One thing AMD does have going for it, they hold onto the same cpu socket for much longer than intel does, this makes worthwhile upgrades further down the line more viable. Intel changes the socket every couple of years, essentially making cpu upgrades rarely worth it unless you get lucky. However, I’d still go for the intel route and give away the old system as a hand me down in a few years, or add it as a render node.
Best for Maya: AMD or Intel cpu?
jttraverse
#22
Since I’ll likely go with the Intel 4770K, I’ll have to bite the bullet and buy the most practical motherboard to use for the next 2-3 years. I’ve been comparing all the Asus boards and, all things considered, I wonder if the Z87-A isn’t still about as useful as most of the later ones. I wouldn’t have minded having on-board wifi, but could live without it, so other than that does anyone know of a reason the Z87-A wouldn’t be fine relative to some of the later or other versions?
I have used just about all other brands of mobo’s successfully over the years. I simply saw a few complaints about some recent popular ones for the 4770k, so I went back to Asus. Still, I’ll be glad to hear any thoughts on other manufacturers boards that would do well with the Intel cpu.
Thanks,
JT
ThE_JacO
#23
I’ve had the Z87-PRO, which is more or less the same as the A with a couple better components and added bluetooth and wifi, and was pretty happy with it.
It died on me four days before the warranty expired (first asus mobo ever to die on me), but I don’t think less of the model or brand for it.
The Asus Z87’s latest revision with the fixed chipset is a very solid mobo.
I replaced it with a GB UDH3 because I couldn’t wait for the return, and while it’s not a bad mobo, it’s nowhere as good as the Asus, and on top of that, in an attempt to fix some issues native to the old Intel parts (which are gone now, but they didn’t re-engineer the board to fix) it has quite a few annoying issues coming with the USB ports.
Not a bad mobo, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it over the Asus.
I built a system with an MSI for a friend, and while that sits between the two, I would still pick the Asus over it by a long shot.
So all in all, yeah, it’s by a good mile one of the better Z87 mobos, it’s well designed and easy to use with no hidden gotchas, and unless you do want the added bells and whistles it’s perfectly fine to go with the base model instead of the Pro or the ROG stuff.