New motherboard or another 980?

Kieran_Burns · 16 Mar 2015 at 15:57

I've got a z87-pro mobo with 8Gb RAM in it running my i5-4670k at 4.3GHz quite happily. Coupled with a GTX980 it runs everything sweet as a nut... but I'm in the mood for a frivolous upgrade.

I'm most tempted by a new z-97 mobo like the Asus Maximus VII Hero coupled with some 2400MHz memory (16Gb) just cos it looks purdy and will have some benefit, but really how: how much?

I know that the best bang will come from another GTX980 but then I could also do with sorting out my disk space and RAIDing up some 2Tb disks (3 x 2tB giving me 4Tb RAID 5).

Decisions, decisions... help me make up my mind or throw many more options and have me pulling my hair out (there's not much left!) Just got a new 2560 x 1440 IPS monitor, the case is spot on, SSD for the system disk and got a mechanical keyboard, I'm just after something that will give the pc a fresh feel

Minstadave · 16 Mar 2015 at 16:00

Benefit won't be worth the outlay to be honest if you're just gaming. I'm still on Sandybridge and can't justify the upgrade.

Ronald · 16 Mar 2015 at 17:38

If you insist on spending money, that 980 is probably the best choice... but a 'fresh feel' ... I don't really see that happening without going X99 and significantly bigger spend.

If you're happy with performance of the single 980, I'd recommend a good meal at the nearest very good restaurant rather than spending on a very fine system indeed.

Adam123 · 16 Mar 2015 at 19:48

I say another 980 if you game a lot.
Or sort your storage out if you download/store a lot and want a nice tidy and organised library - probably be cheaper too meaning you could get another stick of ram?

Kieran_Burns · 17 Mar 2015 at 09:19

Adam123 said:
I say another 980 if you game a lot.
Or sort your storage out if you download/store a lot and want a nice tidy and organised library - probably be cheaper too meaning you could get another stick of ram?

I was kind of heading that way myself... sort out the disks and RAM.

I did say frivolous don't forget

pastymuncher · 17 Mar 2015 at 09:37

Changing from a Z87 to a Z97 board apart from gaining a M.2 port will not give you any performance increase at all. You won't even get a higher overclock. All that will happen is that you waste the money and end up with a zillion bios options that you will never use. I went from a Z87-A to my Z87 Hero mainly because I got a really good price on the Hero and gained nothing. Overclock is exactly the same as well. Hell, my wifes B85 board clocks my cpu with the same settings and that cost me around £45.

Kieran_Burns · 17 Mar 2015 at 10:09

pastymuncher said:
Changing from a Z87 to a Z97 board apart from gaining a M.2 port will not give you any performance increase at all. You won't even get a higher overclock. All that will happen is that you waste the money and end up with a zillion bios options that you will never use. I went from a Z87-A to my Z87 Hero mainly because I got a really good price on the Hero and gained nothing. Overclock is exactly the same as well. Hell, my wifes B85 board clocks my cpu with the same settings and that cost me around £45.

but it looks purdy.... :cool:

Being serious - I'm edging towards the RAID idea as I like to have some redundancy with my data, plus I've never set up RAID at home before (at work: LOADS) and the 16Gb RAM would be a good to have. There'll be a performance improvement on disk reads with the RAID array as well (multiple platters) so that'll give me some 'fresh' on the pc