Motherboards

[narkeddiver]

Hi,

I'm thinking of building a gaming PC as a project over the next few months - there's no rush and it's not high on the priority list of things to do so I figure I'll just buy the components bit by bit

It's been a while since I've done this and I'm not sure what I should be looking for in a motherboard - I know it'll have to support the processor and the type memory that I buy, I know I'm after USB 3 ports and that as I'll be buying a graphics card that on board graphics won't be necessary

Other than that what other things should I be looking out for? Is there a manufacturer or manufacturers that are considered better (or worse) than others

Thanks in advance

[scotsman]

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z97PRO/ I bought this one along with a http://ark.intel.com/th/products/75048/Intel-Core-i5-4670K-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_80-GHz I wanted to overclock but you can get the i7 k if you want more power and http://www.jib.co.th/web/index.php/product/readProduct/10545/10/8-GB-RAM-PC-DDR3-1866-G.SKILL-SNIPER or more ram its up to you, A good power supply like the corsair a good case like corsair or coolmaster and a good cooling system now this was part of my new computer build I would also get a SSD drive for your operating system I bought 120 GB kingston hyper x and a large 1TB HDD drive for all your videos, photos also a good fast graphic card for gaming it all depends how much you want to spend.I Hope this helps but do some searches on the internet and read some reviews.

Regards

Scotsman

Edited October 16, 2014 by scotsman

[WhizBang]

I just built a new gaming machine (also for video editing) recently. I went with a Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1 motherboard. Couple that with an Intel i7-4790 CPU, 32GB ram, dual nVidea video cards and a 250GB SSD and I have one very fast computer. Plus a 2TB internal HD.

I also went with a big and airy case and lots of fans and a 1500W power supply. I got the CoolMaster HAF XB EVO Lan box. Lots of room, even has 2 front loading SATA drive slots.

I bought everything through InvadeIT.co.th after lots of research.

Good luck.

Oh, almost forgot, the creme de la creme is the Samsung 28" UHD monitor. The latest games look amazing in 4K, and the screen real estate 4K gives you is such a pleasure to work with for things like video or photo editing.

Edited October 17, 2014 by WhizBang

[SpaceKadet]

Intel just recently released thir latest chipset, X99, with tonnes of great features, and the new breed of processors (LGA-2011 v3 socket) to go with it. They are still a little bit pricey, but will likely drop in the next few months. My personal MoBo favorites are either Asus or Gigabyte. Asus is generally regarded as top of the range, but pricey, Gigabyte IMO is just as good, but packs more features in the same real estate. Both have top end gaming motherboards based on X99. Check out their websites for more details. Personally, I would use M.2 port for bootable "drive" and SSD cached harddrive.

My next build, planned for end of this year will definitely be based on X99, i7-5820K, and M.2 drive. I am not a hardcore gamer so generally would settle on low-mid range graphics card.

[dave_boo]

Just some general things.

I've sworn off Gigabyte. They used to drop support for their products while they were still selling them!

Supermicro remains my favourite, but their boards are workstation orientated. I use a lot of Asus products, but funnily enough not their mobos. Asrock offers similar features at a better price point.

Nowadays more and more things are handled by the CPU making it hard for the mobo manufacturer to differentiate. Add on controllers, spacing of the slots (PCI is hard to find so older cards may not be migrated), clearance around CPU, layout of ports allowing easy cable routing, etc are what needs to be looked at.

[narkeddiver]

Thanks for the suggestions guys - I'll keep them in mind as I advance my project

I'm not going to go top of the range as I'm not a hardcore gamer - I just want games to look prettier and run more smoothly than they do on my 4 year old laptop

I reckon I'll be able to get away with a 256 gb ssd as all my media is on a separate server - the new machine will only need to store the os and the 4 or 5 games I regularly play