Z97 Stinger

[J-O_S-H]

The EVGA Z97 Stinger Core3D was recently released, anyone know anything about it, have searched google and information/reviews are pretty non existant.

Was looking at getting the Gigabyte Z97N-Gaming 5, but was wondering if this was worth looking at.

 

[Theocnoob]

The EVGA board has 2 more PWM phases than the Gigabyte board does. I couldn't find the Core3D version of the EVGA board but I did find the normal version. The Gigabyte board appears to have better audio capacitors than the vanilla EVGA.

My guess is that the Core3D version adds Creative's sound core chip to the board in place of Realtek or whatever they were using.

 

[Woomack]

There are no special differences between these audio chips. More important are caps or even software. Even realtek has quite good specification. The same as many users are complaining at the killer LAN in Z97 boards. At least Stinger has Intel chip.
Manufacturers just need something to convince buyers to their brand but they have no big choice. For me Z87 boards were generally better prepared even though they're missing M.2 or "better" LAN.

In case of EVGA I would read a lot about a board before I decide to buy one. Most of their boards have many BIOS issues and some problems are never being fixed. Great looks of their boards almost never go with good experience during work.

 

[J-O_S-H]

Guess i'll give it a miss, too many unknowns.

Also, seems their z87 version was very basic for the cost.

Many Thanks.

 

[Woomack]

ASUS should release Z97 Impact soon if you really wish good ITX board. I doubt it will be cheap but Z87 was great.

 

[J-O_S-H]

Yeah I saw, it looks awesome, but i'm a bit impatient.

 

[Woomack]

Hard to say when it will be released as I saw previews over 2 months ago and still it's not available. Couple of days ago ASUS released MVII Formula so there is a chance that Impact will be soon.