Hey guys, I'm helping my friend building a new gaming/editing rig.
His budget for the motherboard + CPU is around $410 - $420, but he wants to use the i7 3770k. For the moment, he has no intention of overclocking, but he might do that in the future, that's why he chose the K version. He also has no intention of doing crossfire / SLI, so he only needs one PCIe 3.0 x16 for a single GPU and one PCIe x1 for his sound card from previous PC.
He's asking me about the AsRock z77 Pro3, but I haven't really heard much about it. So I need your help guys, is it a good motherboard? Is it good for a little overclocking, say around 4.2 GHz?
It should be fine with that. I myself have the Pro4 and its a pretty basic mobo. If he isn't going to do crossfire, there is no need to go any better. I feel like I over spent for the pro4 over the pro3, but other then that, I am very happy.
If you are wondering about motherboards I would take a little time and compare the components on the AsRock to two other manufacturers. Look at what Asus and Gigabyte have to offer. The only reason I suggest this is because I know the quality of the Asus and Gigabyte boards to be first class components and I am not so sure about AsRock. Check out the capacitors on all the boards as to who made them and the temps they can handle. Check the warranty that comes with all the boards and so on. This will give you a much more informed decision process as to which way to go. As always, just my opinion.
Well, I have seen the z77 extreme4, it looked pretty solid and it came with 3-year warranty. But I have only seen the pro3 on AsRock website, so I'm not so sure about the build quality. I tried to find options with Asus / Gigabyte, but I can't find a z77 mobo for $100 price at local stores here. The cheapest I could find is Gigabyte Z77-DS3H which is $140, similar to MSI z77A-G43 and AsRock z77 extreme3.
I talked to him, and he said that if he chose one of those $140 mobos, then he could only get the 3570k and buy an aftermarket cooler like Hyper 212 Evo. So, he asked me to ask you guys, which one should he get? The 3770k option, or the 3570k option?
I'm sorry guys, I feel like I'm asking too much. I've asked him to join teksyndicate, but he didn't want to because he couldn't speak English lol.
I see the processor is an Ivy Bridge i7 which is a beast of a processor. They do naturally tend to run hot. The MSI is a good board and the one you mentioned has a PCIE 3.0 slot so he can put any beast of a graphics card into that unit. The CPU is an 1155 socket so I have no idea what the computer guy is talking about. As long as the board supports an 1155 socket have a nice day, it will fit. The Gigabyte board here in Canada is on for 109.99. Sorry I had to tell you that. It also has an M-Sata for an onboard SSD and again it has a 3 year warranty.
So, in the long run after looking into the company AsRock is now the 3rd largest motherboard company and only started in 2002. They say they only use solid capacitors but do not mention Japanese manufacturing of said capacitors. For the price and the warranty you might as well go for the AsRock. Insure who you are buying from will honour that warranty.
I would look for box opening videos of Asrock stuff. Last asrock board I used (pro-3m) had 2 sata cables, no bridges, not really anything actually except the 2 sata cables. Might be fine if you just have a CD drive and one HDD, but I usually do builds with mutiple HDD so it was pretty annoying to pull out my extras and give them away.
It's not the computer guy whom I talked about, it's my friend who needs help building his rig. The problem is not whether it's fit or not, it's about the money. He lives in Indonesia, and some products are more expensive there than in Canada or USA. His max budget for CPU+mobo is $400 (more or less converted from IDR to USD). Here are the details of his options:
i7 3770k ($310) + z77 Pro3 ($90) = $400
i5 3570k ($220) + one of those $140 mobos + 212 Evo ($35) = $395
Alright guys, problem solved now. My friend decided to use the 3770k + MSI z77A-G45, and change the GTX 670 with 660 Ti so he could get extra money for the motherboard. Thank you very much for your opinions guys, turns out the Pro 3 is not a really solid motherboard compared to the extreme4. I saw it myself at a local store yesterday, some dude was building a budget rig there and he used that mobo. The pcb is a bit thinner than the extreme4, the capacitors didn't look as tough as the extreme4's but it's okay as long as you treat it well, it came with 2 sata cables, and the look is not as good as in the website, it's kinda disappointing. For overclocking, I don't know, maybe it works, but the seller didn't really recommend it.
So yeah, those are my thoughts about the AsRock z77 Pro3, and I ended up telling my friend to get the extreme4 or MSI z77A-g45, and he came up with that build. He only has a 1080p monitor anyway, so I guess it's okay to choose the 660Ti over the 670.
Once again, thank you so much guys, I really appreciate all your help. =)