really easy to overclock, these new Z87 versions now have voltage offset from what I can see, which was lacking on previous MSI chipsets, had to just rely on Vdroop offset which worked very well anyway.

The MSI Z77A-GD65 GAMING for the price looks a good deal, have to laugh at the MSI marketing videos though, it's right out of the Johnathan Wendel 'Fatal1ty' scope of marketing crap lol.
stulid said:
Z77X-OC
Click to expand...
I'm tempted with this board, I like the fact you can have the board in the case, and easily use the voltage readout points with the included adaptors, similar to the upper range way all the MSI boards are.

I've got a Creative Sound Blaster ZxR, the thing with the Z77X-OC is 1 x PCI Express x1 slot is it's right near the first 1 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16, do you know if I can run the graphics card in any of the x16 slots?

I've got a Gigabyte GTX 780 WindForce 3x OC 3MB coming tomorrow :cool: I don't fancy the soundcard being right next to it.
 
Nelly said:
Good boards, very simple BIOS layout - really easy to overclock, these new Z87 versions now have voltage offset from what I can see, which was lacking on previous MSI chipsets, had to just rely on Vdroop offset which worked very well anyway.

The MSI Z77A-GD65 GAMING for the price looks a good deal, have to laugh at the MSI marketing videos though, it's right out of the Johnathan Wendel 'Fatal1ty' scope of marketing crap lol.I'm tempted with this board, I like the fact you can have the board in the case, and easily use the voltage readout points with the included adaptors, similar to the upper range way all the MSI boards are.

I've got a Creative Sound Blaster ZxR, the thing with the Z77X-OC is 1 x PCI Express x1 slot is it's right near the first 1 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16, do you know if I can run the graphics card in any of the x16 slots?

I've got a Gigabyte GTX 780 WindForce 3x OC 3MB coming tomorrow :cool: I don't fancy the soundcard being right next to it.
Click to expand...

Not to sure about the slots all doing x16 don't think the y are wired for it but the bottom pcie is 2.0 off the z87 chipset which won't take away from the x16
 
I am going for the z87x-d3h for the price and simplicity whilst it has intel gigabit lan, true sli/xfire, two internal usb 3.0 headers etc...
 
So... I have two GTX780s, and I'm in the market for a Z78 gigabyte motherboard, to go with a 4770k:


* I'll be cooling the CPU with an H60, so nothing too extreme there. I'd like to maximise the potential of the chip, but it seems that's much more down to whether you get a good thermal contact under the lid than the motherboard.

* I'm not planning on ever using more than 2 GPUs.

* I don't need any of the "extra" features (i.e. lots of SATA 3.0 slots, lots of USB 3.0, 2x LAN ports etc)

* I don't care a fig what it looks like.

* I'd rather not spend any more than I have to, but I can certainly do so if it's worthwhile.


Given the above, what board would you go for? :)
 
alg1a said:
I am going for the z87x-d3h for the price and simplicity whilst it has intel gigabit lan, true sli/xfire, two internal usb 3.0 headers etc...
Click to expand...

Think I'm leaning towards this board or the UD3H. Both are SLI capable and have a pretty good feature set. Cant see myself fully utilizing all the features on the OC board etc and it looks like overclocking is going to be limited by temps rather than motherboards unless you're trying to squeeze out every last MHz.
 
I've been comparing specs for the past couple of days and im considering the UD3H, possibly the UD4H. I'm waiting for my 900D to be dispatched (via Specialtech) before I commit. Who knows, maybe the mobo price's will drop a little in that time, or more choices present themselves ;)
 
So im a happy camper. After a long wait for haswell to come out, I finally got my system today. Im upgrading from a P4D that's like 7/8 years old.

I went for the UD4 (I probably don't need half the features on it but thought what the heck, I work hard so I deserve it!).

Spec:
4770k
Gigabyte z87 UD4 (red does look nice!)
16GB Corsair 1600MHz @1.5V
Gigabyte 7950 Windforce 3GB
XFX 850W Gold PSU fully modular
Samsung 256GB 830 SSD (had for about 1 year! only just put it to use)
Coolermaster Evo 212
Fractal Design R4

how do I upload pics guys?
 
upload to tinypic.com and post the forum url here

remember to pick the 17" screensize first so that it resises the pics and you don't get in trouble or put them in a spoiler tag
 
test

hx6icy.jpg
 
So... what actually is the difference between the UD3H and the UD4H (apart from 20 quid)? From the specs they seem identical, other than the colour scheme.

I have a PCI soundcard that I'd quite like to keep, but I've resigned myself to the fact that the only option for dual-GPU and a PCI card is to have the two graphics cards in adjacent PCI-e 16x slots, which I'd rather not do.

I'm leaning towards the UD3H I think...




edit: Look pretty much identical to me: http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/comparison/list.aspx?ck=2&pids=4488,4481
 
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The empty Define R4 case

jq1hfd.jpg


Here are a couple of shots the completed build - I know I know, crappy pics but I was using my phone to take them!

2nrmwll.jpg


zo9mv5.jpg


My first build for about 16 years or so! All went without a hitch and (touch wood) switched on on the first attempt!
 
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