Most Stable Z97X board to replace a Gigabyte Z97X-SOC. Any suggestions?

nigel1210 · 10 Feb 2015 at 16:00

I'm on my second Gigabyte Z97X-SOC, first died would reboot with no display output.

This one just seems to have a issue with rebooting, it will just randonly restart even when it's not underload. I've ran prime 95 and real bench and it will loop fine, with no problems.

I'm looking for stability over any overclocking features really. If I can have bother great but stability first.

The fan utility software doesn't seem great either, any suggestions on a suitable replacement?

£130 - £150 price range. Any suggestions?

abui1806 · 10 Feb 2015 at 16:14

I would take the Asus sabertooth Z97 Mark 2 or the Asus Z97 Pro. I personally had the Asus Z97 AR which is a lower tier than my suggestion but it was perfectly stable and it had a very intuitive bios + excellent Q-Fan tuning feature.

pastymuncher · 10 Feb 2015 at 16:49

The Asus Z97 Pro Gamer is where my money would be going if I was buying a board now. It does Sli and Crossfire, has decent audio and quite a few people on here are using them now with good results.

setter · 10 Feb 2015 at 19:22

Pro gamer looks like a great board. If i was looking to move from my Z87 board in sig, the pro is the one id go for.

nigel1210 · 11 Feb 2015 at 12:10

How does the Asus Z97 Pro wifi and Maximus VII Hero, compare to the Asus Z97 Pro gamer?

pastymuncher · 11 Feb 2015 at 13:43

They cost more money yet the Pro Gamer will do 99% of what they do. You are paying for more bios options that you will never use (I have the Z87 Hero and the bios options are mind boggling and just not needed), more headers and extra's. Unless using extreme voltages and extreme cooling such as LN2 overclocking will be exactly the same. I can overclock my 4670K to 4.4Ghz (didn't try the 4.8Ghz it's capable of due to air cooling) with exactly the same settings in my wifes Gigabyte B85M-D3H as in my Hero and her board only cost me around £43!!

xLegendary · 11 Feb 2015 at 14:04

pastymuncher said:
The Asus Z97 Pro Gamer is where my money would be going if I was buying a board now. It does Sli and Crossfire, has decent audio and quite a few people on here are using them now with good results.

Indeed. I was actually looking that board myself. That Asus Z97 Pro Gamer looks tempting but I guess I have to keep saving

Evil Shubunkin · 11 Feb 2015 at 20:39

I ended up with the VII Ranger - cheaper than the Z97-Pro.

Had a few issues with the Z97-Pro on a couple of builds, so would go with the VII Ranger / Hero (if you want to spend £40 more compared to the Ranger) or Pro Gamer if I was doing it again.

nigel1210 · 11 Feb 2015 at 22:50

Evil Shubunkin said:
I ended up with the VII Ranger - cheaper than the Z97-Pro.

Had a few issues with the Z97-Pro on a couple of builds, so would go with the VII Ranger / Hero (if you want to spend £40 more compared to the Ranger) or Pro Gamer if I was doing it again.

Ah ok, what were the issues with the Z97 Pro mate?

Didg · 12 Feb 2015 at 12:36

nigel1210 said:
Ah ok, what were the issues with the Z97 Pro mate?

I would be interested to know this too as I'm thinking of getting one.

JeffyB · 12 Feb 2015 at 13:43

Had the Hero was a brilliant board, ranger will be just as good with a few less features.

Evil Shubunkin · 14 Feb 2015 at 13:07

Z97-Pro issues - one ended up with USB overvolt error despite nothing being connected so no it faulty front ports on case. Other seemed to have issue with interference on the soundcard as speakers would make a racket on bstartup and shutdown which I've never experienced before.

That said, I have one running in a PC used as a server and its fine. Maybe just got unlucky.

The two VII Rangers both problem free from the start.

nigel1210 · 16 Feb 2015 at 11:03

Component quality wise, caps etc is the Z97 Pro comparable to the VII Hero?

Swagger187 · 16 Feb 2015 at 11:15

I have the ASUS Z97 Deluxe. Lovely board and no issues at all

Freddie1980 · 16 Feb 2015 at 11:19

If you looking for stability as your primary feature and are prepared to pay for it I would be looking at the Asus Z97 WS. This is a consumer motherboard that’s been built, tested and validated to server grade standards all boards can overclock CPU’s to the same rate these days even low end ones so don’t worry about a workstation branded board not keeping up with boards that are branded as overclocking products.

If a server grade motherboard is too rich for your pockets or if it’s missing features that you find on the gaming branded boards then maybe check out Asus ‘TUF’ or Gigabytes ‘Black Edition’ motherboards. Again the BE and TUF boards go through a much tougher testing validation process than normal consumer grade boards and would most likely offer you the stability your looking for.