Intel motherboard help?
January 31st, 2020
I was planning on buying a new motherboard because i currently have is terrible and i bought when i didn’t have great budget. I was looking for a good motherboard around $100.
Here are my current specifications :
CPU : i3-2100 @ 3.10ghz
MB : ASUS P8H61-MLE
HDD1 : 1TB Western Digital SATA3 @ 7200rpm HDD2 : 500GB Western Digital SATA3 @ 7200rpm
SSD : 120gb Samsung 840 Series
GPU : ATI Radeon HD 7700
RAM : 8GB DDR3 Patriot 1333
PSU : I think it is a 520W ?
ETC : ASUS Xonar DG 5.1 Sound Card
Here is the shop i plan on getting the motherboard from because they have the best prices in the area so something from that last would be preferred.
http://www.msy.com.au/default.jsp?category=215&page=1
Also for overall performance would it be a better option to get a new motherboard or a new CPU, maybe an i5?
Any sort of information would be great!
Any of the Z77 boards can give full support to the Ivy Bridge CPUs including overclocking if the CPU has an unlocked multiplier such as the i5-3570k.
So if you got a mobo like that, you could use it with your i3 and be ready for an i5 upgrade.
To decide which to get, look at the slots, headers and I/O pa stuff to see what meets your needs.
Would the Z77 be the best available for around $100 or are there any better alternatives?
The one I’m using is just acceptable, FYI: you can’t really get decent boards for 100. MSY is not that great.
I paid 65 bucks for mine, shop around, I nabbed mine at PCDIY.
PSU : I think it is a 520W ?
Open the case and have a look at it’s sticker!
Provide the full model.
I was planning on buying a new motherboard because i currently have is terrible
Mind being more specific? What exactly don’t you like about it?
If you want USB3, It can be added with an expansion card quite easily.
And yeah it doesn’t have SATA3 (6 GB/s) ports, But it’s not that bad really.
For mechanical HDDs, It doesn’t matter due to limitations of the technology
used (Even SATA1 would be okay for those) for SSDs it does matter, But in
your case, Not by much. SATA2 (3 GB/s) maximal transfer rate is 375 MB/s.
Your SSD has sequential read/write speeds of 530/130 MB/s respectively.
Sure, It’s not gonna be able to top up the read speed, But do remember
that these speeds are not constant, But “sequential” and this basically means
that they only apply when you read/write very large files for an extended period of time!
So keeping that in mind, It’s actually not too bad. But if you wanna add one or more additional
internal HDDs and your SATA ports are all used, I can certainly see how that would be a problem.
For the record, Expansion cards are available for this purpose too (Just look for “SATA Controller Card”) I’m mentioning the availability of expansion cards because adding one is far more easier (and less of a hassle) than replacing the motherboard (Which is not only a time consuming physical task, But will more than likely require an OS reinstall too!) Also for overall performance would it be a better option to get a new motherboard or a new CPU, maybe an i5?
Replacing the motherboard will not give you better performance, Only more features!
And for the record (Just in case you had it in mind) you cannot overclock a non-K Intel
processor by much, So you can forget about that. A new CPU will give you better performance, But it all depends on what your hoping to achieve really. Better performance in general? Better performance in specific apps? Or is it better performance in gaming? Can’t really tell you if it’d be worthwhile or not without knowing.
@
I don’t think MSY is that bad, they usually have great prices i have been to Thailand and Malaysia and MSY still manage to beat prices there, although they do not have the greatest variety of products and they do seem to be out of stock a lot. How much is a good amount to spend on a Motherboard than?
@ There is not really anything specific i do not like about it besides of course the lack of USB3 and SATA3
I did some research and was considering getting the Asrock Z77-Pro4-M which is $97 currently. Any suggestions?
i am looking for better overall performance and also i do a fair bit of gaming
Also i planned to buy a new CPU, namely the i5-3330 @ 3.00 ghz LGA1155 IVY bridge, would that be compatible with my current motherboard?
i planned to buy a new CPU, namely the i5-3330 @ 3.00 ghz LGA1155 IVY bridge, would that be compatible with my current motherboard?
Yes, It’s compatible:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8H61M_LE/#support_CPU
But you would need to update the BIOS first.
I did some research and was considering getting the Asrock Z77-Pro4-M which is $97 currently. Any suggestions?
Well, It looks pretty good to me (Altho you could probably get somewhat better features with a full-sized ATX board) you could also save up some money going with an H77/B75 board instead, Differences:
Z77 - For OC, PCI-E 3.0 & DDR3 1333/1600, 4 rear USB3 ports, 4 SATA3 ports and 4 SATA2 ones with RAID support (Some boards have more SATA ports and Crossfire/SLI support too)
H77 - Not for OC, PCI-E 3.0 & DDR3 1333/1600, 2 rear USB3 ports, 2 SATA3 ports and 4 SATA2 ones with RAID support.
B75 - Not for OC, PCI-E 3.0 & DDR3 1333/1600, 2 rear USB3 ports, 1 SATA3 port and 4 SATA2 ones (No RAID support)
*An IvyBridge CPU is required for PCI-E 3.0, Otherwise it'd operate at 2.0. Also, A PCI-E 3.0 graphics card would be needed
to take advantage of it (But it doesn't provide much of an improvement with current-gen cards) *An IvyBridge CPU would also be required for DDR3 1600 support, Otherwise it'd operate at 1333.
You don't have to replace your current RAM tho, It'd still be fine with 1333.
This of course only applies if you buy a new motherboard. Your current one does not support 1600.
But my advice remains the same, Unless you absolutely have to, Better keep your current motherboard and invest the money elsewhere. You can easily add USB3 with a cheap expansion card, And as said before, In your case, SATA3 is no biggie, Not a must.
i am looking for better overall performance and also i do a fair bit of gaming Upgrading the Motherboard/CPU is not gonna help you much with that!
For gaming, The graphics card is the most important thing, So I suggest you start with that, And if you still have some change left then upgrade the CPU as well. a PSU upgrade might be needed too (Can’t say for sure without knowing it’s full model^)
@
I don't think MSY is that bad, they usually have great prices i have been to Thailand and Malaysia and MSY still manage to beat prices there, although they do not have the greatest variety of products and they do seem to be out of stock a lot. How much is a good amount to spend on a Motherboard than?
Well Malaysia is not exactly what you call cheap, the country isn’t big enough for competition. For competition, the lest you would go for is Australia, China or India. And besides, you still need to purchase in Oz, as you need the convenient warranty.
MSY sucks for many reasons:
1. Crappy service (Its owned by Chinese which is fine, but they hired a Korean in a shop, they couldn’t understand me). 2. Most time too busy with many customers, so the response is very slow.
3. Out of stock items (like you said, except they can’t do special orders for you).
4. Opened in the worst positions you can imagine (You either can’t find the shop with no billboards or its located on the 4th floor).
5. Lack of good items (as you said). $65 to $100 is a good expense, the boards are not resell-able (its just not worth it). Asrock boards are not that good really, just see a few samples before you buy, examine the I/O area with your eyes in a flat plane to the board, you can see I/O warping the board.
We’ve done a build in the shop and with the HSF unit mounted, the board will post only if the fan isn’t mounted.
I’d pay my extra 10 dollars for a better service. Since we ain’t going to overclock anyway and the fact the chips run lower wattage’s, you don’t need a very flashy board.
A decent board with low rds-on mosfets will do a decent job. Two years of worth, most people would upgraded by then.
Asrock boards are not that good really.
I couldn’t disagree more. Asrock is a reliable brand and they’ve been making boards
since 2002! They were also an ASUS subsidiary til they parted ways about 2 years ago.
Asrock boards quite often offer features you wouldn’t find in other boards of similar price, So
they provide good value. That said, There’s no motherboard brand which is 100% reliable!
All brands (Even ASUS/Gigabyte/MSI) have issues from time to time, And trust me when I say this, You WOULD find bad reviews on their boards too if you look for em.
I couldn't disagree more. Asrock is a reliable brand and they've been making boards
since 2002! They were also an ASUS subsidiary til they parted ways about 2 years ago.
Asrock boards quite often offer features you wouldn't find in other boards of similar price, So
they provide good value. That said, There's no motherboard brand which is 100% reliable!
All brands (Even ASUS/Gigabyte/MSI) have issues from time to time, And trust me when I say this, You WOULD find bad reviews on their boards too if you look for em.
You wouldn’t say that if you knew how Asus and Asrock exactly worked internally.
Pity the news you get outside of Asia is really semi accurate (you only know what they want you to know). Asrock was a Asus division, Asus barely cared what they did and initially it was just oem. To profit, they had to cut down costs, in this case, its the PCB layer.
Its often overlooked and ignored by most. Go out there and see for yourself. You’d get a dud board out of a load of batches, reviews can only be partially trusted.
Like I said, if you can read Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese, you would know how crap the world is.
Well Malaysia is not exactly what you call cheap, the country isn't big enough for competition. For competition, the lest you would go for is Australia, China or India. And besides, you still need to purchase in Oz, as you need the convenient warranty.
MSY sucks for many reasons:
1. Crappy service (Its owned by Chinese which is fine, but they hired a Korean in a shop, they couldn't understand me). 2. Most time too busy with many customers, so the response is very slow.
3. Out of stock items (like you said, except they can't do special orders for you).
4. Opened in the worst positions you can imagine (You either can't find the shop with no billboards or its located on the 4th floor).
5. Lack of good items (as you said).
In fact i do agree with those negative points on MSY, they all seem quite accurate.
But my advice remains the same, Unless you absolutely have to, Better keep your current motherboard and invest the money elsewhere. You can easily add USB3 with a cheap expansion card, And as said before, In your case, SATA3 is no biggie, Not a must. Upgrading the Motherboard/CPU is not gonna help you much with that! For gaming, The graphics card is the most important thing, So I suggest you start with that, And if you still have some change left then upgrade the CPU as well. a PSU upgrade might be needed too (Can't say for sure without knowing it's full model^)
Thank you very much for all the information seems like i shouldn’t really bother with a new motherboard for now
One more question, say i in the future bought a new motherboard and CPU (for example the ones i suggested) if i installed the CPU into the motherboard and just attached my current hard drives (including all of the data on them) and everything else needed for it to run in theory would everything run properly? What i mean is that if i upgrade my motherboard and CPU only do i have to reformat my hard drives or could i just attach them and all should be fine?
Once you changed your motherboard, you usually need an reinstall. The operating system won’t accept the new motherboard usually if its not a matching model.
Thank you very much for all the information
You welcome
What i mean is that if i upgrade my motherboard and CPU only do i have to reformat my hard drives or could i just attach them and all should be fine?
You would need to format only the OS partition and then perform a reinstall.
So most of your data would remain intact. But since were talking about data safety, I’d
like to raise the issue of backup (A thing most people overlook til a disaster happens)
Any HDD can fail at random, So if you value your data, Better keep it backed up to
an external HDD or use some sort of online backup provider (If you got a good enough upload speed) do keep in mind that this would be far more cost-effective then sending a failed HDD to a data recovery company later down the road! They charge a fortune for these stuff!
Asrock was a Asus division, Asus barely cared what they did and initially it was just oem.
Not sure about the accuracy of this info, But regardless, Asrock have been in business since 2002 (that’s 11 years now) and are still going strong, If that’s not an indicator of stability, I don’t know what it is! To profit, they had to cut down costs, in this case, its the PCB layer.
This is yet another piece of information I have no way of verifying, But it’s not uncommon
for manufacturers to round up some corners here and there, The question is not whether you like
it or not, But whether it affects the product’s functionality or reliability in a negative way or not.
If the answer to both questions is no, Then for the consumer, It makes no difference whatsoever!
I still don’t think Asrock are any less reliable than the other big brands.
Once you changed your motherboard, you usually need an reinstall. The operating system won't accept the new motherboard usually if its not a matching model
You would need to format only the OS partition and then perform a reinstall. So most of your data would remain intact. But since were talking about data safety, I'd like to raise the issue of backup (A thing most people overlook til a disaster happens) Any HDD can fail at random, So if you value your data, Better keep it backed up to an external HDD or use some sort of online backup provider (If you got a good enough upload speed) do keep in mind that this would be far more cost-effective then sending a failed HDD to a data recovery company later down the road! They charge a fortune for these stuff!
Thanks guys!
Also i do really value mostly my music collection and documents among other things so it would be best that i look into an external HDD for backup purposes.
Whatever Ext HDD you end up going with, Better make sure it supports USB3!
This would surely come handy if your gonna add an expansion card for it.
USB3 is significantly faster than USB2 (And it’s backwards compatible too, Just so you know) Anyways, There are two types of external HDDs, 2.5″ and 3.5″, Basically the differences are: 2.5 – Small and portable, USB powered (No power cord needed) and available in capacities up to 2TB.
3.5 – Big and bulky, Not as portable, Requires a power cord too and available in capacities up to 4TB. Also, These have a better (cheaper) price>capacity ratio.
To sum it up, If your not gonna move it around much, A 3.5″ one would be fine (And would save you some money too) but if your gonna take it with you to places (When traveling to another town or flying to another country for example) then a 2.5″ would be better suited. Set all that aside, If your feeling paranoid about the possibility that your house could get robbed, What you could do is buy 2 external HDDs, Have one on-site and give the other one to a close friend/relative for safekeeping (Or store it in a safe deposit box) and then just update it
periodically from time to time. While I’m on subject, I’d also like to point out that there
are ways to make sure your data will be useless in the wrong hands (And by ways I mean encryption) I could elaborate more if you want.
You can easily add USB3 with a cheap expansion card
These are pretty good if you can find one at the right price (about �25-�30) but they were discontinued so often hard to get. You need a pci-e x4 (or higher) empty slot
Asus U3S6 USB 3.0 + SATA Controller 6GB/s PCI-E x4 Card http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Asus-U3S6-USB-3-0-SATA-Controller-6GB-s-PCI-E-x4-Card-/310654741471
The Marvell controller in it is not too bad either.
but they were discontinued.
And your basing this on what exactly?
They are still very common and easy to find, So I think your wrong about that.
Or were you referring to that specific ASUS card and not USB3 ones as a whole?
Anyways, Getting a combo card is certainly not a must!
You need a pci-e x4 (or higher) empty slot
For the card you mentioned, That would be correct. But for a plain USB3 card, It would not (as they require an x1 slot) the OP’s current mobo does have two x1 slots btw.
but they were discontinued.
And your basing this on what exactly?
The plain and simple fact that ASUS discontinued (stopped making) them !
You need a pci-e x4 (or higher) empty slot
For the card you mentioned, That would be correct. But for a plain USB3 card, It would not (as they require an x1 slot) the OP's current mobo does have two x1 slots btw.
I was talking about the ASUS card, why do you have to try to make me out to be wrong when I didn’t even mention pci-e x1 USB 3.0 cards ?
[I was talking about the ASUS card, why do you have to try to make me out to be wrong when I didn't even mention pci-e x1 USB 3.0 cards ?
I wasn’t trying to do that all, I even pointed out that your correct in what you were saying.
I was just pointing out a related fact, But I see now that I could’ve put it better!
The plain and simple fact that ASUS discontinued (stopped making) them !
No need to get angry dude, It just a misunderstanding (And I did give you the option to correct it on the 3rd line of my post, Not sure if you noticed that) now let me tell you which part of your post was confusing:
You can easily add USB3 with a cheap expansion card
These are pretty good if you can find one at the right price (about �25-�30) but they were discontinued so often hard to get.
See what I mean? You quoted me suggesting he’d buy a USB3 card, Then you mentioned
they were “discontinued” (as a whole) which is certainly not the case! There are many different
manufacturers for these cards (and not just ASUS) but you didn’t previously mention that you were referring purely to the ASUS card and nothing else!
See what I mean? You quoted me suggesting he'd buy a USB3 card, Then you mentioned
they were "discontinued" (as a whole) which is certainly not the case! There are many different
manufacturers for these cards (and not just ASUS) but you didn't previously mention that you were referring purely to the ASUS card and nothing else!
Stop trying to be a smartarse, the discussion was going on about USB 3.0 and SATA 3, the ASUS card is the only one that I know of that does both, and that was why I posted it.
The fact that I quoted you was mainly about the cheap card, now I guess I should have left out the “USB 3.0” part of it, as you are so pedantic.
You need help dude, Seriously!
You are way too hostile. Anyone with common sense and English proficiency would agree with me that you made a mistake up there. I even tried to be nice about it, And what do you do? Instead of owning up to your mistake, You try to throw it back at me (like it’s my fault) when it clearly isn’t! If you make a mistake, Man up and admit it! Blaming others for your mistakes is just not cool!
You need help dude, Seriously!
You are way too hostile. Anyone with common sense and English proficiency would agree with me that you made a mistake up there. I even tried to be nice about it, And what do you do? Instead of owning up to your mistake, You try to throw it back at me (like it's my fault) when it clearly isn't! If you make a mistake, Man up and admit it! Blaming others for your mistakes is just not cool!
What drugs are you on ? You have a screw loose fella. I have made no such mistake in any of my posts in this thread, I do own up if I get things wrong. I am not hostile at all, if I am coming across as being hostile then it is only as a response to your trolling – which by the way you do quite well.
Why don’t you go away and have a quiet rant about “naked body scanners” Anyway, I just wanted to post about that Asus card for ‘s information, so I am done here.