H270 or B250?

GP8y1

GP8y1

GP8y1

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Need some advice?

I'm torn between the Asus Strix H270F and B250F for a new gaming build I'm planning.

I'm not looking at OC, but would like a rich feature set with decent audio, etc. I'll be paring it with an i5 7500 and 16GB 2400 memory.

H270 or B250?
 
It's madness paying that much for a H270/B250 board. You may as well pay a little extra and get the Gigabyte Z270 Gaming K3. Should you upgrade to a unlocked cpu in the future you will be able to get the most out of it plus you are not limited to 2400mhz memory like you are with the B250/H270 boards.
 
I have an Intel i5 7500 and 16 GB 2400, not looking at OC. Obviously want a board rich features, especially audio and network.
 
stulid said:
I'm with Pastymuncher, madness to spend that much on the "lesser" chipset.
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sorry to hijack this thread but I need the following.

kabylake cpu support out the box

pci-e x 4 for NIC (network card) has to be 4x and not 1x.
support for pm961 ssd (m2) as an OS drive
hdmi 2.0 built in preferably otherwise i will need to spend £100 on a GPU therefore requiring pci-e support for that too.

cheap as possible.

case is a NZXT S340 Elite so preferably atx

i also don't need to overclock but i have 4 x ddr4 stick of RAM. 2 x 4Gb and 2 x 8GB. all 2400 mhz
 
Just get the GA-B250M-DS3H from Gigabyte, the sound will likely be fine. I had the Z170 version which was a Realtek® ALC892 and it was extremely difficult to tell the difference between that and a Xonar D2 once some EQ was applied.. If it isn't, there's PCI/PCIe expansion available for an add in sound card.

Don't be fooled into buying those stupidly priced boards, B or H series chipsets should represent value for money which those ones you mentioned certainly are not.
 
GP8y1 said:
What you guys think of this choice, ASUS TUF Z270 MARK 2? Got some good reviews, seems solid.
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Ive got that mobo myself and I'm well happy with it. O/clocked my 7600K to 5.0ghz, (but its not exactly stable without increasing Vcore manually). Its got everything I need on it and it looks nice as well especially if you've got a windowed side panel, but as pointed out, it has the same o/b sound chip as the cheaper versh, saying that, it sounds fine to me and all the other mobos I've had recently.
 
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He's not overclocking though, id just get the cheapest board available with the feature set you need.

If audio is an issue then familiarise yourself with the various onboad audio that the various boards have, and maybe pay a little bit more for one with the better on-board audio hardware, or just get the cheapest board possible for your needs but figure you might have to add a sound card if the on-board isn't satisfactory after demoing it.
 
mattyfez said:
He's not overclocking though, id just get the cheapest board available with the feature set you need.

If audio is an issue then familiarise yourself with the various onboad audio that the various boards have, and maybe pay a little bit more for one with the better on-board audio hardware, or just get the cheapest board possible for your needs but figure you might have to add a sound card if the on-board isn't satisfactory after demoing it.
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if he wants decent audio then he has to get a dedicated card or even a USB DAC/AMP.

onboard has all sorts of electrical interference on it due to the nature of an all in 1 system.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
if he wants decent audio then he has to get a dedicated card or even a USB DAC/AMP.

onboard has all sorts of electrical interference on it due to the nature of an all in 1 system.
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Some times yes, but newer stuff is better, and has more insulation/isolation against interference. It maybe that if he buys a bargain basement board a sound card MIGHT be needed.

To say he HAS to get a sound card for decent audio is not correct, it depends a lot on how good or bad the onboard audio is on a particular board.
 
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mattyfez said:
The z170 k3 is currently less at £99
Might need a bios update for that chip though.
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I have looked through various boards and only Z270 MSI boards seem to have HDMI 2.0 spec all the others seem to be HDMI 1.4

I have 2 options get a cheap board and spend £100 on a GPU

this will be a non gaming rig. HTPC and server use.

Or spend an additional £30-£40 and get a MSI (has to be that manufacturer) Z270 board with all the latest specs, fastest performance and future proof with optane memory, etc.

I will also likely save 70W of leccy 24/7 as it will be left on 24/7 as a router (pf sense).

Makes sense for me to go for a Z270 even with G4560 CPU. I will likely upgrade CPU in a couple of years too.
 
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