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supernater · 02-01-2012, 01:23 PM

Making a new PC and settled on either a Core i3-2100 or a Core i5-2500k. Both require a LGA 1155 socket so I was looking at this motherboard...

Newegg.com - ASRock P67 EXTREME4 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

I've never used a Asrock board before so I was wondering if this is a quality motherboard or should I go with Asus or Gigabyte?

A few random facts..
I will not be overclocking
I do mainly video editing
I do game occasionally (WoW or Guild Wars) but I will not be using SLI or Crossfire

***glc*** · 02-01-2012, 02:57 PM

Go with Asus, with Gigabyte a second choice. Z68 chipset preferred. Asrock is not a quality manufacturer.

Justin979271 · 02-01-2012, 04:15 PM

Yes, that look like it will fit your needs. What else are you looking at such as processor, video card, RAM, etc.

Nuclear Krusader · 02-01-2012, 05:00 PM

Asrock has no rock-solidity, it's all as*.

**jdeb** · 02-01-2012, 07:16 PM

Take it from experience, stay away from ASRock. Follow glc's lead in post 2

***glc*** · 02-01-2012, 07:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin979271

Yes, that look like it will fit your needs. What else are you looking at such as processor, video card, RAM, etc.

Haven't worked with very many Asrock boards yet, eh?

**jdeb** · 02-01-2012, 07:29 PM

Just RMA'd a Asrock z68 Extreme 4 Gen 3 for a new customer. He built it himself. It randomly goes into an infinite boot loop. He is using GSkill Ram but it is good. I used 1.5v Kingston Value Ram to test, does the same thing. Updated BIOS, does it more than before, made the problem worse. Strange anomalies (after BIOS update)on the boot screen. Re-installed CPU, swapped Power supply. JUNK board.

rwest · 02-01-2012, 11:25 PM

Just to recap for you supernater;
Two of our most respected moderators have told you the Asrock board is not reliable and one of our regular builders. You've had one person who has a single post in the forums tell you the Asrock board is okay. Just thought I'd point that out.

If it were me, I wouldn't get it.

quartet-man · 02-02-2012, 06:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rwest

Just to recap for you supernater;
Two of our most respected moderators have told you the Asrock board is not reliable and one of our regular builders.

Not just a regular builder, but I believe one who does so for a living.

supernater · 02-02-2012, 07:20 AM

Thank you all for the feedback. So it sounds like Asus or Gigabyte is the way to go. I searched Newegg and found these Asus Z86 Northbridge, LGA 1155 boards.

I'd like to keep the price below $170.00 and I'd like a USB 3.0 connector so I can connect the USB 3.0 ports that are built into the front of my case. I'm not planning on overclocking or using SLI or Crossfire. I couldn't find any Asus socked LGA 1155 Z86 motherboards with a USB 3.0 connector. I did find this gigabyte one...

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

However, since Asus seems so highly recommended, I'd like to stick with them. Are there any Asus socked LGA 1155 Z86 motherboards that have a USB 3.0 connector? Just to be clear, I'm not talking about a USB 3.0 port on the back of my case. I'm talking about a USB 3.0 connector on the board itself so I can hook it up to the USB 3.0 connectors on my case. Thanks.

**jdeb** · 02-02-2012, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by supernater

Thank you all for the feedback. So it sounds like Asus or Gigabyte is the way to go. I searched Newegg and found these Asus Z86 Northbridge, LGA 1155 boards.

I'd like to keep the price below $170.00 and I'd like a USB 3.0 connector so I can connect the USB 3.0 ports that are built into the front of my case. I'm not planning on overclocking or using SLI or Crossfire. I couldn't find any Asus socked LGA 1155 Z86 motherboards with a USB 3.0 connector. I did find this gigabyte one...

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

However, since Asus seems so highly recommended, I'd like to stick with them. Are there any Asus socked LGA 1155 Z86 motherboards that have a USB 3.0 connector? Just to be clear, I'm not talking about a USB 3.0 port on the back of my case. I'm talking about a USB 3.0 connector on the board itself so I can hook it up to the USB 3.0 connectors on my case. Thanks.

I assume you mean Z68 Chip-set. The ASUS P8Z68-V LE has a 20-1 pin USB 3.0 connector on the board to facilitate front panel USB ports.
Newegg.ca - ASUS P8Z68-V LE LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

supernater · 02-02-2012, 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdeb

I assume you mean Z68 Chip-set. The ASUS P8Z68-V LE has a 20-1 pin USB 3.0 connector on the board to facilitate front panel USB ports.
Newegg.ca - ASUS P8Z68-V LE LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Ah, yes I did. I saw the newegg description as Chipset:Northbridge: Intel Z68. Thank you for the motherboard recommendation. One more thing. I'll be running linux so I was wondering if anyone here has had any issues using an the intel Z68 chipset. I read there was a bug (see here) with the video drivers but I'll be getting a Nvidia video card so I will be using Nvidia's official Linux drivers. Has anyone run linux without issues on a Core i5-2500k/Intel Z68 motherboard? Thanks.

**jdeb** · 02-02-2012, 02:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by supernater

Ah, yes I did. I saw the newegg description as Chipset:Northbridge: Intel Z68. Thank you for the motherboard recommendation. One more thing. I'll be running linux so I was wondering if anyone here has had any issues using an the intel Z68 chipset. I read there was a bug (see here) with the video drivers but I'll be getting a Nvidia video card so I will be using Nvidia's official Linux drivers. Has anyone run linux without issues on a Core i5-2500k/Intel Z68 motherboard? Thanks.

I know Mint, openSuse, and Ubuntu work but Intel Smart Technology (SRT) does not work on any Distro. If you want to use an SSD as a writeback cache for hard drive, there are two projects currently going on in the Linux community. Flashcache and Bcache.

https://github.com/facebook/flashcache

Bcache - BcacheWiki

Linux does not like a dual boot with the SRT installed for Windows either. It does not like the fakeraid needed to install SRT.

Nuclear Krusader · 02-02-2012, 02:15 PM

Another one of those things that are Windows-only.

supernater · 02-02-2012, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdeb

I know Mint, openSuse, and Ubuntu work but Intel Smart Technology (SRT) does not work on any Distro. If you want to use an SSD as a writeback cache for hard drive, there are two projects currently going on in the Linux community. Flashcache and Bcache.

https://github.com/facebook/flashcache

Bcache - BcacheWiki

Linux does not like a dual boot with the SRT installed for Windows either. It does not like the fakeraid needed to install SRT.

SRT doesn't sound like anything I'll need. I'm still sticking with my 320 GB Seagate 7200 rpm hard drive. I may do SSD in the future with a SSD drive holding my OS and another SATA 7200 rpm drive for storage. For now, it looks like this build will work with Linux.

supernater · 02-05-2012, 12:03 AM

One more question guys... I had settled on this motherboard...

Newegg.com - ASUS P8Z68-V LE LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

However, Microcenter just put this motherboard on sale for the same price....

Newegg.com - ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Is it any better? It seems to have a few more features and it looks like it could do SLI. What do you think?

Staren · 02-05-2012, 01:29 AM

It's the same core board, it just has a few extra features. ASUS tends to do that. They develop one core design, and then strip features down for the cheaper versions. If you can get a deal, no reason not to take it.

***glc*** · 02-05-2012, 09:32 AM

It's a MUCH better board - it has PCI-E 3.0 and will do SLI/Crossfire properly. Go for it!

supernater · 02-24-2012, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by glc

It's a MUCH better board - it has PCI-E 3.0 and will do SLI/Crossfire properly. Go for it!

Will PCI-E 3.0 work with the Core i5 2500k? The video card I want is a PCI-E 2.0. However, the pictures I saw on newegg of the P8Z68-V/GEN3 LGA motherboard show the PCI-E 2.0 at the bottom of the motherboard. This is a problem because the fan for the video card is so big that I doubt I'll be able to fit it in the slot. The alternative option is to put the video card in the PCI-E 3.0 slot since it is backward compatible but I seem to remember that in order to do this you need to have a PCI-E 3.0 capable processor. Is this true? Maybe I should wait for the ivy bridge processors to come out since those support PCI-E 3.0

**jdeb** · 02-24-2012, 08:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by supernater

Will PCI-E 3.0 work with the Core i5 2500k? The video card I want is a PCI-E 2.0. However, the pictures I saw on newegg of the P8Z68-V/GEN3 LGA motherboard show the PCI-E 2.0 at the bottom of the motherboard. This is a problem because the fan for the video card is so big that I doubt I'll be able to fit it in the slot. The alternative option is to put the video card in the PCI-E 3.0 slot since it is backward compatible but I seem to remember that in order to do this you need to have a PCI-E 3.0 capable processor. Is this true? Maybe I should wait for the ivy bridge processors to come out since those support PCI-E 3.0

The CPU is fine with whatever graphics card (GPU) you decide on. You can install the GPU in the 3.0 slot with no problem at all. You may be getting confused with the integrated graphics (IGP) in the CPU which is a non issue when using a discrete graphics card. You would be better off going with the Intel Core i5-2380P Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz , Intel Core i5-2450P Sandy Bridge 3.2GHz , or Intel Core i5-2550K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz as none of these have IGP.

supernater · 02-24-2012, 09:04 AM

Now I feel foolish for asking

I read in another forum (I cannot find the link) to wait for the ivy bridge processors to utilize PCI-E 3.0, which didn't make sense to me. They must have been talking about that in the context of IGP. Thank you for the answer.

**jdeb** · 02-24-2012, 09:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by supernater

Now I feel foolish for asking

I read in another forum (I cannot find the link) to wait for the ivy bridge processors to utilize PCI-E 3.0, which didn't make sense to me. They must have been talking about that in the context of IGP. Thank you for the answer.

Not foolish, great questions. From what I have been reading, Intel is planning a new 7-series Panther Point chipsets with Ivy Bridge that will come with integrated USB 3.0. Also, the Ivy bridge will provide native PCI 3.0 support (Sandy Bridge does not) which will offer enhancements in of itself but not sure how dramatic those enhancements will mean until I get my grubby paws on them....

DeViLzzz · 03-01-2012, 01:54 PM

ASRock is Asus. My only experience I had with a board from them was a good experience but I have since went to Gigabyte. Many people choose Gigabyte as their preferred board now on the site I buy from which is NCIX. Honestly though if it meant I would save significant money and still be happy with the performance I would give ASRock another chance again in the future. As for the board you were looking at OP well it looks beautiful and is a fairly affordable and well rated board but I have to say that the Gigabyte board I got was a better value considering it also had USB 3.0 and SLI/Crossfire. I paid $112 after a price match for Gigabyte Z68A-D3H-B3 ATX LGA1155 Z68 DDR3 3PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 HDMI DVI SLI SATA3 USB3.0 .....

Yes the board you are looking at has PCI-E 3.0 but no card will take advantage of that anytime soon. Heck cards today don't take advantege of the full potential of PCI-E 2.0.

In conclusion I would say you could possibly find another board similar to the one you are looking at possibly cheaper but not sure another board would look as sexy. If you are going to have a windowed case and it is going to be black themed or black with red or whatever then I can understand looking at this board a little further. With my case it is now windowed so how the board looks is not significant. I have it in a HAF 912.

Anyway GL with your motherboard shopping

oh and just realized you want to do alot of video editing and such so you might want to look at a Z68 solution and get an SSD drive as a cache drive to help speed your work up greatly ...... seriously for you this would be a benefit

***glc*** · 03-01-2012, 04:04 PM

Quote:

ASRock is Asus.

No it is not. Asus spun them off in 2002. Asrock is currently owned by Pegatron, which Asus spun off in 2010.

02-01-2012, 01:23 PM	#1
supernater Member (4 bit) Join Date: Feb 2012 Posts: 14	your thoughts on this motherboard please :) Making a new PC and settled on either a Core i3-2100 or a Core i5-2500k. Both require a LGA 1155 socket so I was looking at this motherboard... Newegg.com - ASRock P67 EXTREME4 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard I've never used a Asrock board before so I was wondering if this is a quality motherboard or should I go with Asus or Gigabyte? A few random facts.. I will not be overclocking I do mainly video editing I do game occasionally (WoW or Guild Wars) but I will not be using SLI or Crossfire Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter

02-01-2012, 02:57 PM	#2
*glc* Forum Administrator Staff Premium Member Join Date: May 2000 Location: Joplin MO Posts: 37,766	Go with Asus, with Gigabyte a second choice. Z68 chipset preferred. Asrock is not a quality manufacturer. Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter

02-01-2012, 04:15 PM	#3
Justin979271 Member (1 bit) Join Date: Feb 2012 Posts: 1	Yes, that look like it will fit your needs. What else are you looking at such as processor, video card, RAM, etc. Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter

02-01-2012, 05:00 PM	#4
Nuclear Krusader Mondsreitersmann Join Date: Jul 1999 Location: Skingrad Posts: 8,781	Asrock has no rock-solidity, it's all as*. Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter rwest likes this. __________________ Darum still, füg' ich mich, wie Gott es will. Nun, so will ich wacker streiten, und sollt' ich den Tod erleiden, stirbt ein braver Reitersmann.

02-01-2012, 07:16 PM	#5
jdeb Moderator Staff Premium Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Detroit, MI Posts: 3,794	Take it from experience, stay away from ASRock. Follow glc's lead in post 2 Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter

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02-01-2012, 07:29 PM	#7
jdeb Moderator Staff Premium Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Detroit, MI Posts: 3,794	Just RMA'd a Asrock z68 Extreme 4 Gen 3 for a new customer. He built it himself. It randomly goes into an infinite boot loop. He is using GSkill Ram but it is good. I used 1.5v Kingston Value Ram to test, does the same thing. Updated BIOS, does it more than before, made the problem worse. Strange anomalies (after BIOS update)on the boot screen. Re-installed CPU, swapped Power supply. JUNK board. Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter

02-01-2012, 11:25 PM	#8
rwest Member (11 bit) Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Columbus, OH Posts: 1,388	Just to recap for you supernater; Two of our most respected moderators have told you the Asrock board is not reliable and one of our regular builders. You've had one person who has a single post in the forums tell you the Asrock board is okay. Just thought I'd point that out. If it were me, I wouldn't get it. Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter quartet-man and Preston like this. __________________ Gigabyte 880GA-ud3h / 3.1 Phenom II x2 550 BE Callisto(4 cores and OC to 3.4) / Corsair Vengence 2x4gb DDR3 1600 / 640gb WD Black 2ea./HIS 6870/ 650 EarthWatts / Win 7 64bit Last edited by rwest; 02-01-2012 at 11:28 PM.

02-02-2012, 07:20 AM	#10
supernater Member (4 bit) Join Date: Feb 2012 Posts: 14	Thank you all for the feedback. So it sounds like Asus or Gigabyte is the way to go. I searched Newegg and found these Asus Z86 Northbridge, LGA 1155 boards. I'd like to keep the price below $170.00 and I'd like a USB 3.0 connector so I can connect the USB 3.0 ports that are built into the front of my case. I'm not planning on overclocking or using SLI or Crossfire. I couldn't find any Asus socked LGA 1155 Z86 motherboards with a USB 3.0 connector. I did find this gigabyte one... Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard However, since Asus seems so highly recommended, I'd like to stick with them. Are there any Asus socked LGA 1155 Z86 motherboards that have a USB 3.0 connector? Just to be clear, I'm not talking about a USB 3.0 port on the back of my case. I'm talking about a USB 3.0 connector on the board itself so I can hook it up to the USB 3.0 connectors on my case. Thanks. Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter

02-02-2012, 02:15 PM	#14
Nuclear Krusader Mondsreitersmann Join Date: Jul 1999 Location: Skingrad Posts: 8,781	Another one of those things that are Windows-only. Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter

02-05-2012, 12:03 AM	#16
supernater Member (4 bit) Join Date: Feb 2012 Posts: 14	One more question guys... I had settled on this motherboard... Newegg.com - ASUS P8Z68-V LE LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS However, Microcenter just put this motherboard on sale for the same price.... Newegg.com - ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS Is it any better? It seems to have a few more features and it looks like it could do SLI. What do you think? Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter

02-05-2012, 01:29 AM	#17
Staren Member (11 bit) Premium Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 1,616	It's the same core board, it just has a few extra features. ASUS tends to do that. They develop one core design, and then strip features down for the cheaper versions. If you can get a deal, no reason not to take it. Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter __________________ Laptop HP DM4t / i5-560M / 14.1 WXGA Widescreen / 1GB Radeon Mobility 6370 / 4GB RAM / 320 GB 7200rpm HD / DVD-RW / 802.11n & BT wireless First Build Abit IC7-G Max II Motherboard / 2.8C 800mhz P4 / 1024 DDR 3200 (2x 512 in Duel Channel) / Saphire Radeon 9800 Pro 128 / Samsung 120 GB SATA HD / Lite-On 16x DVD-ROM / NEC DVD-RW

02-05-2012, 09:32 AM	#18
*glc* Forum Administrator Staff Premium Member Join Date: May 2000 Location: Joplin MO Posts: 37,766	It's a MUCH better board - it has PCI-E 3.0 and will do SLI/Crossfire properly. Go for it! Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter

02-24-2012, 09:04 AM	#21
supernater Member (4 bit) Join Date: Feb 2012 Posts: 14	Now I feel foolish for asking I read in another forum (I cannot find the link) to wait for the ivy bridge processors to utilize PCI-E 3.0, which didn't make sense to me. They must have been talking about that in the context of IGP. Thank you for the answer. Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter

03-01-2012, 01:54 PM	#23
DeViLzzz Member (3 bit) Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 7	ASRock ASRock is Asus. My only experience I had with a board from them was a good experience but I have since went to Gigabyte. Many people choose Gigabyte as their preferred board now on the site I buy from which is NCIX. Honestly though if it meant I would save significant money and still be happy with the performance I would give ASRock another chance again in the future. As for the board you were looking at OP well it looks beautiful and is a fairly affordable and well rated board but I have to say that the Gigabyte board I got was a better value considering it also had USB 3.0 and SLI/Crossfire. I paid $112 after a price match for Gigabyte Z68A-D3H-B3 ATX LGA1155 Z68 DDR3 3PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 HDMI DVI SLI SATA3 USB3.0 ..... Yes the board you are looking at has PCI-E 3.0 but no card will take advantage of that anytime soon. Heck cards today don't take advantege of the full potential of PCI-E 2.0. In conclusion I would say you could possibly find another board similar to the one you are looking at possibly cheaper but not sure another board would look as sexy. If you are going to have a windowed case and it is going to be black themed or black with red or whatever then I can understand looking at this board a little further. With my case it is now windowed so how the board looks is not significant. I have it in a HAF 912. Anyway GL with your motherboard shopping oh and just realized you want to do alot of video editing and such so you might want to look at a Z68 solution and get an SSD drive as a cache drive to help speed your work up greatly ...... seriously for you this would be a benefit Share Share this post on Digg Del.icio.us Technorati Twitter Last edited by DeViLzzz; 03-01-2012 at 01:57 PM.

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