Hey Guys
I have a low profile case for my home HTPC, and looking to upgrade the components.
If its possible I really would like to keep this case, since my woman cares about the home design and this case fits perfectly in the TV/Stereo bench and she's nagging about everything else lets follow her advice on this one and keep the case and just upgrade the inside.
With that case it means:
M-ATX form factor + No graphics card + Cooling issues (no overclocking)
I do use it for photoshop a bit, and the occasional HD video rendering, so I guess an i7 would be ok and I dont need to upgrade for a while.
Which motherboard would be good?
I'm not very price sensitive, but why go for overkill if i dont need it?
I cant really see any need for anything fancy in terms of PCI, but I must have the 6pcs 3.5mm audio jacks on the back.
Any other opinions are welcome
So you are planning, to build a system based on an igpu? Then the Asus Vanguard B85 should fit your needs.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qZ34NG
Its a TUF series board, so its also decend
ok, so why should I choose B85? and not.. let say Z97 or H97? I wouldn't need the CPU overclocking that Z97 offers, but that platform can take faster RAM, and why not H97?
the only bennefit you would have from Z97 is indeed the faster ram compatibility. without overclocking, this means, you can run 2133mhz and up, by default, an igpu uses the speed of your ram, so in that case yes it could make sense. to go with Z97, But yeah you pay the price for it. B85 and H97 is not much of a diffrence between those 2 chipsets, only the devils canyon support for 97 series chipset, but, devils canyon on a H97 board is basicly pointless.
So yeah for the price the B85 vanguard would be a good choice, for just a HTPC. since you wanne do video rendering, i would advice to grab a dedicated gpu anyway. And in that case ram speed does not matter.