HTF Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 Just started looking around for a new gaming build. I've been looking at the Z270 A, and the Maximus IX hero. Was wondering if the Maximus IX hero is worth the price? or if anyone has any other suggestions. Not really wanting to go above $200 on a mobo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danielx64 Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 I hate answering with a question or two but what are you looking for? Fullsize ATX? Overclocking? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winlonghorn Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 I can say this. I just recently bought the Hero and I am very happy with it! Again though, as Daniel mentioned above, it is really up to what you are looking for. I wanted a standard ATX board that had a great deal of flexibility in terms of future proofing my PC at least for a few years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HTF Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 I probably should have added that.. But yeah looking for a standard ATX, and might do some oc. 1 minute ago, winlonghorn said: I can say this. I just recently bought the Hero and I am very happy with it! Again though, as Daniel mentioned above, it is really up to what you are looking for. I wanted a standard ATX board that had a great deal of flexibility in terms of future proofing my PC at least for a few years. awesome, yeah ive seen a lot of really good reviews for that board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winlonghorn Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 1 minute ago, HTF said: I probably should have added that.. But yeah looking for a standard ATX, and might do some oc. awesome, yeah ive seen a lot of really good reviews for that board. I can't speak to the overclocking myself because I don't plan to do a lot of that myself. I may try to bump the speeds up a little, but not much more than that as I have never overclocked before. I combined this board with a Kaby Lake Core i5, 16GB DDR4 memory and a solid state hard drive and it just screams! I have never been happier with a PC than I am with this one. The only thing that is left for me is to add a bit more memory, an m.2 drive and a Geforce GTX 1080 graphics card to bump performance up some for VR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HTF Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 Just now, winlonghorn said: I can't speak to the overclocking myself because I don't plan to do a lot of that myself. I may try to bump the speeds up a little, but not much more than that as I have never overclocked before. I combined this board with a Kaby Lake Core i5, 16GB DDR4 memory and a solid state hard drive and it just screams! I have never been happier with a PC than I am with this one. The only thing that is left for me is to add a bit more memory, an m.2 drive and a Geforce GTX 1080 graphics card to bump performance up some for VR. thats pretty much exactly what i was thinking for a build. Tho I wanted to look more into SSD, just cause I don't know to much about them. Have never oc before either, but did wanna try and speed it up a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven P. Administrators Posted April 18, 2017 Administrators Share Posted April 18, 2017 I bought a 120gb Kingston SSD for my new 2014 build just for Windows and couldn't be happier. It decreased startup time and quietened the system (although all my data is still on a standard 3TB HDD and I start a program or two from it too). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winlonghorn Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 30 minutes ago, HTF said: thats pretty much exactly what i was thinking for a build. Tho I wanted to look more into SSD, just cause I don't know to much about them. Have never oc before either, but did wanna try and speed it up a bit. As far as SSD drives go, they certainly do speed your system up quite a bit. On older, Non-SSD drives, it used to take me up to at least 30 seconds to boot my machine. Now, with this machine using an SSD, it takes maybe 7 - 10 seconds (if that). They are definitely worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HTF Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 26 minutes ago, Steven P. said: I bought a 120gb Kingston SSD for my new 2014 build just for Windows and couldn't be happier. It decreased startup time and quietened the system (although all my data is still on a standard 3TB HDD and I start a program or two from it too). 6 minutes ago, winlonghorn said: As far as SSD drives go, they certainly do speed your system up quite a bit. On older, Non-SSD drives, it used to take me up to at least 30 seconds to boot my machine. Now, with this machine using an SSD, it takes maybe 7 - 10 seconds (if that). They are definitely worth it. Is it recommended to have a HDD in addition to SSD for storage or backup? Or are SSD reliable enough to have on its own? I feel like i read somewhere that SSD fail after time? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mando Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 (edited) i bought a s270 Strix Gaming H instead of the hero, cheaper and with the same spec tbh. a platter drive will die before any SSD. Ive got 4x SSDs 2x123gb in RAID0 striped for Win and 2x256Gb SSDs in RAID0 striped for games seeing 1Gb/Sec R/Ws + https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-1151-STRIX-Z270F-GAMING/dp/B01MY0S0KV/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1492526759&sr=8-3&keywords=asus%2Bstrix%2Bgaming%2Bmotherboard&th=1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven P. Administrators Posted April 18, 2017 Administrators Share Posted April 18, 2017 No idea.. thing is SSDs are still quite expensive when you get into the realm of using one for a data drive. My decision was based purely on the fact that 120gb was enough for Windows and installed programs. I used to have 2x 1TB data drives but recently swapped them out for a single 3TB one, decreasing noise and power consumption in the process. I backup what I can't lose in the cloud (photos and docs). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winlonghorn Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 3 minutes ago, HTF said: Is it recommended to have a HDD in addition to SSD for storage or backup? Or are SSD reliable enough to have on its own? I feel like i read somewhere that SSD fail after time? In my personal opinion, I would recommend having an additional HDD for storage and/or backup. The cost of larger SSD drives is still a bit too high for me to consider one for mass data storage honestly. Reliability wasn't a consideration when I went with the SSD/HDD setup honestly. I just wanted to maintain large storage space and gain the performance benefits of SSD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HTF Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 (edited) 14 minutes ago, Mando said: i bought a s270 Strix Gaming H instead of the hero, cheaper and with the same spec tbh. a platter drive will die before any SSD. Ive got 4x SSDs 2x123gb in RAID0 striped for Win and 2x256Gb SSDs in RAID0 striped for games seeing 1Gb/Sec R/Ws + https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-1151-STRIX-Z270F-GAMING/dp/B01MY0S0KV/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1492526759&sr=8-3&keywords=asus%2Bstrix%2Bgaming%2Bmotherboard&th=1 huh haven't come across the strix. Might have to go with that one! ok cool.. thinking I'll do SSD for windows. and probably a HHD for storage just to save some $$ for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mando Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 2 hours ago, HTF said: huh haven't come across the strix. Might have to go with that one! ok cool.. thinking I'll do SSD for windows. and probably a HHD for storage just to save some $$ for now. there are various Strix s270s H suited me with a better soundcard than some of the others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HTF Posted April 22, 2017 Author Share Posted April 22, 2017 On 4/18/2017 at 1:47 PM, Mando said: there are various Strix s270s H suited me with a better soundcard than some of the others. Thanks, i went with a strix board. On 4/18/2017 at 10:42 AM, Mando said: i bought a s270 Strix Gaming H instead of the hero, cheaper and with the same spec tbh. a platter drive will die before any SSD. Ive got 4x SSDs 2x123gb in RAID0 striped for Win and 2x256Gb SSDs in RAID0 striped for games seeing 1Gb/Sec R/Ws + https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-1151-STRIX-Z270F-GAMING/dp/B01MY0S0KV/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1492526759&sr=8-3&keywords=asus%2Bstrix%2Bgaming%2Bmotherboard&th=1 just curious, for your SSDs do you have SATA or M.2? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevTech Posted April 23, 2017 Share Posted April 23, 2017 On 4/18/2017 at 10:38 AM, HTF said: Is it recommended to have a HDD in addition to SSD for storage or backup? Or are SSD reliable enough to have on its own? I feel like i read somewhere that SSD fail after time? All drives fail. SSDs and HDs fail differently and sometimes that needs to be considered. All SSDs have a built-in guaranteed failure date when the last spare cell hits the write limit. HDs have no such "hard wall" but of course fail due to all the things that make electronics fail combined with bearings, motors, actuators and bouncing on the platters. Although backups should make this a non-consideration, there is something creepy about the complete lack of warning with a SSD failure vs the reasonable chance that a HD will moan and groan a bit before giving up the ghost for good. The statistical lifetime between SSD's and HDs are always a hot debate since there is almost no real world statistical information to base any conclusions on. Backblaze is the only large user of HDs that provides failure information for drives based on exact brand and model number and of course any reliability conclusions are scientifically only valid for the exact model used although there is in fact a generally clear trend in better reliability for Hitachi drives in general. SSD lifetimes calculations are always suspicious and are much more sensitive to the statistical percentage of WRITES used in the calculation. Any SSD which is PRIMARILY used for WRITING should be provisioned carefully. Some examples are Video Editing, Graphics Editing and Software Development for which the SSD is being used as a dedicated "scratch drive" for performance enhancement. It is crazy NOT to use a SSD for such a task, but the risks should be managed by avoiding TLC Flash and OVER-PROVISIONING the SSD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted April 23, 2017 Moderator Share Posted April 23, 2017 24 minutes ago, DevTech said: All drives fail. SSDs and HDs fail differently and sometimes that needs to be considered. <snip> Don't start with the first SSD's, the OCZ ones... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted April 25, 2017 Veteran Share Posted April 25, 2017 The only real benefit to the hero is bios flashback, to bring the motherboard back to life from a corrupted bios install. Otherwise specs are the same, just about. I have the Maximus formula with plans on eventually getting the ekwb stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason S. Global Moderator Posted April 25, 2017 Global Moderator Share Posted April 25, 2017 always just compare the features and decide whether or not you really need them. do you need to spend more for these features or can you live w/o them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkiri Posted April 25, 2017 Share Posted April 25, 2017 One thing that might help is if you are a Dawn of War fan as they are doing a deal with a copy of the new game coming out this week. I recently upgraded and thought a nice touch on a game I would have bought so that might help make the decision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason S. Global Moderator Posted April 25, 2017 Global Moderator Share Posted April 25, 2017 1 hour ago, Arkiri said: One thing that might help is if you are a Dawn of War fan as they are doing a deal with a copy of the new game coming out this week. I recently upgraded and thought a nice touch on a game I would have bought so that might help make the decision. so youre saying you got a free copy of the game when you upgraded your motherboard? what motherboard? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkiri Posted April 25, 2017 Share Posted April 25, 2017 Sorry I got the Maximus IX hero and really like it. The offer in question is for a variety of ASUS cards and motherboards. Link below. https://www.asus.com/event/2017/rog/dow3/usa/ Hope it helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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