Hello all,

Previously I had posted to ask for advice on CPU and graphics card (recap: ended up getting the i5-8600k and the GTX1070, thanks for the advice!), and while in the meantime I had continued choosing components, I feel I need some additional guidance choosing the right motherboard. This is a component that I'm particularly unfamiliar with, being a long-time Mac user, and so a helping hand would be great.

I currently I have my eye on the ASRock Z370 Pro4. It gets good overall reviews and is not expensive, while still seemingly having all the ports and connectors that I would need to complete my build and leave a little room to upgrade if need be. I'm not on the lookout for more than I need, wanting to keep things affordable, and ASRock seems to fit the bill. I was wondering if people here have experience with this particular piece and share their experience, or offer advice on ASRock more generally versus other brands? Whether this is a good choice or whether another board would be recommended?

Cheers,
Benjamin

I got the MSI z370 gamer M5 for a good deal online. Been very happy with it so far.

Not sure about ASRock, I always assumed they were lower quality than the top brands but I might be talking nonsense.

 

I went for the pricey, but awesome, Asus Maximus X Code. 

 

 

I'm running Fatality Z370 and I really like it. Just make sure you update BIOS.
If you can shell some more for Taichi it has few extra OC settings that people like and recommend.

Thanks for the comments so far! My question to both of you would be how these boards are better, and what does it mean when there are extra OC settings that people like? What kind of features or characteristics should I be looking for when choosing a board for an OC? For example, comparing the Pro4 with the Extreme4 and the Fatality K6, I noticed the presence of the heatsink on the latter two, which doesn't seem to appear on the Pro4. I gather this is the sort of thing that would be great to have? Or are there other things, too, that I should keep a lookout for? Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

Perhaps it'd worthwhile to add that I'd like to OC my i5-8600k to 4.6-4.8GHz range, as it seems that this is quite easy to do judging by the amount of people that managed to do that.

Extra voltage settings that sometimes help if you want to achieve higher OC's.

Heat sinks help a lot especially when you are OCing. You can go to overclock.net forums and read what are people posting about different MBs (just make sure you are paying attention to the date it was posted. Many issues from early releases were already fixed in latest BIOS). I stick to ASRock for years now simply because it never failed me and ASUS and GB before them did.. Don't have the need for Taichi or integrated WiFi (which is slow to begin with) so that's why I pretty much always buy Fatality ones.

Get yourself a decent cooler and you will hit 5.0 no biggie and you can run it like this 24/7 as long as your temps don't get too high.

 

Asrock has really upped their game - trying to compete with the big dogs .

many of their customer reviews are higher than asus and gigabyte for z370 boards.

you usually get more for your money

For me it was just best features, best options, and best deal for my purchase. I've has asrock, asus, g.b., and may.  All make good stuff with the occasional did. My last asrock was a no frills board but it got the job done.

Do some research and see what you find. It is usually pretty easy to find out if a board has issues in general or o.c.ing them.

Hey what RAM with coffee lake and for P3D shuld be used? 2666Mhz ?

26 minutes ago, alphaklg73 said:

Hey what RAM with coffee lake and for P3D shuld be used?

The fastest you can afford.

Greg

Anything above 3000 and you will be fine. 

Thanks all for the advice! I think it's pretty clear to me: I'll go with the Fatality one as it's currently on sale at Newegg. it's even cheaper than the Extreme4 :)

1 hour ago, PaulGR said:

Anything above 3000 and you will be fine. 

I'm actually glad this came up, I'd been wondering about it too. Intel describes on the i5-8600k product page that you should use 2666, yet I see many people go over that. What exactly is the benefit of faster RAM? Is it really going to make a noticeable difference?

33 minutes ago, Benjamin J said:

What exactly is the benefit of faster RAM? Is it really going to make a noticeable difference?

See SAAB340's test here:

His tests still apply... and will for some time to come.  Faster RAM will allow those slow loading textures in Prepar3d (the textures that stay black for extended periods) to not be as much of a problem.  Views too will load faster.  Again, buy the fastest RAM you can afford.  Scrimping on this part of the build is no different than scrimping on another part... you'd still be limiting your new rig.

HTH,

Greg

49 minutes ago, Benjamin J said:

Thanks all for the advice! I think it's pretty clear to me: I'll go with the Fatality one as it's currently on sale at Newegg. it's even cheaper than the Extreme4 :)

I'm actually glad this came up, I'd been wondering about it too. Intel describes on the i5-8600k product page that you should use 2666, yet I see many people go over that. What exactly is the benefit of faster RAM? Is it really going to make a noticeable difference?

I have read that 3200 with XMP on is the most stable at this point and that's what I went with.
Some people are having issues with higher #s.

22 hours ago, Benjamin J said:

 

Perhaps it'd worthwhile to add that I'd like to OC my i5-8600k to 4.6-4.8GHz range, as it seems that this is quite easy to do judging by the amount of people that managed to do that.

 

Well the Turbo frequency is 4.7, so you get that anyway. That's on one core though, the rest somewhat less... unless you turn on MCE, multi core enhancement, which most board manufactures have. In which case all cores run at the max Turbo frequency.

To be honest, as it's an i5 you are going for you have a big advantage as there's no HT. My 8700K for examples overclocks to 5 GHz (and probably more) with ease with HT off.  With HT on I require quite high voltage though. And of course, with HT off or no HT in your case, it's 10 degrees cooler.