Newmu wrote:Wow man, thanks so much for the Microcenter information. They've got great deals and there's one about a 15 minute drive away. How's the ASRock Pete? What kind of OC did you get? I'm a little more hesitant to go with a smaller brand on mobo's but maybe that's just bias. The Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H is looking pretty good at $115 with the i5-3750k and the 3750k is $50 cheaper than Newegg anyways. With the money this is saving, I can try to squeeze in a 7850 maybe...
I actually just picked it up this past weekend. I won't have time to assemble it until June 1st (its killing me to see it sitting on the table) plus I'm waiting on a couple other components to arrive. I will check back and comment at that time if you haven't purchased yet and let you know what I find.
I will offer this bit of information. I've been following ASRock motherboards since the Sandy-Bridge launch. I read TR, Anandtech, Tomshardware, Fudzilla, etc, etc, multiple times a day so you could say that this purchase was very well pre-meditated. I will admit that I really wanted the ASRock Z77 Extreme4-m instead, but microcenter doesn't carry that. (and I have little hope that they will in the near future, but that's another reason why I'm waiting to build until June 1st...possible exchange if they get it in)
From my research, ASRock delivers the best price/performance in the market. Their UEFI is right up there with Asus and MSI. Fan controls are good, but not quite as good as Asus. Asus' included software seems to be the biggest difference between them and ASRock, but I have a hard time justifying a $50 - $80+ premium for just that. (everything else being roughly equal)
Main: i5-3570K, ASRock Z77 Pro4-M, MSI RX480 8G, 500GB Crucial BX100, 2 TB Samsung EcoGreen F4, 16GB 1600MHz G.Skill @1.25V, EVGA 550-G2, Silverstone PS07B
HTPC: A8-5600K, MSI FM2-A75IA-E53, 4TB Seagate SSHD, 8GB 1866MHz G.Skill, Crosley D-25 Case Mod