Motherboard advice: What were the main differences back in 2015?

Motherboard recommendations??

ASRock B85-PRO4 motherboard, socket 1150 price:$233 Online price:$233

ASRock B85M motherboard, socket 1150 price:$200 Online price:$200

ASRock Z97 Pro3 motherboard, socket 1150 36 mo. price:$280* Online price:$265 (It says this on it: "Watch your favorite local TV programs by connecting to your PC, Monitor
Keep an eye on your pets or children when you are away from home" ) Does anyone know more about that??

ASRock Z97 Pro3 motherboard, $316

The build would look roughly like this (below)—so I'm wondering about the utility of these boards?? Thanks.

Possible configuration:
Best Buy Shopping Cart

1 x XFX AMD Radeon R9 280A 3GB DDR5 Graphic Card
1 x Intel Core i5 4460 3.2GHz, 6MB, LGA 1150
1 x Kingston 8GB 1866MHz DDR3 CL10 HyperX Fury red 1 x Western Digital HDD
1 x Caviar Blue 1 x Western Digital HDD, 1TB, 7200rpm
1 x LG GH24NSC0 sat Bulk Black 24x
1 x Kingston 120GB HyperX FURY SSD SATA 3 2.5 (7mm height)
1 x Fortron Hyper 700W, 80+
1 x Zalman Z3+, USB3.0, white
1 x Asrock s1150 Z87 Pro3

Total: $2279

p.s. Question—should I get the 1866MHz memory as a single stick or 2x4GB? Will it actually affect performance, or is 1600MHz enough?
Thanks in advance 🙂 : 🙂

http://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/Z87%20Pro3/

http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/art...ifference-473/

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20Pro3/

You aren't going to notice any real difference in memory speed. Honestly, you probably won't even know if they're hitting their max potential. Just grab a 2x4GB kit; it's better because of the dual-channel controller, but even then, it's not like you'll actually feel it.

As for the build, the power supply is massive overkill. For everything else, just wait for someone else to chime in.

Oh, yeah—that monitoring feature basically means you can wake the PC remotely via Wake-on-LAN. Once it's up, you can take control via remote desktop and act like you're sitting right there. You could even watch TV if you have a TV tuner card or check your cameras if they're hooked up.

You’re pretty much on the right track here.

Regarding that motherboard—honestly, unless you're planning to overclock or eventually swap in a K-series CPU with a Haswell core, there's no real reason to go with the Z chipset. You could save some cash by picking up the ASRock B85 PRO4 instead.

As for storage, you can stick with a Toshiba drive for now. If you want more speed, though, maybe look into upgrading the SSD to something like an OCZ Arc 100. Also, you could probably scale back the power supply to a 600W unit and be totally fine.

Man, these prices are absolutely insane 😵 everything just went totally off the rails, jumping $100 higher than ever since New Year's 🙂

Terrible timing to be buying anything right now 😬

It looks like you aren't keeping an eye on the dollar exchange rate...

Alexander Moore67 said:Looks like you aren't keeping an eye on the dollar exchange rate...

Look, I get that prices spiked because of the dollar, but that doesn't make them "normal."😛

Otherwise, since we're talking about the dollar, what I didn't realize is that every single shop around here works with suppliers tied directly to the USD. 😉

So, what would you guys suggest? I'm stuck choosing between these three cards—just one dilemma left.

MSI R9 280 3GB GAMING 3GB GDDR5 384bit, R9 280 GAMING, TF4
Sapphire R9 280 3GB OC Dual-X, 3GB GDDR5 384bit, 28nm
Gigabyte R9 280 3GB WF3 OC, 3GB GDDR5 384bit, GV-R928WF3OC-3GD

Price difference is negligible—so let's just rule that out as a deciding factor right now.
The PC is mostly for work—Word, movies, browsing, some 3D image processing, rendering, etc.—gaming will only account for maybe 30% of the usage.
P.S. Seems like the dollar keeps climbing. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

If you're looking at the R9 280, I’d say Gigabyte or XFX are definitely your best bets—they have the fewest headaches. Both run quiet and stay cool as a cucumber, plus they both overclock pretty well. Honestly, Gigabyte gets the edge over the XFX 1g version just because of the extra warranty coverage.

Sapphire models tend to run a bit loud and hot, which forces the fans to spin faster—meaning they burn out more often (though tweaking the fan profile can help a little). As for MSi, they’re right up there with Gigabyte in terms of performance, but you have to watch out for those occasional issues with oil leaking from the heatsink... it doesn't happen to every single card, but man, it sucks if it happens to yours.

Thanks graniteharbor85 😉 I’ve been digging through the web for three days straight—wouldn't have found this many answers without it 🙂
Quick question about the one I'm eyeing: the Intel Core i5-4460 (3.20GHz, 1MB, 6MB, 84 W, socket 1150) Box version.
It doesn't need an extra cooler, right?

Because I stumbled upon some other listings—"Core I5 4460, Socket 1150, 3200 MHz, 6 MB L3 cache, Haswell core, HD Graphics 4600, includes cooler, integrated graphics included"—that already come with a heatsink. So I'm wondering if it's worth grabbing that one or if I can skip the extra hassle.
For some people $67 it ends up being more expensive.

Here's the exact price:$579

You don't really need to worry about it—honestly, if you see the retail box, that’s your signal that it comes with a stock cooler. For an Intel build, those basics are usually plenty, unless you're stepping up to an i7 or one of those K-series chips where you definitely want to look into an aftermarket cooler. Just a heads-up though, if it's sold without any cooling at all, that's what they call "tray" versions.

And hey, you can totally justify dropping the price a bit if you're looking at an i5-4440 instead, since there isn't much of a real-world difference—it's just a 100 MHz clock speed bump, which you won't even notice.

Thanks for the input, everyone.
One more thing... what's a reasonable internal case temperature—at least for me—to ensure all the components can just breathe and run without any stress or issues?
I fell in love with this specific case—looks great to me—but I was watching a review on YouTube where the tester mentioned needing aftermarket
fans because while playing, I think it was Battlefield, the internal temp hit about 50C.
They swapped in aftermarket fans after that—so, do I need to replace the two that came with the case, or should I just add one more down by the
HDD? The reviewer said their temps dropped by 10-15C—is that still too high, and what's actually considered an ideal internal temperature?

Link to the case:

Link to the video review:

Not sure yet if this Gigabyte R9 280 3GB WF3 OC—the one with 3GB GDDR5 and a 384bit bus—is actually going to fit.
I checked the specs, and the card dimensions are L=285mm, W=126mm, H=38mm.
The case claims to support GPUs up to 427mm, but does that measurement include the drive cage? Or is that only if you rip the damn thing out?
Looking at the product photos, they have the cage removed. If I take it out, what happens to my hard drive? Where am I supposed to put it? Just a million questions here.😢(
Here’s the link to the case with the measurements:
http://www.coolermaster.com/case/mid...cio-550-white/>

Honestly, that doesn't seem like the best value for such a massive investment. If you want to get technical, otherwise R4 is the standard term for that kind of thing.

On another note—you should really do some digging into what people are saying about eDigital's track record.

Also, 50°C temperature for what exactly?
Generally speaking, seeing temperatures north of 60°C under load for that CPU is perfectly normal. It's the same story for gaming cards like the R9 280; hitting over 70°C while working hard is totally standard, depending on which specific model you're running.

Not sure—I think he mentioned those temps were inside the case, if I remember right.
I dig the case. I’m a fan of clean, straight lines—and obviously, it has to be white.
And what's the deal with VRMs? Are they really that sloppy and low-quality?

They’re nowhere near the worst, honestly. You should at least skim the last couple of pages of any thread to get the full picture. They aren't even really based in the States anymore, which makes their communication and marketing even more frustrating.

Otherwise R4 is a much more budget-friendly case option. Personally, I think these recent prices listed below $233 are actually pretty solid.
Review
It comes in black, titanium, or white.

Yeah, I read through those reviews, and honestly—after hearing from people who actually bought from them—I’m not exactly sold.
The case itself is great, though. I have to admit, I love the look—really clean, straight lines. Plus, I dig how you can tuck away three 3.5" HDDs directly
into the chassis without even popping the side panel—just by opening the front door, or what they call an s.bay😉
What’s the deal with the guys over at Micro Center? I see they have a white version, and man, that one looks killer.🙂

They’re solid. Their prices are great, and even though they don't post much in their own threads, I’ve seen reviews elsewhere saying they handle returns lightning-fast. If this shop were some shady operation, word would have spread online by now, leaving them with dozens of pages of angry customers on Yelp.