You should never go cheap on a mobo anyway. Proper high quality caps and expansion features pay off in the long run.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

CPU: MOS 6510 @ 1 MHz
Memory: 64 kB RAM + 20 kB ROM
GPU: MOS VIC-II
Sound: MOS SID 6581

Most bad ass system ever... if you can guess what system that is without Google. You get a cookie.

So bing or yahoo?
C64.
I guess I get a cookie.

Quote from Matrixi :

You should never go cheap on a mobo anyway. Proper high quality caps and expansion features pay off in the long run.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1zSrq

The P8B75-M LE was about $75 USD. Why would I need more expansion features than this mobo has? I have no need for overclocking, and it has plenty of room for all my cards. SLI is more trouble than it's worth, IMO.

Also, the capacitor plague is over.

Quote from Forbin :

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1zSrq

The P8B75-M LE was about $75 USD. Why would I need more expansion features than this mobo has? I have no need for overclocking, and it has plenty of room for all my cards. SLI is more trouble than it's worth, IMO.

Two RAM slots and a single 6Gb/s SATA port? Well okay, if that's enough for you, then it is. For majority of the people, 150-200 euros is the sweet spot for a great motherboard with features that will last for years. 4+ SATA 6Gb/s ports, 6+ USB3's, all PWM fan headers so you can run all your fans at dead silent 500 RPM on idle, high quality built in sound cards are also finally starting to be included. You won't find those features on a cheap mobo.

Quote from Forbin :

Also, the capacitor plague is over.

I have to disagree, with my friends cheapo ASRock bulging its caps after just one year of use.

Quote from Matrixi :

Two RAM slots and a single 6Gb/s SATA port? Well okay, if that's enough for you, then it is.

You missed the additional parts at the bottom in the Custom section. Note the LSI RAID card. It has 1 min-SAS port. The cable has 1 mini-SAS connector on one end, and branches out into 4 SATA cables, each of them 6Gb/s.

As for the RAM slots, meh. Do you really populate all 4 on a board with 4 slots? Having 4 modules puts a fair bit of extra strain on the memory controller, too.

Quote from Matrixi :

6+ USB3's

Why do I need USB3 for a keyboard, mouse, wheel, or joystick?

Quote from Matrixi :

all PWM fan headers so you can run all your fans at dead silent 500 RPM on idle

I took the CPU fan off the heatsink (it wouldn't fit with the hard drives installed) and just run the 180mm case fan on the low setting @ 800 RPM. The hard drives are significantly louder. Despite that, max CPU temp under load is around 52C.

Quote from Matrixi :

high quality built in sound cards are also finally starting to be included. You won't find those features on a cheap mobo.

You only get decent high quality audio with an attempt at isolation on mobo's costing $350+ USD. Why buy a mobo just for that when I can have a properly isolated discrete sound card in the HT Omega Claro Halo (PCI) or ASUS Xonar Essence STX (PCIe)? Especially when you're driving high-end headphones like the Grado RS1i.

Quote from Forbin :

You missed the additional parts at the bottom in the Custom section. Note the LSI RAID card. It has 1 min-SAS port. The cable has 1 mini-SAS connector on one end, and branches out into 4 SATA cables, each of them 6Gb/s.

And how much did that card cost you? Rather having put in extra 30 euros for a decent Z77 motherboard, you'd have that support as native on board.

Quote from Forbin :

As for the RAM slots, meh. Do you really populate all 4 on a board with 4 slots? Having 4 modules puts a fair bit of extra strain on the memory controller, too.

I currently use four out of eight slots on my personal mobo, so using quad channel layout. If the memory controller has been designed properly, then it can handle the bandwidth of all the channels the motherboard has.

Quote from Forbin :

Why do I need USB3 for a keyboard, mouse, wheel, or joystick?

Try USB3 memory sticks and external hard-drives.

Quote from Forbin :

You only get decent high quality audio with an attempt at isolation on mobo's costing $350+ USD. Why buy a mobo just for that when I can have a properly isolated discrete sound card in the HT Omega Claro Halo (PCI) or ASUS Xonar Essence STX (PCIe)? Especially when you're driving high-end headphones like the Grado RS1i.

There is such a thing as diminishing returns. I got an Essence STX on my personal rig for the HD650's, but most of my customers who I've built computers for have been more than happy with some of the Gigabyte integrated sound cards with nice DAC's and op-amps. New Asus boards even have headphone amps built in for 600ohm cans.

Quote from Matrixi :

And how much did that card cost you? Rather having put in extra 30 euros for a decent Z77 motherboard, you'd have that support as native on board.

Firmware RAID via Intel chipset is not the same as true hardware RAID. For one, I never have to rebuild my array due to an unexpected shutdown.

If you want hardware RAID, a purpose built NAS is almost always the better solution for longetivity and ease of maintenance compared to stuffing it all inside a general use PC.

To get a NAS the equivalent of what I have now (4-bay with LSI controller rather than Marvell), I'd have to pay significantly more than I have on my current disk setup, and also be limited to 1Gbps rather than the 6Gbps that you seemed to think was oh so important. Probably more latency than internal too.

Quote from Forbin :

To get a NAS the equivalent of what I have now (4-bay with LSI controller rather than Marvell), I'd have to pay significantly more than I have on my current disk setup

Not necessarily, the amount you spent on your RAID card could easily get you a 4-bay NAS.

Quote from Forbin :

also be limited to 1Gbps rather than the 6Gbps that you seemed to think was oh so important.

My point is, that I found it strange for you to jump on this person for buying a decent motherboard instead of a cheap one with hardly any features, while you're spending hundreds of bucks on a discrete RAID card alone. If he'd want more than one SSD for example, should he also do the same?!

Also, with 10Gb networking in the horizon, and Thunderbolt already a reality, if you want a blazing fast NAS with insane bandwidth and low latency, you can already do it while also using the standard network for legacy support. When we did some quick frame time testing on a quad bay NAS using RAID 0 and Thunderbolt (plus PC capture cards), the bandwidth was close to 1 gigabyte a second for writes. So NAS can be plenty fast, you just have to do it right.

Quote from Matrixi :

I currently use four out of eight slots on my personal mobo, so using quad channel layout.

Wait... you're on X79? No wonder you're defending super expensive motherboards.

I'm not defending super extreme boards, just recommend avoiding the cheapest ones you can buy (unless building some simple HTPC system) and rather going for the middle of the road, more sensible ones that offer more future expandability for not much more money.

And yes, I'm on X79. Cheapest X79 boards are under 180 euros these days, I don't think that's too bad for what's basically a workstation/server platform.

My previous board was a GA-Z68-UD4-B3. I gave it to a friend along with an ATX mid-tower when I switched to the P8B75-M LE and a uATX mini-tower. Besides the smaller and quieter case, I haven't noticed a thing different about this board, despite the smaller feature set on paper.

• 2 fewer RAM slots: I never use more than 2 modules on single and dual-channel boards
  
• No SLI/Crossfire support: I don't see the point. Single GPU solutions generally produce better framerate consistency/stability. I also don't see myself needing an incremental boost in GPU performance after a certain amount of time. If I'm lacking in GPU performance, I'm after something like a 2x boost at a minimum.
  
• No overclocking support: Again, I don't see the point for incremental performance gains.
  
• Fewer power phases: This goes hand in hand with overclocking stability. I have no use for it.
  
• Cheaper, electrolytic capacitors: Some might consider this a cause for concern given the aforementioned capacitor plague. It remains to be seen whether this concern is still warranted, IMO.
  
• 1 fewer PCIe x1 slot: I don't have anything to put in it, nor will I ever
  
• 1 fewer PCI slot: I don't have anything to put in it, nor will I ever
  
• 3 fewer SATA 6Gbps ports: I use the LSI RAID card instead
  
• same number of rear panel USB3 ports
  
• same number of internal USB3 headers
  
• 3 fewer rear panel USB2 ports: I don't have more than 6 USB devices
  
• No RAID support: I use the LSI RAID card instead
  
• No rear panel SPDIF Out: I use the HT Omega sound card instead
  
• No rear panel eSATA: I don't have any external hard drives
  
• $85 USD cheaper: None of the above features my motherboard is lacking compared to the old board are worth $85 to me, especially when some are already being done better by discrete cards. I could buy another P8B75-M LE for that price.
  

I can't even think why you would buy such a cheap board with a lack of a lot of things to save a few bucks. You don't use it now, but what if you need one of those things in the future? Most of the options sound damn useful to have if you need it once. Better then buying a new board I'd say...

You can what-if yourself to the tune of $600 USD if that's what you want to do.

For me, a motherboard is little more than something to plug other things into, things that perform their task better than whatever integrated stuff is included on more expensive motherboards. And considering my use case does not include many many things to plug in, I don't need many connectors, just enough to fit everything I need/want and nothing more.

Keyborard - it's a keyboard
Case - small as can be
GPU - enough
RAM - Enough
CPU - enough
Penis- more than enough

Edit:being an ass hole ... I am expert consultant level.

Intel duo core 3.1Ghz
2gbram
256mb vcard (:nod
320Gb HDD

Sigh......
Yes, PC's are blindingly fast, and the difference between a bulk money setup and a cheap setup are unnoticable to 99.9% of users.
And they're all far faster than any 'noname' gamebox setup.

WOW !, PS4 manages 1080p Battlefield 4 gameplay.

Name any PC gamebox that couldn't manage that for the last 4 years.

If you want your epenis to have a fractionally bigger score than someone else's epenis, great, spend heaps and impress ???????

Basicly, PC's kick ass with gameplay, PS4 seem's to be the current ( future) box standard, xbox, let's see.

But, if you want to waste thousands on your epenis, gosh, I'm so impressed, clearly your an epenis god and I want to have your children.

Or, at my age, I'll settle for grandchildren

Quote from CheerioDM :

So bing or yahoo?
C64.
I guess I get a cookie.

You can have a cookie because you saw a loop hole and went for it. I respect that.

However you've got to fight this guy for it.

Asrock z77 extreme4
Intel i5 3750k @ 4.4ghz
8GB Corsair vengeance ddr3 1600
GTX 670 FTW (1200mhz boost clock)
Corsair h60 for GPU and Corsair H100 for CPU (neither get to 50c)
OCZ Vertex 3 240gb & Seagate 2tb storage drive
Corsair carbide 300R

Around 250fps average on LFS everything maxed out
Looking for a better power supply that isn't as noisy, loudest thing in my computer right now.

Quote from Racer X NZ :

Sigh......
Yes, PC's are blindingly fast, and the difference between a bulk money setup and a cheap setup are unnoticable to 99.9% of users.
And they're all far faster than any 'noname' gamebox setup.

WOW !, PS4 manages 1080p Battlefield 4 gameplay.

Name any PC gamebox that couldn't manage that for the last 4 years.

If you want your epenis to have a fractionally bigger score than someone else's epenis, great, spend heaps and impress ???????

Basicly, PC's kick ass with gameplay, PS4 seem's to be the current ( future) box standard, xbox, let's see.

But, if you want to waste thousands on your epenis, gosh, I'm so impressed, clearly your an epenis god and I want to have your children.

Or, at my age, I'll settle for grandchildren

PS4 is at 900p.

> Next gen.
> Doesn't play AAA titles at 1080p or higher.

Yeah, this 'gen' really failed again.

pcmasterracer.

Quote from CheerioDM :

snip

Removed the link with a faulty source?

That comparison image is bullshit. If you can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p you should really get your eyes checked.

Quote from Bose321 :

Removed the link with a faulty source?

That comparison image is bullshit. If you can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p you should really get your eyes checked.

I see it more as "the difference is so slight and given the distance from the screen you'll be sat, why care?" I run 1080 as it is native to my monitors, no other reason. But most of my YouTubing what what not is done at 720, I honestly have no problems with this. Hell I still remember TFC at 640x480 as it was all my 3DFX could handle. I still managed to get in hours of game play fun. If a slightly blurred texture is such an issue to you... turn off your computer and go out side. You've wasted your life so far.

I play with the monitor set to the wrong input because graphics are for sissies.

Is this a "lets see how good your image interpolator is"?

You can't compare a "900P" image upscaled to "1080P" size against a "1080P" image. It's just a ridiculous comparison.

Also, PC master race 'n all that jazz. 2560*1440 > all.