Should I Trade Motherboards?

[noname2020x]

I am building my brother a PC and after ordering all of the parts (and getting a sick deal on his mobo) it dawned on me that... well.... I want his mobo. It's no giant leap forward or anything, but TBH I have had a little trouble OCing my i7 with mine and was hoping to get a new mobo soon anyway. The thing is, I don't think he will notice any difference whatsoever(he will be using his computer for general multitasking. He will not be using it for OCing or Gaming), but I will. Obviously I am going to ask him if he'd be cool with switching and if he's not that totally fine.


My Mobo: AsRock Extreme3 Gen3

His Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H

My questions are:

1. Will I have to flash my current mobo for it to work with the Ivy 3570k? If so, is it worth the risk?

2. Do you think I will notice a difference in overclocking capability and/or general performance?

3. Will there be any downside for my brother that I am overlooking besides fewer USB 3.0 ports?

4. If I switch mobos, is it just plug and play? By that I mean, do I have to do something other than switching, making sure the SATA ports correspond to the correct drives, and mounting all of the other components? (I've never switched Mobos )

Thanks!!!

 

[EarthDog]

Both are low end.. perhaps the UD3H is better? Check how many power phases on it.. though note, some are not even cooled = bad for overclocking.

1. Maybe. Check ASrock site for which bios brings IB compatibility and verify that against the current bios.
2. Nope.
3. Nope.
4. You will likely have to install the latest chipset/nic/usb3 drivers.

 

[Eldonko]

Not worth the hassle in my opinion.

 

[Tech Tweaker]

I wouldn't make the trade personally.

The ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 you have now looks like it's beefier than the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H.

Looking at the GA-Z77X-UD3H it appears it only has a heatsink on half of the mosfets/VRM's, and the heatsink it does have looks a little on the small side.

Unless the GA-Z77X-UD3H has some feature you can't live without I personally wouldn't make the trade.

If you were to switch boards, you'd probably have to back up your files to a secondary or external HDD and then perform a fresh reinstall of your OS. Else you may run into driver issues and instabilities. That's how I normally do my board swaps.

 

[noname2020x]

It's settled then. No switch.

Thanks for the in quick, concise, and in depth feedback all!