Should I get a new MB/CPU or just a new MB?
January 31st, 2020
lets start with first question , your 3rd generation i5 core , only supported by up to z77 boards , z87 and z97 doesnt support it unfortunately , basicly buying a cheapest z77 board from a quality brand will fit your needs , i can recommend this
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77V_PRO/ it also have on board wireless features since you r into wireless thing.
for buying a new cpu with a new motherboard which would be h97 or z97 chipset will almost give you almost 0 benefit for gaming. currently most powerful i5 core is i5 4690k and believe me you wont get any difference while gaming , i wish i could find a benchmark result to prove it but i found something that is tested with cinebench , for your cpu and most powerful current i5 cpu even there you wont see many difference , keep in mind cinebench and such cause more performance difference than gaming.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/701?vs=1261
Nothing new for Intel until the Skylake release. Buy a Z77 and save the other money for Skylake and the Z100 series chipset. With a Z77 board and a mild OC on the 3570K you would be faster than stock 4690K.
I have a wired connection. It’s not a must for the MB. Also I went looking around and it seems you can’t buy this MB new anywhere. Any other alternatives for Z77 boards?
Edit: Wow, it seems to be very difficult to find new Z77 MB’s for a decent price. Is this normal??
Edit: Edit: This seems to be the only one I can find at a reasonable price. Thoughts on this board? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293&cm_re=Z77_motherboard-_-13-157-293-_-Product
i dont have exact knowledge on current prices of z77 boards , but as a general rule if it is hard to find , it should be expensive but not as much as z97 and such i guess. also maybe u looked for motherboard with many features which can make them expensive. i did a quick look on z77 asus mobos which have a multi gpu support for nvidia , and found this , will look again for you.
one thing came to my mind that i should warn you about , since you will go sli with gtx970 , i assume u r after playing games at 2160p(4K) , at that time your cpu may suffer from bottleneck as any i5 cpu may suffer , at 4k amount of data produced by gpu is really massive 4 times more compared to 1080p gaming. if you are after 4K gaming , i may warn you about a few things more since u r planning to use this pc for 3 years , but first you need to confirm it , otherwise i would write for nothing
Avg. Price I’m seeing for used z77 boards are $150+ and for new $250+
I just want a board that’s SLI-ready and can OC easily. I don’t need anything too fancy haha. Though I do have weak spots for such things. xP
I’m interested in 4k gaming though not anytime soon. Maybe after Skylake I’ll look into it. I want to SLI the 970 pretty much for maximum performance and getting any future GPU upgrades done and over with now. Also a little cause I think it’ll look cool haha.
if you are not after 4k then there should be no problem , before considering cpu for 4k gaming , you need to consider gpu’s first , there is no single gpu currently can handle 4k gaming , any just two multi gpu single slot card , R9 295X2 from amd , and titan z from nvidia even they brought into their knees after applying little anti aliasing and started to get out of memory , also sli gtx970 or gtx980 can give mediocre 4k gaming but they also suffer from the same thing.
for overclocking cpu , cpu doesnt need to be overclocked for gaming except you suffer from bottleneck. cuz you dont gain any performance increase(i dont consider 3-4 fps increase as performance increase), if you wanna overclock as a hobby , it is different thing ofc.
the mobo you found above is good , i always prefer asus but since asrock is like asus’ subsidiary it will do the job. also supports multi gpu. best budget efficient thing you can do is to buy a cheap z77 board also buy a ssd , i assume you dont have it when i look your setup
keep your current CPU and get a SLI board.
your CPU is not old, unlike many others here; it will last a few more years yet. that’s for sure!
Actually I have a SSD. I guess I should have labeled that better. I have a 500GB Samsung Evo 840 and two 2TB HDD’s and one 500GB HDD for backup of the SSD. I went ahead and ordered the MB. Though the latest user reviews have me a bit worried..Though seeing as there aren’t any other alternatives, not sure what else I can do but hope this one isn’t DOA or the other problems outlined in the reviews.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&PageSize=10&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo
@Guyy You have any board suggestions while I still have time to cancel the order? Or anything to give me more confidence in the one I just bought? haha
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130776&cm_re=z97_g55-_-13-130-776-_-Product
that’s the board I have. it’s nice. I plan to SLI but not any time soon. I bought it because of the reviews. there’s like $1 difference. your best bet is to Google and check reviews.
I know other people with the Z97 G55 SLI board with several different CPU’s and they’ve overclocked to quite a degree too.
anyway, only you can make the choice of what to get.