Suggestions for Intel Motherboard?

[amirm]

Intel wins on single core speed, but you will pay (as of recent events) a modest premium for it. It used to be much more. My experience and from what I've read is that AMD's BIOS are also less mature.

So, for example, my gaming rig is AMD - price vs performance and my HTPC is Intel. I want my HTPC to be as dead nuts reliable as possible.

Thanks. Stability is everything for me here as this is my everyday workhorse.

 

[amirm]

Last year (maybe a bit longer) my son did a bunch of research (I just looked over his shoulder) to upgrade his gaming machine. He went with Asus. Gigabyte, previously a contender, had bad reviews similar to cited above, and the other MB vendors seemed to have less experience and support than Asus.

Thanks Don. I will research Asus as well then.

 

[DonH56]

Just remember it's second-hand memory of my son's research (the comp science major)... As for me, I hate computers; they insist on doing what I tell them and not what I want. Back in college I actually was head TA for the digital labs, back when we still built things out of TTL gates and such all the way up to little Elf or Intel micro eval boards, and my students made me a plaque with my definition after hearing it so often for two semesters:

computer (n): A mindless, inarticulate piece of machinery that hates your guts.

 

[g29]

I have a huge ax to grind with Gigabyte. They've burned me twice and especially hard with a recent AMD gaming build. My experience with their support has been miserable and there was an article in the last six months that they've cut staff by 50% in their motherboard division. It shows.

I've had nothing but good luck with ASUS. And given your application I'd recommend considering the CSM series.

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/CSM-Corporate-Stable-Model-Products/

With these models ASUS has committed to motherboard and driver availability for longer periods compared to LED infested gamer motherboards with six month lifespans.

Are you sure it was Gigabyte and not AMD causing the issues ?

 

[amirm]

I hear you Don. Every time I embark on building a new PC, I have to go through a ton of research on CPUs and motherboards. They sure don't make them easy.

 

[g29]

FWIW, I always built on the ASUS/Intel Sabertooth boards. They are supposedly MILSPEC boards and were always very stable. Haven't built any lately though so don't know if they are still players or not.

 

[mkawa]

as someone who has worked in contracting and a ton of hands on hardware-as-a-hobby, milspec means nothing except for the right to charge more for the part.

 

[g29]

as someone who has worked in contracting and a ton of hands on hardware-as-a-hobby, milspec means nothing except for the right to charge more for the part.

That maybe marketing hype, but none of those boards ever had a problem and never died. Some of them are still serving a second life in charitable organizations while others are still going strong here including a 6-core/12-threaded machine that is getting rather "long in the tooth" (no pun intended ).

 

[despoiler]

Thanks. Stability is everything for me here as this is my everyday workhorse.

There is nothing unstable or less mature about AMD AGESA.

 

[Martin Takamine]

Asus, Asrock, or Gigabyte for the MB and Intel for the CPU is single core performance is your concern but if your apps crave multiple cores then get AMD.

 

[Martin Takamine]

Also remember the better the PSU the more stable your system will operate so don't go for the budget PSUs.

 

[mkawa]

i have been running various iterations of x570 + zen 2 most of this year and am currently running a 3900x on a crosshair viii. the amd zen platform is hilariously immature compared to the intel stack.

that includes trying out every single major x570 vendor mass market flagship motherboard as well.

and the ram? ooooh dear, so much ram passed through those boards.

 

[zermak]

Every brand has its own problems sometime and it is always a time/generation situation to figure out. You have to look up at every brand to find the good ones; this is mostly for the motherboards. The DRAM ICs are now stable with high clocks and there are a few one to look at for overclocking or just a simple solid performance.
On CPU side, lately AMD is better on multi processing and has better ratio between performance and consumpion. Intel is still king of single core performance as mentioned but the permium price in my humble opinion is not worth the extra money unless it's a critical situation.
GPU side, on mainstream prices, it's neck and neck between AMD and nVidia. If you want top performance go nVidia. And btw a 1080Ti from ages ago is still a great card.

I don't know about the 60Hz problem with Intel on 4K, have to check but it seems rather odd.
EDIT: stuck at 24Hz because of the same GPU architecture on my Skylake. But you can use DP or DVI for 60Hz.

 

[mkawa]

intel igpu drivers are TERRIBLE. linux support is non-existent. i have no idea how they plan on going from negative 0 to full blown gaming gpu in the next year.

 

[audimus]

There are no inherent stability issues with AMD. However, they are very particular about the memory because of the graphics architecture. That is probably where any anecdotal stability issues arise. It would be a good idea to buy only from the QVL for them.

Intels, you can throw pretty much any memory and it will work and faster memory won’t make any difference.

In motherboards, Asus, Gigabyte and MSI are the top three and I would rank them as Asus > MSI > Gigabyte with Asus leading by a mile. But they all suck for support. Asus boards like others are either DOA in which case you exchange with retailer or they work forever, so you don’t have to contact their support. I second the recommendation to buy their CSM models if longer term support for drivers is a concern. They stop driver support too early for others.

The best support for PC components is from EVGA.

The only brand I would recommend against is Asrock. Uneven quality and terrible support. They are the Ikea of electronics.

AMD graphics are better value for hard core gaming performance but they are not as power efficient as Nvidia with implications on noise and heat. Nvidia would be a better bet for non-gaming use with a small premium.

 

[zermak]

There are no inherent stability issues with AMD. However, they are very particular about the memory because of the graphics architecture. That is probably where any anecdotal stability issues arise. It would be a good idea to buy only from the QVL for them.

Intels, you can throw pretty much any memory and it will work and faster memory won’t make any difference.

In motherboards, Asus, Gigabyte and MSI are the top three and I would rank them as Asus > MSI > Gigabyte with Asus leading by a mile. But they all suck for support. Asus boards like others are either DOA in which case you exchange with retailer or they work forever, so you don’t have to contact their support. I second the recommendation to buy their CSM models if longer term support for drivers is a concern. They stop driver support too early for others.

The best support for PC components is from EVGA.

The only brand I would recommend against is Asrock. Uneven quality and terrible support. They are the Ikea of electronics.

AMD graphics are better value for hard core gaming performance but they are not as power efficient as Nvidia with implications on noise and heat. Nvidia would be a better bet for non-gaming use with a small premium.

Have to disagree. ASRock support was excellent when I had a problem with my Asus Xonar DX not working on a PCI-E slot (AMD chipset board). ASRock sent me a modified bios to solve the problem. And again on another motherboard the bios update failed for some reasons and they sent a new EPROM chip for free (Intel chipset board); this happened this year.

 

[mkawa]

evga is actually going through some HUGE financial issues. not a great longevity play.

 

[lex62lex]

I kind of finally created an account to give my two cents here, as I really enjoy the headache that is building a pc. Thunderbolt can be a bit of a nightmare and the Gigabyte z390 designare is wonderful in TB3 applications but is reported to not recognise any universal audio devices interfaces in TB2. Your best bet is getting a nice z390 board that has a Thunderbolt header and using an add in card. I would recommend the Gigabyte Aorus Master or the Gigabyte Aorus Elite, as they are really good value boards and have VRM‘s capable of actually driving the 9900k. Many boards really skimped there in the z390 generation and it could really hurt performance if you use a power hungry cpu like the 9900k or try a simple overclock on the 9700k. Overclocking is quite easy on this intel generation and if not overdone rock solid.

 

[mkawa]

i have a 9900k with an aorus master based system sitting here waiting to go out to its owner, and it is solid. i don't remember it having a thunderbolt header on it though. the asus boards all have headers and the deluxe (is there a z390 deluxe?) and above are all solid. the WS is also really solid.

as for GPUs, he wants something passively cooled, probably a passive 1050ti or 1060/ti. there may also be some 1660 passives at this point.

 

[lex62lex]

It says on the Gigabyte website that both boards have the necessary 5 pin header. The other thing with Thunderbolt 3 is that there are generations in the controllers and that they could be the issue with backwards compatibility. The best bet would be to get a board with a header and then test different add in cards.