Hey guys well read this months Custom PC which to be honest I have always coveted as the holy grail for my new builds! This is the first time I have really disagreed lol and it is tripping my OCD tendancy to listen to their build specs! They are recommending the Asus Gene V Z77 board as the best of the Z77 boards! Whilst it may be an efficient and fast board to me it seems like lunacy as it only has 2 PCI-e slots! If you fire in a graphics card which you will and a sound card (which is pretty standard) there is no more expansion room....I can't put a good wi-fi card in and if I want SLI (which is highly likely on a top end gaming PC) I will loose the soundcard. i just do not get why they include this in the best builds???? I wish they had reviewed the Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe board as that seems to have everything I want on it!!! Anyone know how the 2 boards compare!
I agree with this to a point - in terms of performance for the money (with 1 graphics card) I guess it can't really be beaten but I wouldn't buy it. For my next upgrade (about this time next year in all honesty) I'll be looking for an ATX board with more room for expansion.
You are joking right? The Gene is an absolute beast in terms of features and overclocking ability. Sure the mATX is limited in form factor but what mATX isn't (unless you are suggesting that all mATX boards shouldn't be included in the list).
The Gene (reviewed here) has 3 PCIe slots. 2 16x slots for your graphics cards and a x1 slot that wil be more than adequate for a sound card, network card etc. Although your point still stands that you wont be able to SLI/Xfire graphics cards and have room to use the 3rd slot (unless you are using single slot WC cards) and a sound card. You can however have 1 graphics card in the top slot and then a network card/sound card/wifi card combo in the bottom 2. None of the builds in the recent guide used more than 1 GPU, so the system that they were recommending was perfectly fine and a good choice. The Gene is a very good board with some premium features that dont make it down to its price point in full ATX sized z77 boards at the moment. Obviously if you are planning to SLI now or in the future its always a good idea to get a larger board and a big case to put it all in as any mATX board will be a little cramped with multiple GPU's in.
Most people use Wifi dongles or homeplug. CPC and Bit Tech, never recommend you use SLI due to extra heat, extra power use, incompatibility with games, and issues with Microstutter. Not everyone uses a discrete soundcard, and the Gene Z has an X-Fi software layer and an isolated realtek soundcard which maybe enough for most. The Gene Z offers many ROG features at a reasonable price, and is an all round great board, hence the regular recommendation.
Exactly - if you want ROG features (and looks) but also want more expansion slots you're going to have to pay a lot more for it
Of course it is a good board! I agree with that. If you are running resolutions at 1600p and you want full spec then SLI is essential. The GTX 680 can just about put out framerates over 30fps at full spec at 1600p on some games but some others cripple it. For a system that will be able to run upcomming releases such as Farcry 3 and the new Tomb Raider game I can imagine that SLI will be the only way to get full spec. So immediately if you want top gaming performance the Gene board is out due to simply expansion which is a crying shame as to be honest i would love that board! The sound card is absolutely essential to get high quality sound... To be honest Wi-fi is absolutely essential as well and usb wifi dongles (for me) just don't cut it the same as a dual band wi-fi card will. Again for me the PCI-e x4 slot would not fit the majority of sound cards especially the higher end ones! mATX of course should be on a list if you are looking for a stripped down system. but in my opinion it should not be on the High end extreme PC build. It is very limited and I thought the point of the high end build was to use the best components out there!
Fair points, but if you're running 1600p then you'll have enough money for a full ATX ROG board - the most popular resolution is still 1920x1080 (~25% of people according to the latest steam HW survey) and for that 1 GTX680 will monster anything currently available (and lots of things for some time to come). So for a lot of people (most people) this board would be easily sufficient
Errr if you can afford SLI 680's between now and 18 months time then you should be watercooling anyway. Problem solved. Either that or spending a lot more money on a board. Also, there are loads of high end PCIe soundcards, and it won't be long before every soundcard is PCIe. Basically, if you want ROG features at under £150 then the Gene is the way to go. If you want SLI AND Rog features, you'll have to add another £100 to your budget (+another £400 for another 680).
How does the full ROG board compare to the P8Z77-V Deluxe just out of interest? To be honest for the sake of a few hundred quid it doesn't really matter and I would rather tailor my build to exactly what i want rather than scrimping over money. In regard to water cooling...it would be fun but I have no experience in it and I just don't want water in my PC!! i won't be using any massive overclocks so I don't really see the point!
WiFi card? That's what the mPCIe combo card is for! http://rog.asus.com/89162012/maximu...w-to-use-the-maximus-v-gene-mpcie-combo-card/ We'll announce our ATX ROG boards at Computex on 5th June. Baz will be there to report!
Bindi why is the PCIe x4 slot at the bottom of the board? If it was at the top and you moved the two 16x slots down you could fit a sound card and two graphics cards.
I agree that the mATX board is limiting. I'm even running into issues with my HTPC with an mATX board. These issues could be worked around but I'd rather keep my hardware on the inside of my case. Also, not everything comes in a USB variant. Would be good if there was a second ATX option for those builds where mATX is first choice.
WATERCOOL The x4 is for the Thunderbolt card... Not telling But irrespective, please stack up the innovative features
