So, finally decided to go with a h97 mobo since i will not OC (xeon 1231v3) and I will use a sapphire 290
and came into a selection of 3, that is very hard to find some reviews since they're relatively new.
AsRock H97M-PRO4: $80 (amazon)
Gigabyte GA-H97M-D3H: $90 (amazon)
Asus H97M-Plus: $115 (newegg)
Which one is the most reliable? I guess that the Asus, but is it worth the extra $35dlls from asrock? Is there a real difference from day to day from the audio and lan differences? what's the m.2 that asrock does not have?
If I'm correct the M.2 is for the best type of SSD and ASUS has very good build quality but Gigabyte has been getting some good sales from the gaming community and is threatening ASUS's top Mobo sales streak and I would get the ASUS for the M.2 and if you don't want to use a fancy SSD for the fastest start ups and program launching and you want to go more on the it does what I want side then go ahead and get the Gigabyte but honestly I never used a AsRock or a Gigabyte mobo and I'm planning on buying a Gigabyte mobo to see how much I like it, and I have not had any friends who owned a AsRock mobo but my friends with Gigabyte mobos say that they really like it, you may not want to take my advice as if I was a pro because honestly I am still learning about pros and cons of different companies and features, But I do know my dad's friend who does server maintenance for a living said ASUS has the most reliable mobos so part of that ASUS price is for reliability and if I could pay $25-$35 to make my PC last 2 years longer I would do that.
PCI slotted SSD's are the best. In all types of reads and writes, it absolutely destroys any other SSD on the X platforms, including the upcoming X99.
Gigabyte, ASRock and MSI boards are a mixed bag. Looking up reviews on particular products will show you if the product is one of the better ones.
Either way, they will all perform the tasks OP wants.
I always found it funny that people go ape over their motherboards.. I used BioStar motherboards for a long time.. 5+ years on Intel's Q and Duo series.. They did the job just as well as the others.. The others have added features, but its just like Team Red and Team Green, they'll have certain exclusivity and uses but they end up doing the same thing.
Only if he was gonna overclock would an Asus make sense. Otherwise, he is better off saving the cash and putting it towards more or better parts in other performance areas that will actually yield huge differences.
it absolutely destroys any other SSD on the X platforms, including the upcoming X99.
Would be nice to have a source. It also depends on the PCIe SSD, as some still use SATA controllers.
All brands can be a mixed bag. Even low-end Asus motherboards. I do agree though, check up reviews on the motherboard you want to buy, and then choose the one that looks the best from those reviews.
And indeed, for Intel, as long as you're only maybe doing some minor overclocking or doing SLI/Crossfire does the motherboard you get really matter.
PCI SSDs have been wrecking SSDs for a long time.. Logan did a video on the OCZ RevoDrive 350, and that beats any M.2... The M.2 uses a PCI slot similarly (I think x2?).. but it has yet to beat out an x8 PCI SSD because M.2 saturates the x2 and the x4 and x8 have more bandwidth... For consumers the Phoenix Blade, Scorpiun, Micron's PCI SSD, JMF811, Intel 910, Z-Drive R4, VisionTek Data Fusion, Edge Boost Express, and RevoDrive 350.. And for the really rich, you have workstation cards that get up to 6 or even 7gb/s in read and writes. The ones I listed vary from 1-3gb/s and don't necessarily fit that category. Look them up for yourself, I don't feel like looking for sources once again, especially since it's just some fact sheet. If I remember correctly the Z-Drive R4 had the fastest out of all the ones I listed, at somewhere around 3gb/s. Those are all the ones I could think off the top of my head and they all beat M.2. You can also raid the cards I mentioned which only makes their rates even more unreachable by M.2. Some are priced equivalently, which makes M.2 all the more useless.
Also thanks for sharing and agreeing on some parts.
M.2 is x4. So yes, if the PCIe SSDs need more bandwidth than what x4 can provide, then having a x8 or x16 will be beneficial.
The OCZ RevoDrive and others are not anywhere close to consumer-grade in terms of pricing. But I guess you were indeed correct in saying they perform faster. I'd just like to point out that there are plenty of PCIe SSDs that aren't all that much faster than what SATA 3 6Gb/s can offer.
So, I did my research and it seems that all of them have the pros and cons I eliminated from the list the asrock because it seems that although it is actually a good board, is not very reliable, I don't want a DOA board and have to return it.
So I'm left with the gigabyte and the asus
Both seem really good, however the asus have the M.2 which i guess i will never use. If I could afford an M.2 SSD, I would be looking at a much more expensive motherboard. And it is very very reliable
The Gigabyte has the dual bios, and I already seen a case using this card with a hackintosh (although i guess I'll never install it) and reliability is ok too.
Is hard to find good reviews, people that have gigabyte recommend it and people that use asus also recommend it. Same as intel and amd, too many fanboys.
Overall, I'm leaning towards the Gigabyte, it's cheaper, and found more reviews on it than the asus.
If anyone have a different opinion, feel free to comment.