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Any major downside to the ASUS Z97I-PLUS LGA1150 Mini ITX Mobo?

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dfonda

dfonda

Senior Golfer
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Joined
Feb 25, 2004
Location
N of splat W of Torin
I picked this board as it looked to be close to the top. I'll add a better CPU down the road. I can't find anything wrong with it. Seems to have everything I'll need Wifi, USB 3.0 and supports CPU's with video. I want options down the road to ramp it up.

Trying to cut electricity from an old i7920 that runs as a server 24/7 and is the main PC for the house. Not needed for gaming(For now). Just need the Mobo to start the build. Its going to be a tight build and my eyes are not so good, so going with Asus for the Panel Connector.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132122

Using it with these parts:
CPU: Pentium G3258 Dual Core

RAM: What ever DDR3 I have laying around.
PSU: Full size Corsair what ever I have laying around...750W or 850W
Case: HAF Stacker 915F (Mini itx)
GPU: Only if I need it...(GTX 750Ti)

Thanks for any advice. I often buy stuff and find out later there was a big problem.
 
I have been looking over every thing in the class...The Asrock had some tradeoffs.
and I am a Fan of Asrock as its my current Mobo along with an MSI.

I'll actually use these features of the Asus:
ASUS HomeCloud Server
ASUS Wi-Fi GO!
-Wi-Fi GO! Function: Cloud GO!, Remote Desktop, Remote Keyboard & Mouse, File Transfer
-Wi-Fi GO! Remote app for portable smartphone/tablet, supporting iOS 7 & Android 4.0 systems

 
ATMINSIDE said:
No, but I don't see getting to the front panel connectors being an issue in the 915F.
Click to expand...
I literally can't see those connectors anymore:p...and the kids away at college...;)

Sadly I think I am only picking Asus because of the Q connector. I actually prefer MSI's UEFI and OCing.
 
ATM are you using the M.2 connector? If you are what's it for? Speed? I only became aware of that connector when looking at Mobo's. It must be hella fast if its faster than a standard sata SSD.
 
Theocnoob said:
Not quite twice. 10Gbps vs 6Gbps.
Click to expand...
I thought ATM was referring to Read speeds...Which look to be twice as fast, not as much difference in writes.

I would be surprised if M.2 makes much difference in real world speeds. Boot times and game level loads etc. I wouldn't mind trying it out to find out, prices are not too bad at this point.
 
Last edited:
Exactly. Theoretical max vs realistic max are two different things.
Sequential read/write speeds are darn near 2x on M.2 vs SATA III.
 
ATMINSIDE said:
Exactly. Theoretical max vs realistic max are two different things.
Sequential read/write speeds are darn near 2x on M.2 vs SATA III.
Click to expand...

Sequential are up to 2x faster but really who cares about sequential when 90% daily operations are random. So far there are no SSD which on M.2 are so much faster than SATA3 SSD. Actually all are within' 10-15% difference in popular benchmarks.
Most SSD which are faster than SATA3 bandwidth ( so about 550MB/s ) are in some kind of "internal RAID" or use wider internal bus... no matter how you call it it's like sequential bandwidth is raising while random is not.

Probably soon Intel will release new SSD with higher random bandwidth but hard to say how much higher.

For me all these new mpcie or m.2 slots are total fail. They're on the market for over a year while most available drives are barely reaching SATA3 bandwidth ( most are on cheaper controllers etc ). What is worse, soon will be new slot and there is still SATA Express for which we haven't seen drives. We have slots which are useless for most users while manufacturers are telling us it's one of the main reasons why we should move to new motherboards.
 
I am digging my m.2

very snappy, boot times are better than on my 840 Pro , and that boots on basically no overhead as opposed to my Surfer
 
Woomack, most are barely hitting SATA III bandwidth because they're still using a SATA controller instead of a PCIe controller.
Drives that are using an actual PCIe controller are much faster than the ones that aren't.

Once these controllers get polished up, they're going to be even better.
 
I have 2 of the asrock z97e boards as well. For value they are hard to beat, and havent had any issues from either of them so far.
I think the asrock has 2 more power phases for cpu goods if I remember correctly as well
 
Pulled the trigger and went with the Asus...I think the Asrock would have done the job as well.

Thanks for the replies. :beer:

Mistakenly marked this thread featured...asked Mods to fix...:rain:
 
Last edited:
ATMINSIDE said:
Woomack, most are barely hitting SATA III bandwidth because they're still using a SATA controller instead of a PCIe controller.
Drives that are using an actual PCIe controller are much faster than the ones that aren't.

Once these controllers get polished up, they're going to be even better.
Click to expand...

All SATA drives are working on pcie bus. It's just matter of connection. SATA drives are being connected by 1-2 lanes of PCIe so even in larger RAID bandwidth is limited to ~1.2GB/s. PCIe drives are usually working on pcie x4 so have higher theoretical bandwidth ( still are not reaching it ). M.2 is generally the same as pcie just connected to more pcie lanes so bandwidth is higher.
Point is that regardless of interface, almost all SSD are using the same controllers so bus can have even pcie x16 speed but drive still won't make more than controller's bandwidth. Manufacturers are sometimes adding in SSD 2nd controller or additional internal lanes what causes to reach higher sequential bandwidth but we can see it mainly in new pcie drives or m.2 just because there is some point to make it. The same drives on SATA connectors would stuck at ~560MB/s.

There is simply no technology right now which is giving us 1GB+/s from a single SSD controller and every 1GB+ SSD is a "sandwich". For me it's really weird as not much has changed in last 3-4 years. Manufacturers are only improving reliability and additional features like hardware encryption.
 
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