Z68 Motherboard upgrade options


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Seems my Asus P8Z68 MB is coming to the end of it's life (has issues booting up , so Im leaving my pc on 24/7)

 

What would be a good upgrade for me?  My Processor is Intel Core i7 2600K.

 

Would another Asus board, but a Z87 board with a new i7 K processor be worthy upgrade?

 

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I wouldn't waste the money on a new CPU,  the 2600k is still a very good chip.  You can get a Z77 MB and use your 2600k in that.  Use the money you save on the new CPU for an SSD or a new video card if you need it.

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I had a very similar configuration before I upgraded from a i7-2600 to a i7-4770k and an ASUS Sabertooth Z87. To be quite honest, I would stick with the processor you have and get a new motherboard.

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Have a Asus myself and i couldn't be more happier with it so i would recommend it.

Agreed with the previous posters - and the ASUS mobo in particular I would recommend is the ASUS Z77-A (basically, the successor to the P8Z77V-LX and P8Z77-LK).

 

http://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/Z77A/

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Seems my Asus P8Z68 MB is coming to the end of it's life (has issues booting up , so Im leaving my pc on 24/7)

 

Depends on where in the boot up the problem is happening as in when it gets to load the OS for your SSD or HDD? Have you added any hardware recently when the issues started? Is the firmware upto data?

 

Agreed with the previous posters - and the ASUS mobo in particular I would recommend is the ASUS Z77-A (basically, the successor to the P8Z77V-LX and P8Z77-LK).

 

http://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/Z77A/

 

I wouldn?t say the Z77-A is the successor to the P8Z77-V LK maybe the P8Z77-V LX.

 

That MB handle my processor?

 

Any good Z77 MB will support your i7 2600K.

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The ASUS P8Z77-V LK or GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-D3H are what I would suggest looking at.


 


Just a note about the i7 ? 2600K it will only support PCI-e 2.0 not 3.0 not really a big problem but if the replacement board works out to solve your booting up issue then it would still work out ok.

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The ASUS P8Z77-V LK or GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-D3H are what I would suggest looking at.

 

Just a note about the i7 ? 2600K it will only support PCI-e 2.0 not 3.0 not really a big problem but if the replacement board works out to solve your booting up issue then it would still work out ok.

 

Wow, two new options here. Will have to read up on which one to pick out of these 2.  Had Gigabyte way back in the day.  From what I remember, they don't offer bios updates as often as ASUS does

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Just going to note here that PCIe 3.0 is of no consequence. The performance differences are close to nil in real-world usage because GPUs weren't hitting the bandwidth limits of the PCIe 2.0 in the first place.

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Had Gigabyte way back in the day.  From what I remember, they don't offer bios updates as often as ASUS does

Gigabyte is my preferred pick, but ASUS still very good.

 

You can get Gigabyte bios updates frequently still, there is a forum section dedicated to it online - and indeed very useful.

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Gigabyte is my preferred pick, but ASUS still very good.

 

You can get Gigabyte bios updates frequently still, there is a forum section dedicated to it online - and indeed very useful.

 

I don't think frequent bios updates is a feature you necessarily want  :laugh: If they have to keep putting out bios updates they are either adding support for new processors or fixing things they broke...

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Therein lies an excellent reason to update, thank you for mentioning it. :)

 

:huh: So I take it you buy a new processor every generation and keep the same motherboard? Otherwise, this would be a completely pointless update at the risk of bricking the board (I'm just kidding, they break compatibility every few generations so at most you'd probably be able to switch only once).

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at the risk of bricking the board (I'm just kidding

I'm glad you're kidding about that. I'm sure you're aware that the risk of doing a BIOS update is minimal these days.

 

Jokes aside, it is a shame we have to update both processor and motherboard (almost) every generation, but I guess we have to take the good and the bad in the same package? :laugh:

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I'm glad you're kidding about that. I'm sure you're aware that the risk of doing a BIOS update is minimal these days.

 

Jokes aside, it is a shame we have to update both processor and motherboard (almost) every generation, but I guess we have to take the good and the bad in the same package? :laugh:

 

Well, I don't think it is purposely done. With Intel you generally have your die shrink generations and your new feature generations. The new feature generation would make it largely impossible to keep the same motherboard (due to chipset and featureset changes) even if they didn't switch up the processor package.

 

Bricking boards can still happen with poorly designed software (here's looking at you ASUS with your Windows flashing utilities that didn't actually work in Vista). But, in general I'd be more worried about the updates breaking things that are working than anything else. 

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That MB handle my processor?

It will swallow any LGA1155 CPU - Z77 is the chipset successor to Z68.

 

The feature gains vs. Z68 were merely one reason for the surge in popularity in Z77, and not even the biggest one - the larger reason was that Z77, feature gains and all, cost no more than Z68, could be a direct swap in Z68-based motherboard designs (in ASUS' own case, the P8Z77V-LX/LK were based on the same PCBs as their Z68 predecessors), and thus could be crossgrades from even P67 without costing a mint.

 

Before the remarkably sane (in terms of launch pricing) arrival of Haswell, I had originally planned on Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge (Z68 or Z77 chipsets, respectively) - letting bang for buck decide motherboard/CPU pairing, as both use the same LGA -- as was the case with Kentsfield/Yorkfield in LGA775.  However, due to issues outside of the motherboard (software, basically), Kentsfield remained viable far longer than expected - despite age AND dead-socket liabilities.  (The biggest dead-socket liability is that this particular motherboard only takes DDR2.)

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What, your i7 motherboard is dying? Did you leave it in a lava bath?
I've got a P5 ASUS board here, absolutely no problems with it at all.

 

I'd recommend an asus board though, but if your i7 board is dying already, RMA it because that is rediculous.

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decided on gigabyte 

Z77X-UD3H

 

 

Thanks for all the help

Good choice, I have the Z68 (Z68XP-UD3P) version of that which is an excellent board. If it's not already UEFI, get it updated :)

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