To begin my review let me give a little background info. I am a casual gamer. I do some video editing with Avid Media Composer, some minor photoshopping, and practice SQL on my home PC. I decided that I wanted to upgrade my aging computer, because it was starting to lag. Some of the games I played at the time (such as Black OPS 3) were only playable at medium-low settings. Here was my setup:
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AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Processor, Black Edition (HDE00ZFBGRBOX)
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Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 Socket AM3 AMD 890GX/SB850 6 SATA USB 3.0 ATX Motherboard
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HIS Radeon HD 6970 2GB (256bit) GDDR5 Eyefinity 2x Mini-DisplayPort HDMI 2x DVI (HDCP) PCI Express X16 2.1 Video Card Retail (RoHS) H697F2G2M
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Corsair Memory Vengeance 8GB DDR3 SDRAM Memory Module - 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) - DDR3 SDRAM - 1600 MHz DDR3-1600/PC3-12800 - 240-pin -DIMM Red CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9R
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Corsair Hydro Series High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler H60
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Seagate ST31000528AS-A1 1TB BARRACUDA 7200.12 SATA 72003.5 RPM 32MB 3.5IN (ST31000528ASA1)
I gave myself a $1,000 budget. I knew that the GPU would be the most expensive component. So, I started with the processor. I wanted to get a way from AMD because of the large amount of cooling required. So I ended up returning to Intel. Oddly enough I tend to alternate between AMD and Intel with every build. I settled on the
Intel Core i5 6600K 3.50 GHz Quad Core Skylake Desktop Processor, Socket LGA 1151, 6MB Cache (BX80662I56600K)
because it had a great benefit to cost ratio. It would have been nice to make it a i7 but I had a budget and wanted to maintain within my budget.
So, I started to read reviews of motherboards. I originally saw the ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Hero and loved the style of the board. I also read a lot of good reviews about it. However, I wasn't sold on going back to ASUS because I had so many problems with the M4A89GTD. For instance, a lot of times when I would power on the PC the would power on for a second then power off. I had to wait another couple of seconds then try again before it worked. So I ended up thinking I was going to buy the
Gigabyte ATX DDR4 Intel LGA 1151 SATA E (6Gbit/s) Motherboards (GA-Z170X-Gaming 7)
. Right before I pulled the trigger, I read some unfavorable reviews for the Gigabyte board regarding BIOS issues. I had a lot of issues with my M4A89GTD's BIOS so I ended up back with the ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Hero.
Here's my review of the board
APPEARANCE
This is a great looking board. The gray and red accents look fantastic. You have a plastic shield that covers the I/O. The ROG logo ontop of the heat sink is a color changing LED. You can have it do lots of different things like pulsate, blink to the beat of your music, and my favorite change colors by the CPU's temperature. The color is changed through the provided software. UEFI BIOS has two options, expert mode and EZ-mode. The differnce being the amount of options and different option locations. The SATA ports on the motherboard are located on the corner of the motherboard. I liked this location because it was perfect for routing cables on my
Fractal Design Define R5 Gaming Case with Window Cases FDCADEFR5BKW
.
PERFORMANCE
This is the first motherboard I have ever purchased to POST without any errors. I was able to immediately boot into Windows with an exisiting hard drive (had to convert the Legacy BIOS to UEFI first) I like having a UEFI BIOS because it makes finding sections easier. However, I found that I had to take a trial and error approach with many sections. For instance, when I was assigning a primary hard drive it wasn't clear enough how this was done until I started trying different ways to assign a new primary. In a years time I have only had a couple of BSODs which is good so far. Upgrading the BIOS is a little buggy. Sometimes the BIOS recognizes that I am connected to the internet and other times I have to reboot to get it to find the internet. Although, I haven't had any issues like this in Windows. Also, on the I/O there is a BIOS update button and on the board is a power and reset button. There is a one touch overlock which works. I haven't tried to overclock it much more than that since everything runs so well. ASUS threw in a CPU installer which is a little plastic bracket that makes lining up the CPU fool proof, and works very well.
PROS
■ Nice looking board you will want to display in a window;
■ 8 sata ports (although 4 are shared) and good port location;
■ 6 USB 3.0;
■ BIOS, power, and reset buttons built onto the board;
■ One touch overclock;
■ CPU install bracket;
■ Color changing LED; and
■ No POST errors!
CONS
■ UEFI at times takes trial and error;
■ Network when updating BIOS is a little buggy;
Overall I am very pleased with this board. If that changes I will be sure to update my review.
| RAM | DDR4 |
|---|---|
| Memory Speed | 3800 MHz |
| Wireless Type | 802.11n, 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 3 |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 4 |
