riviera74 wrote:I do agree that Asus is probably the best MoBo brand out there. I looked at the P8Z77M-Pro and I am impressed. What is your take on
this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productco ... 131-833-TSLooks like it does a few things different:
* has display port
* goes one step higher on memory speed support (DDR3 2600 instead of DDR3 2400)
* curiously, it puts 1 eSATA on a bracket instead of the main I/O cluster (p8p77zm pro puts 2 eSATA on the IO cluster)
* has Wi-Fi, which is potentially significant
* has more total USB 3.0 ports (4+4 compared to 4+2)
* has more SATA 6gb ports (4 compared to 2)
* has 2 PCI slots (p8z77m pro has none) and 1 more PCIe slot than the p8z77m pro.
* uses the Intel gig-e nic
The primary strikes against it are that it costs $25 more than your stated budget, it costs $55 more than the p8z77m pro, and it's a larger board so it won't go into smaller places.
IMO it's worth the extra $55 if you think you'll need the additional SATA 6GB, additional USB, and Wi-Fi. Speaking very practically, it's unlikely that more than 2 SATA 6GB ports will be necessary (you'd need more than 2 SSDs to take advantage of them), and it seems even more unlikely that more than 2 USB 3.0 ports will be necessary (how many USB hard drives will you be plugging in at the same time? More than 2?). So that leaves, in my opinion, the Wi-Fi and the form factor as the big differentiators between the two.