Yea it's like taking a poison pill choosing a mother board these days :)
The bad thing is i7 6700k processors went up in price
So I don't see much cost efficiency waiting until now
AddRam said since he bought his they have gone up 100.us compared to todays prices :/
Yeah, considering the cost of the I7 currently, I'm wondering if the best thing to do is wait and see what happens with prices in the weeks/months ahead. The I7 6700 is ridiculous right now and I don't want to waste money for no reason if the prices will be dropping. I can get by for a little while longer with what I have but I really do need to upgrade to a better PC soon. I know the Kaby Lake is coming this fall but then what will that cost? Will that cause Skylake to drop?
The pricing is frustrating - just today the ASRock Z170 Extreme 7+ went up like $60! Yesterday there was a price drop but I'm not ready to make any final decisions yet.
The 6700K runs very cool.
This is an awesome looking Z170, I think Esata is history, not sure why Asus is dropping them off mainstream boards.
The only thing bad about is the price.
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards...-VIII-FORMULA/
ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII FORMULA LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com
That's a nice-looking board but the price is far too much for me to handle for a motherboard.
My I7 920 runs very hot. I'm glad to hear the 6700K runs cool. That should make finding a cooler that is effective a bit easier. Not sure what to do for a cooler yet - I'm still considering my motherboard options.
I have noticed esata does have a very snug fitting connection unlike usb2 or 3 especially on the storage device
The Maximus is pretty killer in all versions :)
Looking at NVidia cards, I want to be sure I get one that can handle HDCP 2.2 and HDMI 2.0 in order to decode 4k HEVC 10-bit, especially if I get the Skylake and don't wait for Kaby Lake since Skylake doesn't have built-in support for HEVC like Kaby Lake will. From what I see very few cards support HDCP 2.2 and HDMI 2.0. Am I correct that the card has to be based on the the GM206 GPU to support this? From a post I read, the only cards that support this are:
- GTX 960
- GeForce GTX Titan X
- GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Are there any other NVidia cards that fit that specification other than these? The 960 is around the right price point for me and I see EVGA has a nice one. The other cards listed above are way, way out of my price range. Is the 960 my only option then? I want to stick with NVidia. How does the 960 perform? I'm looking at this card:
EVGA GeForce GTX 960 04G-P4-3969-KR 4GB FTW GAMING w/ACX 2.0+, Whisper Silent Cooling w/ Free Installed Backplate Graphics Card
The way I look for hardware is time consuming but simple.
Make a list of things I want and then go shopping.
If I can't find for example a motherboard with all the options I want cheap then I just have to decide if those options are worth the extra money for a different motherboard with those options.
Only I can make those types of decisions for me.
Sometimes I do make the wrong choice but that is part of life.
The video card in this system is a example of me not making the best choice.
Not really a bad choice but also not as good as it could of been.
So what I do is after a lot of research make my final list and go over it twice and pull the trigger. If I kept waiting for something cheaper, better or newer I would never get a computer made. Make the computer and be happy. I can always change things later if I make a good choice on the basics which are.
1. Case
2. Power supply
3. Motherboard
4. Cpu
Note:
I have no wobbly or loose fitting USB port. They all fit quite tightly.
Right, but there's an overwhelming number of options for computer parts, and even just looking at motherboards, there are some clear differences with some brands compared to others. I have little experience in terms of building (I only built 1 PC and that was 5 + years ago), and that's why I'm here asking questions. I have a general idea of what I need (ports, connectors, etc.), but I know little about just how good or effective some of these features are or if it makes them better than another brand.
Like AsRock - look at the features they list for their Z170 Extreme7+ motherboard:
- XXL Aluminum Alloy Heatsink Design
- Combo Caps (Nichicon 12K Platinum Caps)
- Nichicon 12K Platinum Caps
- Premium 60A Power Choke
- Premium Memory Alloy Choke
- Dual-Stack MOSFET for CPU Power
- I/O Armor
- High Density Glass Fabric PCB
- 12 Power Phase Design
- Purity Sound 3
- Hyper BCLK Engine
- Dual Intel LAN supports teaming
- Digi Power
- Full Spike Protection
-USB Key- Dehumidifier- Easy Driver Installer
- XFast RAM
- XFast LAN
The Extreme6 lists all the same things except "Premium Memory Alloy Choke" and "Dual-Stack MOSFET for CPU Power" and a different configuration of slots.
How could I possibly know if any of these are compelling enough to pick it over, say, the Gigabyte Gaming 7? Many of these are their own terminology and while some may be quite useful, others may not amount to much. Of course high-quality caps are important, but the Gigabyte Gaming 7 I'm considering has those, too. What about the other features? A lot of it is marketing, but some of it may indeed be a benefit to the user. Other brands may offer similar features and just name it differently. Does Gigabyte offer "12 Power Phase Design"? How important is the "High Density Glass Fabric PCB", "Premium Memory Alloy Choke" or "Premium 60A Power Choke"? Would I ever need to use the "Humidifier" mode, which runs the fans after shutdown to push warm air out of the case? If that's so important, why don't other boards not have issues that don't have this feature?
This is really what I'm trying to figure out - which brand offers features I'm more likely to benefit from, either through software/BIOS or through high-quality engineering, and which ones are just snake oil to sound more feature-packed? And which boards are known to be buggy or have issues that can cause frustration that haven't been sorted out yet via firmware? I wouldn't know that by reading a pro-review because they never follow up on these types of things. Some bugs mentioned in reviews may be fixed now but how would I know about it?
I'm just doing the best I can with researching these parts and I think asking questions is part of the research that is required.
I/We understand what you are going through.
Motherboards are very sophisticated. Different brands call things by different names.
I read a lot of reviews on a motherboard from various places to try to get a better understanding.
I also look at various forms that kind of specialize in building your own system and over clocking. It takes a lot of time and effort.
AsRock is not considered the top of the line motherboard but many use them without any problems. They cut cost some how but I don't know the way they do it or whether it will effect the performance and reliability. Their are a lot of maybe's when choosing a motherboard.
My Asus Sabertooth X79 had problems and I had to RMA it. The problem was take care of and it's been working proper every sense. Which means motherboards that cost more money can have problems.
I have a dealer in town that sells boat loads of Gigabyte motherboard. Low to mid range in price and has very little problems with them. But he does have a advantage. He builds and sets up the systems in most cases. Problems are normally worked out before the customer get the computer. He does not want a bunch of computers coming back and having to deal with the problems, so Gigabyte is his choice.
Asus motherboards didn't meet the price his customers wanted and cheaper motherboards didn't meet the quality standards he needed.
It's always a roll of the dice to one degree or another. Some where their is a balance between what one wants, needs and is willing to pay for.
The next system I build will take me weeks to figure out which motherboard to buy.
I will take a serious look at Gigabyte and Asus and who know what else that might come to the market. The time will come when I will just have to choose and buy one or I will never get a new system built.
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