Help decide on a Motherboard: ASRock?

Question

The goal is to run Steam & play games on this PC. The budget goal is $1,000.

I bought the i5-4690K CPU for $197 and I am planning on a MSI GeForce GTX960 4Gig card.

I wanted to try an MSI motherboard, but they have had quality control issues (lots of refurbished units at NewEgg). I am happy with my main PC using a Z77 Extreme 4 motherboard so I am looking at ASRock for the new machine.

With the NewEgg rebate prices below, I cannot decide between these three motherboards:

ASRock Z97 Extreme3 $96
ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer: $90
ASRock Z97 Extreme4: $94

I only plan on 1 graphics card. How many PCI Express 3.0 slots do I need?  The Fatal1ty has 1, the Extreme4 has 3 -- which seems funny since the Fatal1ty claims to be a 'gaming' motherboard.

Any advice?

Spock (rhp) · Answer

yes, I saw that about MSI motherboards.  ASRock had similar issues only two years back, which steered me way from them.  I'm looking for an ASUS mobo for my next build and strongly considering their Z97-A.  Yes, it's a bit more money and the overclocking support and flexibility looks to be worth it.

make sure to get a big enough SSD -- I'm thinking 240 Gb as a minimum since we don't know how much Windows 10 is going to hog.

end note -- LOTS of cooling fans -- you don't want to take chances with hundreds in the cpu and gpu for lack of a few $7 fans.

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Help decide on a Motherboard: ASRock?

1 Answer