First, thanks for reading! ;) Next, a brief disclaimer of the system I'm about to build.
Basic build plan - a gaming PC upgrade for my girlfriend. Based on Pentium G3258, 8Gb ram, and something like 750Ti, 660Ti. Extended build plan - to use it as a backup workstation when my box is rendering. So upgrading the cpu to i7-4771 (or similar Xeon), ram up to 32Gb.
As there's no serious OC involved (just a bit on the G3258 maybe), I need a basic mATX s1150 board with 4 ram slots. Displayport on board would be nice too. No need for raid, so B, H chipset series should be enough. I have built my fair share of systems, but mostly on older gen hardware, hence asking for advice.
So, considering all that, what vendor or specific boards can you suggest? (also note I'm located in EU, so many deals don't work for me).
I would recommend the AsRock H97M Pro4 for the price and the Intel LAN Link to Newegg
Although if the display port is really necessary I would go with the MSI H97M-G43 but lack an Intel LAN. It also supports a good amount of RAM speeds as well. Link to Newegg
You might be much more pleased with the MSI for the 1x PCI-E slots along with the 8x PCI-E 2.0 slot whereas the AsRock board has PCI slots and a 4x PCI-E 2.0 respectively.
Do you have a budget for the motherboard in mind? Are there any specific feutures that you are interessted in? like decent onboard audio ? If you are not realy interessted in overclocking, then you can indeed basicly skip on Z series chipset boards, however i saw some very nice sales going on newegg, if you like to deal with MiR.
Well damn, forgot to mention I'm located in EU, so no newegg for me :| The MSI H97M-G43 mentioned here looks good. Just 5-10 Euros more than B85 based boards, and has some better features besides what I need. My personal experience with MSI has been good. As I still have time, would love to hear any opinions/other options. Budget is flexible, and I might snatch a used board, if something good pops up locally. Also, despite two systems I've built with ASrock and working fine, local resellers don't like them much. But that board is around 140Euros here, so definitely too much.
yeah im from the EU aswell, our prices are realy diffrently unfortunatly. The Msi should be fine for your needs.
I would indeed recommend to grab a H97 board, just to have more feutures, and not having a hassle with Haswell refresh chips, if you ever plan on a cpu upgrade in the future. Ofc you can update the bios before you upgrade the cpu but still.