# Need Help Picking Z97 Motherboard.



## Eric_Cartman (Jan 7, 2015)

For X-mas this year I got a little bit of money and an H60 and some cash.

Instead of mounting the H60 on my FX-6300 and trying to get maybe another 200MHz out of it, I figured I would use the cash to upgrade to z97 and go Intel.

I'm re-using almost everything in my system, I'm just replacing the motherboard, CPU, and cooler.

I'm going to buy the i5-4690k, which leaves me with about $150 to spend on the motherboard.

Obviously I'd like a decent overclock and that is where I'm a bit confused.

Can I get a decent overclock with something like an AsRock Z97 Extreme3?

That board seems to fit my needs otherwise.


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## stevorob (Jan 7, 2015)

Running the same CPU, on an Asus Z97-E and getting a 4.7 overclock with ease.


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## erocker (Jan 7, 2015)

Eric_Cartman said:


> Can I get a decent overclock with something like an AsRock Z97 Extreme3?


I think that's a good way to go.


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## GhostRyder (Jan 7, 2015)

Eric_Cartman said:


> For X-mas this year I got a little bit of money and an H60 and some cash.
> 
> Instead of mounting the H60 on my FX-6300 and trying to get maybe another 200MHz out of it, I figured I would use the cash to upgrade to z97 and go Intel.
> 
> ...


If you want a great value board that handles overclocking, comes with a rich feature set, and will handle your needs/great build quality then here are my favorites I have seen/experienced:

MSI Z97-G55 SLI My personal favorite Z97 board this year, it comes with full SLI/CFX support for two video cards, an 8 phase VRM for overclocking, and great designs with nice heatsinks to keep everything cool.

Similar to the above (At similar feature sets and same price or cheaper plus in stock on newegg):

MSI Z97S SLI Plus Krait
MSI Z97S SLI Plus
Both are very similar but the Krait seems to be a little more "clean" and of course a different color scheme just going on looks but the overall feature set is similar between them.  The regular SLI Plus has more 3.0 USB but other than that they are roughly the same.

The Asrock Z97 Extreme 3 is also a great board and a good choice as well as the Extreme 4 which has a bit more added to the feature set but both are great overclocking boards and such.

I would say you do not need to spend a ton on a motherboard to get a good value/overclocker that will do everything you want.  Its going to come down to also if you want to have the option for SLI/CFX as there are some boards that sacrifice the SLI functionality to upgrade the audio and add extra attributes.  However like I said its going to be what you decide is more important as a feature set for your needs and price.


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## Eric_Cartman (Jan 7, 2015)

I'm not a fan of MSI but I will check those out.

I'm also thinking of just going with the Extreme4.

It is only $20 more and gives an M.2 slot.

I don't plan on use M.2 right now, but when I do buy an SSD I will probably will get an M.2 since getting a SATA SSD at this point is stupid as they are maxed out.


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## erixx (Jan 7, 2015)

untill you want to remove your "M.2 SATA" for whatever reason and notice you have to remove your GPU for that...

in 2 years I have seen announced mSATA cards, SATA Express, M.2.SATA, M.2.PCI.E... a bit too much to trust any of those to replace good (not old) SATA3...


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## Schmuckley (Jan 7, 2015)

IMO m.2 is a gimmick @ this point in time.
Hmm..$150..
I'd say this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132075
+ this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bios-Chip-f...US_Motherboard_Components&hash=item20e6c433de

Asus  PRO is a nice series. total:  $108 ..and save $$ for something else.

or you could do the same thing with a Maximus VI Hero.. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132016R
+ http://www.ebay.com/itm/BIOS-Chip-A...US_Motherboard_Components&hash=item5d4526ccab
= $116

you said you wanted to overclock..well..those boards will overclock 
You may have to switch BIOS chips..but..there really is no difference between z87-z97

or this one..but then you have Giga BIOS ..blech..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128704R
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128723


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## GorbazTheDragon (Jan 9, 2015)

I personally quite like the Z97-A. The ASUS ones are quite a solid choice this generation.


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## EarthDog (Jan 9, 2015)

M.2 a gimmick? Support your thoughts on that schmuckly...



> untill you want to remove your "M.2 SATA" for whatever reason and notice you have to remove your GPU for that...


I could see this being a worry on water... air... not so much, at all.


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## GorbazTheDragon (Jan 9, 2015)

Even on water, just pull the card and get an extra pair of hands... M.2 may be a gimmick at this point, but I guarantee there will be a lot of good SSDs on the market for M.2 by the end of the year.


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## Schmuckley (Jan 9, 2015)

EarthDog said:


> *M.2 a gimmick? Support your thoughts on that schmuckly*...
> 
> I could see this being a worry on water... air... not so much, at all.



The m.2 drives available right now are slightly more expensive and don't really read/write any faster than conventional SSDs.

Furthermore..What about RAID?

2 "regular" SSDs in RAID 0 would yield more throughput.'

SM951 = vaporware right now..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...r=BESTMATCH&Description=sm951&N=-1&isNodeId=1


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## newtekie1 (Jan 9, 2015)

Schmuckley said:


> The m.2 drives available right now are slightly more expensive and don't really read/write any faster than conventional SSDs.



Ok, show me a SATA SSD that can read/write at 1170/930MBps.


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## Schmuckley (Jan 9, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> Ok, *show me a SATA SSD that can read/write at 1170/930MBps.*



PS: That drive is $500

Show me the M.2 drive that can read/write at 1170/930MBps *in someone's system right now*.

O look..it's an 840 PRO: with RAM cache  
Looks like 8131/8812MBps to me


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## newtekie1 (Jan 10, 2015)

Schmuckley said:


> PS: That drive is $500
> 
> Show me the M.2 drive that can read/write at 1170/930MBps *in someone's system right now*.



Price really doesn't matter.  Performance as well as new technology comes at a price.  This drive will crush any SATA based SSD in read/write, that is all that matters.  Your statement that M.2 drives don't read/write any faster than SATA drives is completely wrong, period.  The SATA based M.2 drives don't, duh, but the PCI-E based drives definitely do.



Schmuckley said:


> O look..it's an 840 PRO: with RAM cache
> Looks like 8131/8812MBps to me



Good for you, you managed to show me speeds of a RAM drive not a SATA SSD.  Good luck with your corrupt data when the power goes out or the machine crashes.

The actual 840 Pro read/write speeds are at best 540/520.  That is all you are getting, ever.  Reading/writing to a RAM drive first won't change that, it make make benchmarks show faster, but it also puts your data at extreme risk and no one should be using it.

To claim M.2 is gimmicky and then show Samsung's massively gimmicky RAM drive cache bullshit is way to ironic not to be a troll...


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## Schmuckley (Jan 10, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> *Price really doesn't matter. * Performance as well as new technology comes at a price.  This drive will crush any SATA based SSD in read/write, that is all that matters.  Your statement that M.2 drives don't read/write any faster than SATA drives is completely wrong, period.  The SATA based M.2 drives don't, duh, but the PCI-E based drives definitely do.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



*..unless you RAID 0 2 or more *
It may or may not catch on. (M.2)

Here's an M.2 drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G1S91339&cm_re=m.2_ssd-_-20-510-045-_-Product
a)You can only use 1
b) The speeds are less than 840 Pro @ 560/310Mbps
It could go the way of 1394 ..but I think it might catch on.
Price doesn't really matter? really? well go out and cop you one of those awesome M.2 $500 drives right now then. 
Put up or shut up.
*Guy has $150 for a motherboard and you're suggesting $500 M.2 drives.
That makes sense..NOT.*

I'm going to suggest this board as well..since it's back in stock: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...8408&cm_re=biostar_z97-_-13-138-408-_-Product
It will OC better than AsRock anything except OCF.OCF will overclock better...not the mATX this round though..

kind of like  M7 gene> M7 Hero


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## newtekie1 (Jan 10, 2015)

Schmuckley said:


> ..unless you RAID 0 2 or more
> It may or may not catch on. (M.2)


 
And then you double your failure rate.  And often times increase the latency which make the drives in RAID0 actually fell slower than just a single drive.  I know, I've tried it.



Schmuckley said:


> Here's an M.2 drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G1S91339&cm_re=m.2_ssd-_-20-510-045-_-Product
> a)You can only use 1
> b) The speeds are less than 840 Pro @ 560/310Mbps
> It could go the way of 1394 ..but I think it might catch on.


 
Yes, that is a *SATA* based M.2 drive.  I'll go over it again, even though I hate repeating myself just because people can't read. They won't be faster than a standard SATA drive because they use the same SATA interface and are hence limited by that SATA interface.  The PCI-E M.2 drives, which are newer to the market, are a lot faster.  You really need to actually do some research before posting your BS.



Schmuckley said:


> Price doesn't really matter? really? well go out and cop you one of those awesome M.2 $500 drives right now then.
> Put up or shut up.


 
For early adopters that want the absolute blazing fastest technology, no price generally doesn't matter.  Personally, I can live with a standard SATA SSD right now.  Also, the OP stated he has no intention of getting an SSD right now, so prices right now don't matter either.  PCI-E M.2 drives are still new and still rare. Several manufacturers announced new drives at CES and are just now putting them in production. In a year they will likely be pretty close to the same price as the SATA SSDs.  And finally, your statement was that M.2 drives aren't any faster than SATA drives.  Price was not a factor in that statement. Yes, you mentioned price but I never argued that M.2 drives weren't more expensive.  My argument is with your incorrect statement that M.2 drives aren't faster than SATA drives, and I've prove your statement was wrong, period.



Schmuckley said:


> Guy has $150 for a motherboard and you're suggesting $500 M.2 drives.
> That makes sense..NOT.


 
I never suggested he get it, I gave you proof that your statement was wrong.  It was proof of what M.2 is capable of, the prices will come down and the OP can make the decision when he is read to buy if a PCI-E based M.2 drive is worth it to him.  However, I would agree with his opinion that getting a board with M.2 now is a good idea so he has the option to go that route when he does go for an SSD.  Just like I think getting a board with SATA-Express is a good idea just in case that is the way to go in the future.



Schmuckley said:


> I'm going to suggest this board as well..since it's back in stock: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...8408&cm_re=biostar_z97-_-13-138-408-_-Product
> It will OC better than AsRock anything except OCF.OCF will overclock better...not the mATX this round though..
> 
> kind of like M7 gene> M7 Hero


 
Back with the inferior Biostar board again?!?  That board is garbage.  It has weaker VRM than an Extreme4, less phases and worse components.  We already went over this in the other thread.  Not to mention it lacks a whole bunch of features. And on air, or an AOI liquid cooler, any decent z97 board will overclock a Haswell chip basically the same.

Guy has $150 for a motherboard and your suggesting $thousand for sub-zero cooling so he can see a difference in overclocking potential between motherboards.
That makes sense...NOT.


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## Eric_Cartman (Jan 10, 2015)

Ok, Schmuckley you can move along now.

Newtekie1 has proven you are wrong and proven why I want M.2 and Sata-e.

The board you suggested doesn't have sata-e.

And besides the fact that, in the words of George Carlin, I wouldn't touch a Biostar board with a stolen d*(K.

Did you even bother to read what I needed or do you just troll suggesting Biostar boards while making totally inaccurate horse sh*t claims about things you obviously don't know anything about?

That board also doesn't have SLI support, which I clearly require.

If you are going to actually attempt to make a helpful post suggesting a motherboard I can actually use, then do so.

If you are just going to keep arguing about weather I need M.2 or not, because the fact is I want M.2 and Sata-e and that is all that matters, then please leave.

If you are just going to suggest Biostar motherboards, then please leave because I don't want to hear it.


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## Toothless (Jan 10, 2015)

I'd like to say that I really like my Gigabyte Z97 Gaming 5 board very much.


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## GorbazTheDragon (Jan 10, 2015)

This guy again ^^


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## GorbazTheDragon (Jan 10, 2015)

Where's this SATA Express port?


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## GorbazTheDragon (Jan 10, 2015)

That's an M.2 port. I'm talking SATA Express for off board drives

Since when do we need a PLX chip anyway? 3-4 way SLI is a waste...


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## newtekie1 (Jan 10, 2015)

Schmuckley said:


> Support PCIe M.2 Connector
> http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=731
> :/
> Get your facts straight.
> ...





Schmuckley said:


> *"interfaces provided through the M.2 connector, together with supported logical interfaces, are a superset to those defined by the SATA Express interface. Essentially, the M.2 standard is a small form factor implementation of the SATA Express interface*"
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2
> 
> ...




M.2 =/= SATA Express

I've told you before, do some research.  Just because they work in a similar way does not mean they are the same.


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## Eric_Cartman (Jan 10, 2015)

Schmuckley said:


> Get your facts straight.



I asked you to either post something useful or leave.

You are very obviously the one that needs to get your facts straight.

Don't post again unless you actually have a shred of a clue about what you are posting.


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## GorbazTheDragon (Jan 10, 2015)

Gosh that escalated quite a bit

Uh oh boys, mods are here

I'm stilll going to point you towards the Z97-A and tell you to avoid the Gigabyte Z97s


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## stevorob (Jan 10, 2015)

GorbazTheDragon said:


> I'm stilll going to point you towards the Z97-A and tell you to avoid the Gigabyte Z97s





I too have also heard to stay away from Gigabyte's Z97 boards as well so I'd have to agree with you.

Edit:  Spoke too soon regarding SLI support - Z97-A has that as well.. my mistake for not double checking.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jan 10, 2015)

In terms of boards, I can't recommend AsRock boards anymore after what happened to a buddy of mine. His Z87 OC AsRock board randomly just died, and he went to do an RMA, and they told him to pretty much F*** off and that they do not do RMA service or customer support for the consumer, and that he needs to go to where he bought it from for assistance. Mind you this was months after getting the board and usually most retailers would tell you to go to the manufacture, but he showed the email thread to Amazon and he was given a new board right away and system works without a problem now. Id go MSI or Asus at this point.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K23BZVI/?tag=tec06d-20

The Gaming 5 has all the features you want.

Also stop being anti-MSI, they are not the same company they were like 8-10 years ago.


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## GorbazTheDragon (Jan 10, 2015)

Yeah, basically the same board when it comes to it. The main differences I guess would be the slightly beefier VRM on the A (8 and fully heatsinked rather than 6 with 4 heatsinked phases) AFAIK they all use the same mosfets so overall quality should be similar, although maybe slightly lower on the E when it comes to pushing the upper limits on air/water. The E also only has one VRM for the RAM, the A has two, should not make too much of a difference though. The board layout on the A is a bit better with all the SATA ports angled and the full ATX size used so you are not left with the overhanging end. Rear I/O is quite similar apart from the A having optical audio. I think the audio chip is also better on the A, but I'm not sure.

I personally don't have much experience with MSi motherboards, but I was not particularly satisfied with my MSi GT60 gaming laptop, so I prefer Asus.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 11, 2015)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> His Z87 OC AsRock board randomly just died, and he went to do an RMA, and they told him to pretty much F*** off and that they do not do RMA service or customer support for the consumer, and that he needs to go to where he bought it from for assistance.



Odd, every time I've had to deal with their customer support it has been very pleasant.  I've had a few backs and forths with their techs via email and the one time we couldnt' fix the problem they offered to RMA it without hesitation.  They did ask that I try to RMA through the retailer first, but when I told them I bought it at newegg and newegg won't deal with returns after 30 days AsRock handled the RMA without a problem.  Of course I wasn't a dick about it either...


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jan 11, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> Odd, every time I've had to deal with their customer support it has been very pleasant.  I've had a few backs and forths with their techs via email and the one time we couldnt' fix the problem they offered to RMA it without hesitation.  Of course I wasn't a dick about it either...



It didn't sound like he was either.



GorbazTheDragon said:


> Yeah, basically the same board when it comes to it. The main differences I guess would be the slightly beefier VRM on the A (8 and fully heatsinked rather than 6 with 4 heatsinked phases) AFAIK they all use the same mosfets so overall quality should be similar, although maybe slightly lower on the E when it comes to pushing the upper limits on air/water. The E also only has one VRM for the RAM, the A has two, should not make too much of a difference though. The board layout on the A is a bit better with all the SATA ports angled and the full ATX size used so you are not left with the overhanging end. Rear I/O is quite similar apart from the A having optical audio. I think the audio chip is also better on the A, but I'm not sure.
> I personally don't have much experience with MSi motherboards, but I was not particularly satisfied with my MSi GT60 gaming laptop, so I prefer Asus.



MSI Gaming 5 is 8 Phase.

Quote from @cadaveca review of the board


> Between the two VRM coolers sits the VRM controller, a UPI Semiconductor product that controls the 8-phase VRM design. The DIMM VRM is a dual-phase part that is ready to provide all the power you need to push your DIMMs to the limit.



http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/Z97_GAMING_5/1.html

Also VRM phase number doesn't seem to matter all the much with LGA1150 chips. You could overclock pretty well on just a 4+1 phase board. Overclocking mostly comes down to CPU and board BIOS.


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## GorbazTheDragon (Jan 11, 2015)

VRM wise the MSi ones seem pretty decent. 8 ~30A mosfets is quite decent. The Z97-A is quite similar in maximum current output, but the VRM on the Msi Gaming 5 is actually a 4 phase PWM controller feeding the 8 mosfet stages through doublers. It should not make much practical difference, as the amount of ripple the VRMs make is negligible, the maximum current throughput is more important on Haswell.

That said, VRM phase count is not really a very reliable metric. The best example of this was Gigabytes Z87 boards, which were actually horrible over-engineered in the VRM department. They used 40 or 60 amp IR powerstages, which are some of the best quality driver-mosfet systems that exist for this kind of implementation. Four of the 40A parts is actually more than enough to get the most out of Haswell CPUs on air or water cooling. 4 60A parts would have been ideal in my mind, keeping the size of the VRM very small while providing a huge current throughput and good quality power. However if you look at a lot of the Z87 boards, they are all 8 or 16 phase boards, which is only going to be an advantage on LN2. Heck, the Z97-SOC force which along with the SOC are the only Z97 gigabyte boards that have IR powerstages, and the SOC Force only has 8 stages, but is a really great board under LN2. 

The other Z97 boards from gigabyte are very underwhelming VRM wise. The SiRa 12 mosfets are 25A parts and they appear to overheat very easily, so they are both inefficient and suffer from poor manufacturing quality. Here a 4 phase design is nowhere near enough as even at 25A through each phase, which is quite hard to do, you are limited to 100A, which results in 180w or so of power available to the CPU. That's not nearly enough to push haswell. The 8 phase systems like the Z97X-Gaming5 (the GB not MSi one) is only just capable of similar performance to a 4 phase IR3553 VRM such as the H87-D3H and Z87-D3HP. On top of that the SiRa based VRMs appear to take up more board space than even the 8 phase IR ones, which is really crap TBH. If I was in Gigabyte's management I think I would have looked for a 4 phase with IR3550s or 6 phase with IR3553s for the Gaming5, because that seems like a better balance between performance and price.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jan 11, 2015)

GorbazTheDragon said:


> VRM wise the MSi ones seem pretty decent. 8 ~30A mosfets is quite decent. The Z97-A is quite similar in maximum current output, but the VRM on the Msi Gaming 5 is actually a 4 phase PWM controller feeding the 8 mosfet stages through doublers. It should not make much practical difference, as the amount of ripple the VRMs make is negligible, the maximum current throughput is more important on Haswell.
> 
> That said, VRM phase count is not really a very reliable metric. The best example of this was Gigabytes Z87 boards, which were actually horrible over-engineered in the VRM department. They used 40 or 60 amp IR powerstages, which are some of the best quality driver-mosfet systems that exist for this kind of implementation. Four of the 40A parts is actually more than enough to get the most out of Haswell CPUs on air or water cooling. 4 60A parts would have been ideal in my mind, keeping the size of the VRM very small while providing a huge current throughput and good quality power. However if you look at a lot of the Z87 boards, they are all 8 or 16 phase boards, which is only going to be an advantage on LN2. Heck, the Z97-SOC force which along with the SOC are the only Z97 gigabyte boards that have IR powerstages, and the SOC Force only has 8 stages, but is a really great board under LN2.
> 
> The other Z97 boards from gigabyte are very underwhelming VRM wise. The SiRa 12 mosfets are 25A parts and they appear to overheat very easily, so they are both inefficient and suffer from poor manufacturing quality. Here a 4 phase design is nowhere near enough as even at 25A through each phase, which is quite hard to do, you are limited to 100A, *which results in 180w or so of power available to the CPU. That's not nearly enough to push haswell.* The 8 phase systems like the Z97X-Gaming5 (the GB not MSi one) is only just capable of similar performance to a 4 phase IR3553 VRM such as the H87-D3H and Z87-D3HP. On top of that the SiRa based VRMs appear to take up more board space than even the 8 phase IR ones, which is really crap TBH. If I was in Gigabyte's management I think I would have looked for a 4 phase with IR3550s or 6 phase with IR3553s for the Gaming5, because that seems like a better balance between performance and price.



Haswell does not consume that much power to begin with, 180w should be enough to take a decent Haswell chip to 4.4-4.6. Which is the average for Haswell overclocking anyways.


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## GorbazTheDragon (Jan 11, 2015)

180w is the theoretical maximum power, I would be surprised if you could get decent voltage stability at 70% of that. From what I've seen from boards like the Z97x-SLI that is probably a decent guess.

My 4790k draws around 130w at 4.44GHz (101x44) which needs 1.22 volts or so on the core, the Vin is the default of ~1.7v. I have not pushed the CPU past that speed yet, but to get to the upper end of 4 GHz you are looking at 1.35v. Power consumption goes as P=fCV^2 (frequency x capacitance x voltage squared). Capacitance is an arbitrary constant as the chip is the same, and we can just work off our 130w figure.

So let's say 1.35v 4.9GHz.

110% the clock speed (calculated as 4.9/4.44)
111% the voltage (calculated as 1.35/1.22)

(1.35/1.22)^2 * (4.9/4.44) = ~1.3513

So the power is approximately 135% of the original not counting potential losses in the IVR or the iGPU which was not used, although might be active in the case of rendering a stream using quicksync.

135% of 130w is 175w

Remember that this is a very artificial scenario using only theoretical numbers, but the theory works relatively well in practice, at least once you take into consideration that the benchmarks used in this case are quite artificial and do not represent a realistic workload for most usage scenarios.

The important fact that holds is that the 4 phases of SiRa12s are simply insufficient for a good overclocking board.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jan 11, 2015)

Schmuckley said:


> The way you guys bloviate over meh boards is amusing.



Your arrogance is not amusing...


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## Schmuckley (Jan 11, 2015)

Here's the boards to overclock 1150 on:
Gigabyte z97x-OC Force
AsRock z97 OCF
Maximus VII Gene

Good Luck finding one for $150 or less.
It can be done, though


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## newtekie1 (Jan 11, 2015)

If you aren't using extreme cooling, if your only using air or an AIO or even a custom loop with a single 120 or 240 rad, the motherboard will make pretty much no difference in the final 24/7 overclock.  That is why everyone(that knows what their talking about) said the Extreme3 is just fine for overclocking. The decision after that comes down to features.

I mean, I'm using an Extreme6, which uses the exact same power delivery setup as the Extreme4, and the best I can do is 4.6GHz on my 4970K.  I'm held back not by the motherboard, but by my H100i.  The board is capable of more, if I run the delta fans at 100% to keep the temps in line I can easily go to 4.9GHz before I'm again held back by my H100i, but the computer sounds like a jet taking off.  The OP is only using an H60, it has a thin 120 rad, and is about as good as a tower style air cooler.

That is why everyone says the motherboard doesn't really matter for overclocking Haswell.  You are almost always going to be limited by cooling, not by the motherboard.  The OP is using an H60, if _some_ people would bother to actually read the OP's post and actually pay attention to his needs, they'd realize absolute maximum overclocking potential that will only make a difference under extreme cooling doesn't matter one bit in this situation.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jan 11, 2015)

newtekie1 said:


> If you aren't using extreme cooling, if your only using air or an AIO or even a custom loop with a single 120 or 240 rad, the motherboard will make pretty much no difference in the final 24/7 overclock.  That is why everyone(that knows what their talking about) said the Extreme3 is just fine for overclocking. The decision after that comes down to features.
> 
> I mean, I'm using an Extreme6, which uses the exact same power delivery setup as the Extreme4, and the best I can do is 4.6GHz on my 4970K.  I'm held back not by the motherboard, but by my H100i.  The board is capable of more, if I run the delta fans at 100% to keep the temps in line I can easily go to 4.9GHz before I'm again held back by my H100i, but the computer sounds like a jet taking off.  The OP is only using an H60, it has a thin 120 rad, and is about as good as a tower style air cooler.
> 
> That is why everyone says the motherboard doesn't really matter for overclocking Haswell.  *You are almost always going to be limited by cooling, not by the motherboard.*  The OP is using an H60, if _some_ people would bother to actually read the OP's post and actually pay attention to his needs, they'd realize absolute maximum overclocking potential that will only make a difference under extreme cooling doesn't matter one bit in this situation.



Not only the cooling, but quality of the chip is the main thing for Haswell.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Jan 11, 2015)

Schmuckley said:


> but..but..must have m.2 and SATA express
> I wouldn't buy AsRock because they have basically no warranty.
> I had one fail and it took out everything except RAM.
> RMA denied.
> ...



It could if you do it right and your chip has a solid IMC.

MSI Gaming 5 has m.2 and SATA express.


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## Eric_Cartman (Jan 11, 2015)

You know Schmuckley, I've asked you to either post something helpful or leave.

You have yet to even suggest a board that I can even use.

Even if I didn't want M.2 and SATA-e, the boards you suggested don't have the features that I actually do need.

So if you are just going to keep arguing just to argue, leave because you've crapped my thread enough.


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## RCoon (Jan 11, 2015)

Schmuckley said:


> Here's the boards to overclock 1150 on:
> Gigabyte z97x-OC Force
> AsRock z97 OCF
> Maximus VII Gene
> ...



There are many many more than that. If all you're going to do is recommend those 3 boards and stonewall everything else. You're in the wrong thread and it would probably be worthwhile to move on.


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## Schmuckley (Jan 11, 2015)

points I'm making:
AsRock=bad RMA
MSI..pretty much the weakest of VRM setups.
Asus good
Gigabyte good...not a fan of the BIOS.
For overclocking..I would want a strong board.
Why could you not use an Asus z87 PRO or Maximus VI Hero,or z87x-OC?
or the z97 Biostar board for that matter..
All of them will run a 4690K.
You might like the AsRock Extreme4 
Asus PRO series,or Gigabyte is stronger and would overclock better though.
..even the Biostar would.



RCoon said:


> There are many many more than that. If all you're going to do is recommend those 3 boards and stonewall everything else. You're in the wrong thread and it would probably be worthwhile to move on.


Allow me to rephrase:
Those are the only boards to do any *real *overclocking on.
as in subzero.


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## Tatty_One (Jan 11, 2015)

Please keep things both civil and on topic, any more deliberate trolling in here will raise even my patience levels to bursting point, thank you.


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## stevorob (Jan 12, 2015)

@Eric_Cartman

I'd definitely recommend looking into the Asus z97 boards... if you're looking to spend under $150, the Z97-A and Z97-E both have the features you're looking for (SLI, sata exp. and M.2), and are both solid overclockers (like I said, I'm getting 4.7 on my 4690k+Z97-E and it didn't take much work at all).



Schmuckley said:


> Those are the only boards to do any *real *overclocking on.
> as in subzero.



Pretty sure that @Eric_Cartman isn't concerned with subzero OCing... doesn't appear to me that he's looking to break world records on a $150 motherboard budget.


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## Eric_Cartman (Feb 2, 2015)

Update:  I went with the AsRock Extreme4.

Overclocked the 4690K to 4.2GHz on all the cores.

However, I'm a little disappointed with the H60 because anything beyond 4.2GHz and the processor gets so hot it throttles.

But hey, it is way faster than my FX-6300 was.

I'm thinking I might pick up a small SSD and try the caching thing Intel has with my WD Red hard drive to try to speed up booting and game loading.

Newegg has some good deals on refurb SSDs...


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