Help picking new benching parts.

Ship I have been wanting to get some be great for awhile now and I'm looking for some opinions as I cannot make up my own mind.

So I think I got it weedled down to a z170 platform at this point. I originally considered a 4790k as a drop in for my 4690k but I have decided against this for various reasons. I have also considered going with a used x99 setup but for a slightly lower price I can get a new 6700k and mobo. A x99 setup would be a plus for my 3d scores but I think the 6700k would be a better all around setup.

So now that I'm pretty sure I want to go with a 6700k I need to pick a mobo. My first instict was to go with and moc formula but I like to compete in the OC esports competitions and a lot are either gigabyte or asus driven. I love my z97 soc force but getting my hands on a z170 version is not gonna happen right now. This Ltd me to, looking at an Asus mobo. I am not willing to pony up the dough for a formula or extreme board so was looking at a gene or hero alpha board instead. So I guess this comes down to will the hero alpha offer me any real advantage over the Gene in a pure benching setup. Also will I regret going with either of these boards over the asrock board.



To add another wrinkle to this Hwbot just announced the wildcard competition for the world series. For the cost of the 6700k I can get a 6320 and a rx460 to compete in this competition. I keep telling myself that this is not a good idea and I should go with the 6700k instead but I keep getting drawn back into trying to compete in this competition.


So if you made it through my rambling let me know what you think as I have been chasing myself in circles for a few days.

If you want a benching system that is relevant for a much longer time, Go with the 6700k.
As for a mobo, I think you should go with the AsRock mobo, Even though it doesnt REALLY matter anymore as long as you get a good mobo the differences will be very small.

I'm going to move this to the benching section where you can get benching applicable responses.

Thanks Ed,

I was debating where this one should go.

M@rk,

I agree with you on the 6700k, that i3 competition is just tempting though. As for the mobo, I agree that for general use either board would be fine. When taking the system cold though I don't know how the Asus system is gonna compare. I am also not familiar enough with the Asus bios to know if I am gonna be missing a feature or voltage control that I am going to regret not having. Like I remember some of the z97 boards had voltage caps that could hold you back when going cold.

well I just bought a ROG MAXIMUS VIII HERO and didn't have it that long maybe 1week and the board started to have issues
everything was working great ,until one morning I got up and it wouldn't boot ,LED Code 55 - Memory not installed
so I took out the ram and reset it like someone suggested for me to do muti times
I tried all the ram slots and only that last slot farthest from the CPU worked , so I took out one stick of ram out
and put in the other stick to make sure both stick work and it booted right up

so I rinsed and repeated with the same stick of ram boot up again ,so I tried to put both sticks in
wouldn't boot up, tried the next slot no boot and so on

I'm not saying don't get this board , I'm letting you know what happened to me ,I was unlucky ,but when
the board was working , I was happy then a pig in Crap , looked nice ,after looking at the reviews a lot of people
having issues , but then again , I see a lot of people here that have that board that don't have np with it , so I like I said
I was one of the unlucky ones lol

oh and I did get another Code with all this it was a 99 - Super IO Initialization what ever that is lol

just my 2cents

Thanks for the heads up Roger.

Did you have the Hero or the newer Hero Alpha?

Lochekey said:

Thanks for the heads up Roger.

Did you have the Hero or the newer Hero Alpha?

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mine was the hero

Did you ever try flashing the BIOS rOGER? tHE asus has the flashback port. Or is it gone for RMA. You're not the first I have seen having issue with the HERO which makes me wonder why. I've had mine for over a year and pushed it many times with LN2 and still good to go.

One thing I do know lockwkey is that the Asrock will give you better memory and FSB performance than the ASUS board

Johan45 said:

Did you ever try flashing the BIOS rOGER? tHE asus has the flashback port. Or is it gone for RMA. You're not the first I have seen having issue with the HERO which makes me wonder why. I've had mine for over a year and pushed it many times with LN2 and still good to go.

One thing I do know lockwkey is that the Asrock will give you better memory and FSB performance than the ASUS board

Click to expand...

I never flash the bios and I did a refund RMA I got the EVGA Z170 Classified K board
,thats why I said I have seen a lot of people here with that board that don't have an issues with it , I was the unlucky one
I wasn't bashing it lol

Now I mean this in the nicest way possible, but for a group of normally very opinionated guys no one seems t have much of an opinion

So at this point I am leaning towards the Asus Gene mainly so I can compete in the asus competitions. No one has come out and said that this board is a bad choice yet so if you are thinking that speak up.

Johan, I realize that at the end of the day I may be giving up a little on the top end of the memory but is it going to play that big of a role. I have no experience with DDR4 at this point so I do not know how much effect the extra little memory speed is going to really play.

I also kinda figured someone would chime in about the the I3 option but Im not really leaning that way at this point.

Well I guess we will see what kind of can of worms this opens.

I kind of think its a personal choice I have to say. Within your budget, pick something at hwbot and get the hardware to pound on it. Or, look at what the team needs or can improve in with your type of cooling methods and attack that way.

If you are looking to maybe pound old GPUs, get a 6700K, light it up, and snag a bunch of old GPUs. We have a thread around here that shows what was benched and what needed benched somewhere (its old, but I doubt its much different). There are many many ways to pick.

Yea I know it is kind of an odd question I guess I was just looking for a sounding board, If I talk to my wife about this kinda stuff I get a blank stare of "I don't understand you" followed by the ever lovely "You are buying more stuff?".

I probably could have worded the original question better as well.


Anyways, I think I am going to go with the 6700k and the Asus Gene at this point but I am going to sleep on it and see what tomorrow brings. I plan to pull the trigger on this purchase tomorrow unless there is a sudden good sale on a different Mobo or someone advises against this board in the meantime.

Well I ended up ordering the Asus gene and 6700k for better or worse. I've been wanting an air cooler for awhile now so picked up a scythe fuma as well. Parts should be here this week sometime.

Nice, hope you get a screamer Lochekey

Lochekey said:

Well I ended up ordering the Asus gene and 6700k for better or worse. I've been wanting an air cooler for awhile now so picked up a scythe fuma as well. Parts should be here this week sometime.

Click to expand...

Have fun

Johan45 said:

Nice, hope you get a screamer Lochekey

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I hope so to.

good luck with that 6700k ... I hope you get something better than any of my skylakes ( all were about the same +/- 100MHz max )