Motherboard selection help

[Zyuxis]

Sorry if this is the wrong thread area, it seemed like the right one to me.

I am building a new system and have yet to buy the motherboard because of several options available to me. I have narrowed it down to 3 different ones and I would love some input.

If you need further details or direct links to these parts just ask.
Specs so far are
R4 black pearl case
h75 liquid cooling
850w gold PSU
GTX 770 SLI
4690k I5
1tb sata hard drive
8gb G.Skill ram

I would like to use either of these
asus z97-A: ASUS Z97-A LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

asus z-97-Pro: ASUS Z97-PRO LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

asus GRYPHON Z97: ASUS GRYPHON Z97 LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

I would love feedback on if the PRO would be worth the extra 40 over the 97-A or if I dont need the extra features and should take the GRYPHON.
Also if you have better recommendations I am open to those but I would like to keep it under 200 dollars.

 

[Dauntae]

I went through the same issue with the Z87 when I got it, the extra options are tempting and I ended up going for the Z87 plus on sale for almost the same price as the Z87-A one question you need to ask is what you plan to use it for, see what the differences are and decide if there options you'll actually use, A friend of mine built the same system as I did but he went with the Asus compatition series (the black and red boards, I forgot what there called) well anyhow he spent a LOT more than I did and he doesn't even use any of the extra option I don't have other than to play with a few of them to see what they do but that novelty wears off. If you don't have any real need for the extra options then I'd go for the Z97-A

Dauntae

 

[Joe C]

Not sure but I think the black and red Asus boards are called ROG (Republic Of Gamers)

 

[PP Mguire]

ASRock Z97 Extreme4 LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

Better M.2 slot you'll want later.

Also, get the H80i instead of the 75.

You'd be better off waiting for the 970 in a week or so unless you're buying those 770s at $275 a piece.

 

[Zyuxis]

Thanks for the help and input. Unfortunately I already purchased all of the stated hardware a week ago, though I have no regrets. (I know what people always say, don't buy as you go but I didn't think I would get hung up on the Mobo like I have been), this was just the last piece of the puzzle for me. I know a pretty decent amount about hardware but I am no expert, what would the M.2 directly effect? Is that a hard drive based thing?

 

[Dauntae]

The M.2 slot is a dedicated SSD slot but you need the M.2 SSD to fit into it. Makes it much easier and neater since there are no wires needed to be plugged in.

Dauntae

 

[Joe C]

M.2 by-passes sata restrictions so theoretically is supposed to be faster for the SSD's speed

 

[PP Mguire]

My 100% personal belief is M.2 will take over as the high performance standard for OS/fast storage. SATA Express has an extremely bulky cable and doesn't bring that much in terms of performance of SATA3 whereas M.2 can run SATA and PCI-E controllers. Right now ASRock is the only board manufacturer offering a PCI-E 3.0 4x slot which is twice the bandwidth of the other boards. That's roughly 4GB/s each way. As M.2 technology matures you'll start seeing PCI-E based M.2 drives shoot towards this mark. The biggest deal with this being not so much raw bandwidth, but IOPS. SATA3 and current PCI-E solutions have been capped at around 80k SATA and 100k PCI-E but these numbers are sure to start rising soon.

 

[Zyuxis]

Thanks again for the explanation, I am persuaded, hehe. Will most certainly come back to this forum in the future for similar questions, have a good one everybody.

 

[PP Mguire]

I'll be here for future posts lol. That means, buy more stuff