upgrade and compatibility help please

dnic77 · 13 Feb 2015 at 06:55

so in the next few weeks ill be upgrading to a i5 4690k but i know nothing about intel. i dont have the funds for a high end motherboard yet so a budget board will do for now. is this mobo ok Gigabyte B85M-D3H? also the cpu cooler i have now is this http://www.xigmatek.com/product.php?productid=99&type=feature will this still work?

thanks

RJC · 13 Feb 2015 at 07:10

The cooler will work ok, have a look at the motherbaord below, will allow you to Overclock the CPU and probably not to much difference in price to the one in your post:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-498-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2811

dnic77 · 13 Feb 2015 at 07:19

thank you. ill pop it in the basket ready. i didnt know it needed a z97 chipset to overclock. im coming from a fx6300 @ 4.5 so im hoping for better gains as its bottlenecking my msi r9 290 gaming.

thanks again.

pastymuncher · 13 Feb 2015 at 10:19

You can overclock on the B85M-D3H and it is a very good board. It has a full range of options in the bios and the latest bios allows a crazy vcore of 1.8v!! I have no idea why they have allowed it to be set that high. The bad thing is that it has now shot up in price and the Z97 that RJC suggests is only £3 extra and makes more sense. When I bought the wifes board I only paid around £45 for it.

dnic77 · 13 Feb 2015 at 10:47

For the £3 difference there's no reason yo buy the lower spec board. But the B85M-D3H is on the bay for around £30ish used. I wasn't interested in overclocking just yet until I got the funds for a heigher spec board. But looks like a OK starter board for now. Cheers lads.