Best Motherboard Chipset for an I5-2500K?

[a03dugga]

You Jammy Bugger

I know right. Bargain.

 

[a03dugga]

Got my Mobo today and i must say, it is quite nice.

 

[madtoady]

Good choice.

 

[Ghostdog]

I usually go asus, but i was pretty impressed with the z68 extreme 4 gen 3. so another thumbs up in that direction.

 

[Justintime]

Well they come across as a budget brand trying to play with the big boys but not quite providing the same level of quality to me.

Just get on your space hopper and bugger off

Nah, Asrock is good, maybe not filled with bells and whistles like others but a decent platform nonetheless, with Sandybridge cpus.. just about any board that supports a K series features will take you to the limits of your chip.

 

[jaggarudus]

asrock boards are far more future proof than asus

 

[Bucko89]

asrock boards are far more future proof than asus

In what way?

Asus have there gen 3 boards out...

I sent my Asrock board back, nothing but trouble. The most overhyped motherboard in history.

 

[p5-]

Well they come across as a budget brand trying to play with the big boys but not quite providing the same level of quality to me.

I still have trouble convincing a friend that Asrock are pretty good these days too!

Sometimes feels as though Asus are putting out the more enthusiast boards through Asrock.

 

[Skidder]

Well they come across as a budget brand trying to play with the big boys but not quite providing the same level of quality to me.

Moving from a top end asus board with raid issues, network issues and sound issues to a mid range asrok with no issues i question that view

 

[a03dugga]

Well i have had the board for a few days now and am every much enjoying it. Miles better than my old Asus board. Not a fan of the UEFI though. Did have the inverted mouse problem but have flashed the bios now.

 

[Marine-RX179]

I still have trouble convincing a friend that Asrock are pretty good these days too!

Not surprising, considering AsRock has a pretty poor track record in terms of performance of their broads...they only really turn around recently with the Z68 board releases...

At to be honest, the only reason I can think of people keep on praise it besides the good reviews and it is a decent board is probably because of its high-profile first Gen 3 board.

 

[SFFNoob]

Love my Asrock!

Enjoy it whatever you get!

 

[Davefran]

The only reason I praise it is because it's worked perfectly straight out of the box from day one, has all of the Z68 features fully supported, can use auto, manual or offset vcore in all senarios. Runs my 2500K 4.6GHz 24/7 on low volts and can easily break 5GHz for benchmarking if I like.
Looks great, fantastic layout and comes with some great extras, best of which is the Usb3/SSD caddy

 

[Voicon]

Not surprising, considering AsRock has a pretty poor track record in terms of performance of their broads...they only really turn around recently with the Z68 board releases...

At to be honest, the only reason I can think of people keep on praise it besides the good reviews and it is a decent board is probably because of its high-profile first Gen 3 board.

And aesthetically WOW, it looks amazing!

 

[Firegod]

I'm in the same boat as the OP was. I have my i5-2500K on route and 16GB of DDR3 HyperX memory to plonk into a new shiny board, but I can't choose. I saw the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 and thought it looked / sounded good. BUT, I then saw a review of the board from Bit-Tech and it wasn't good.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2011/09/09/asrock-z68-extreme4-gen3-review/1

"...the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 certainly looks like a premium board thanks to the improvements to its design, it has a decent feature set and it's a good overclocker too. However, these improvements haven't been accompanied by solid performance, as the Extreme4 Gen3 lags behind the best Z68 and P67 motherboards currently available."

Especially the SATA performance! I had my heart set on the Asus P67 Sabertooth board and I think this has cemented my choice, I can't see how the ASRock board gets so much praise.

 

[a03dugga]

Ive read that before, but you'll find that many people have replicated those test parameters and had WAY better results.

Im pretty happy with the board though mate. especially how cheap i got it for.

 

[Firegod]

Ive read that before, but you'll find that many people have replicated those test parameters and had WAY better results.

Im pretty happy with the board though mate. especially how cheap i got it for.

I'll admit it's a damn minefield, I always struggle with mobo choice and always stuck with DFI for overclocking. But since they've now left the game, I'm so confused.

From what your saying, it sounds like I should read through some more reviews; It's going to be a long day!

 

[a03dugga]

Indeed it is.
Find a site with loadis of reviews, compare the best with the worst.
If your not wholly happy with the board you should be able to send it back right?

 

[Davefran]

I'm in the same boat as the OP was. I have my i5-2500K on route and 16GB of DDR3 HyperX memory to plonk into a new shiny board, but I can't choose. I saw the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 and thought it looked / sounded good. BUT, I then saw a review of the board from Bit-Tech and it wasn't good.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2011/09/09/asrock-z68-extreme4-gen3-review/1



Especially the SATA performance! I had my heart set on the Asus P67 Sabertooth board and I think this has cemented my choice, I can't see how the ASRock board gets so much praise.

I replicated that test on my board, I think it turned out that the reviewer hadn't installed the drivers.
Have a look at a proper review here ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Review

 

[Firegod]

I replicated that test on my board, I think it turned out that the reviewer hadn't installed the drivers.
Have a look at a proper review here ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Review

Thanks I'll take a look at that review today.