Questions about Motherboard Upgrade

[coop5796]

Hello,

I am having issues with my Gigabyte Z170X-Ultra Gaming board. I am trying to decide if its worth it to upgrade to z270 motherboard? I thought I would ask if you guys had any recommendations. I believe the z270 is the highest I can go with my current 6600k processor I may potentially overclock about 10%. I am trying to find a board with a beefy that can support my Patriot Ram at 3400mhz. I will be running 32gb of ram(8gb dims). I will be reusing a 6600k Processor and Patriot Viper 3400 Ram(PV416G340C6K). I thought I may should ask this on this thread as I had previously ask about my memory on this thread, but kept having board issues. I suppose I could also consider a z170 motherboard, but I was never able to get my ram to clock at full speed.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/788962-Patriot-Viper-3400-C16-Ram-at-full-3400mhz

Any suggestions would be helpful. I am not sure what brand of boards to consider. In the past I have been an Asus Fan and i notice they have the Asus Tuff Series which carries a 5 year warranty. I am also considering MSI as I see alot of positive reviews on MSI Boards. I am not really sure about Gigabyte. Thanks for all your help I am enjoying all the information on this forum.

 

[trents]

According to Gigabyte your current motherboard is capable of running 3400 mhz RAM. But the question is, will it support that much RAM at that high frequency? 32 gb is a lot and it's going to put more strain on the IMC. Did you try giving the system agent a voltage boost? And are you running two sticks or four sticks? What computing tasks are you doing that you need that much RAM? It's not going to help except in tasks like video editing. But 32 gb of RAM would not help in gaming and the 6600k is generally considered a gaming CPU as opposed to a work station CPU.

 

[coop5796]

I am having trouble with the board right now posting. Even with default settings. I spoke to Gigabyte and they approved an RMA. I previously did try up the system agent a voltage increase and also set the voltage of the ram to 1.4 volts. I also followed the instructions on the previous post http://www.overclockers.com/forums/s...t-full-3400mhz. I just wasn't sure if the Z270 may have some improvements. I do some video editing...mainly putting movies I own on Plex. I do game some, but would consider myself a causal gamer. I have 4x 8GB sticks. You think I would see a performance increase if i was to just use 16GB at the 3400mhz speeds(This assuming I get my board replaced) Thanks for your help on this. I really appreciate it.

Coop

 

[trents]

You are welcome, Coop.

I cannot say one way or the other that moving up to a Z270 motherboard will help with the memory issue. Skylakes will run in Z270 boards but the Z270 chipset was targeted for the Kabylake series.

Is the board being RMA'd still under warranty? If not, I would lean toward buying a Z270 board as that would allow you to also move up to Kaby Lake at some point. Personally, I have never liked MSI motherboards but that's mostly based on negative experiences with MSI on the AMD platform. Everybody says MSI is fine with Intel CPUs. Personally, I use a lot of ASRock boards. It's my go to brand and often has the best price point.

 

[coop5796]

Hello,
I really like your quote by the way. The board RMA is under warranty I just pay the shipping to Gigabyte. I have used an ASRock in Media Center which has been going strong for 5+ years. This was my first Gigabyte board so I am not sure if I just got unlucky as its only about 13 months old. Any opinions on Asus?

 

[trents]

Asus generally makes very good hardware and it is often just a little more robust in the same product niche than those made by other manufacturers - but also typically a little more expensive. The thing I don't like about Asus is it seems to me their customer support is very poor. None of the motherboard manufacturers have reputations for good customer support but IMO Asus is the worst. Really though, with the Intel platform the general consensus is that all the major manufacturer's boards are up to the task.

 

[Johan45]

If you need a board to tide you over you can ask Gigabyte about cross shipping for the RMA where they send you a board before you ship yours back but they do charge your CC. I really don't see a need for you to buy a second board.

 

[wingman99]

When you receive the RMA back the motherboard should not be the problem for overclocking to 3400 speed. Your gigabyte Z170X-Ultra-Gaming is rated for 3800 speed and my Gigabyte Z170 HD3 is rated for 3466. With using XMP for setting my memory voltages, also XMP sets the secondary timings, HWiNFO shows the Auto Vccsa set to 1.236v. I overclocked my memory to 3466 16-18-38 without any problem and they pass memtest86.