Advice choosing a motherboard for new rig

[StrangeCharm]

Hi folks,

I am looking to put together a new desktop before the end of the year and would be grateful for some advice on what motherboard to get. Basically I want something that's going to be fairly future resistant that will cope if I want to upgrade and at the same time doesn't break the bank. Right now I am thinking about getting an i5-6600 cpu, Nividia 1070 for the GPU and 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. For storage, I would like to have both an SSD and HDD.

My perspective board right now is this one: MSI Z170A SLI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard selling at around £114 and it would be great to hear what you guys think about it. Is it over/under-kill? Is it on the expensive or cheap side of things? How do you expect it to cope in a few years?

Thanks in advance guys and sorry for being such a scrub.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What games do you intend to run and what are the specs of your current PC?? What resolution do you want to run games at??

Also,if you want a long lasting rig,invest in a Core i7 not a Core i5 - games like BF1 for example seem to run smoother online with a Core i7 for example and there is a move towards games threading better.

Plus if you are not overclocking a B150 based motherboard will be fine.

[EndlessWaves]

Which components are you likely to upgrade?

[StrangeCharm]

What games do you intend to run and what are the specs of your current PC?? What resolution do you want to run games at??

Also,if you want a long lasting rig,invest in a Core i7 not a Core i5 - games like BF1 for example seem to run smoother online with a Core i7 for example and there is a move towards games threading better.

Plus if you are not overclocking a B150 based motherboard will be fine.

I play a bit of everything including some more demanding AAA. Right now I would like to play titanfall 2 and no mans sky but my current laptop cant handle it so well. I think for me 1080p would be probably fine resolution.

My current setup is MSI gaming laptop from about 3 years ago: intel i7, 8 gb DDR3 RAM, Nividia gtx 765m.

Really? Its interesting you say that. From what I understood you see more performance improvement by improving the GPU rather than the CPU once you are around the i5 level. As I am only looking to spend around £1100 I thought it made sense to go for the more expensive GPU now and then upgrade the processor to an i7 or an overclocked i5-6600K at a later date. But interested to see what you think about that.

In terms of upgrades a few years down the line I'm open to whatever gives the most improvement for the least money.

Thanks for your help so far guys

[StrangeCharm]

What games do you intend to run and what are the specs of your current PC?? What resolution do you want to run games at??

Also,if you want a long lasting rig,invest in a Core i7 not a Core i5 - games like BF1 for example seem to run smoother online with a Core i7 for example and there is a move towards games threading better.

Plus if you are not overclocking a B150 based motherboard will be fine.

Ah OK lots to answer here.

Right now I would like to be able to run plenty of triple AAA games especially star citizen when/if it comes out (also Rainbow 6, Titanfall 2, No mans sky etc you get the idea) ideally at 1920x1080 resolution I don't have/want a 4k monitor.

My current setup is an MSI gaming laptop from about 3 years ago: Intel i7-4700MQ, 8GB DDR3 RAM, Nividia GTX 765M.

So my understanding was that you get more bang for your buck by putting money into the graphics card once the processor is around the i5 level but maybe this is not the case? I am only looking to spend around £1100 so I thought it made sense to spend the money on the 1070 and maybe upgrade the processor to an overclocked i5-6600K or i7 in the next few years. Interested to see what you think about that I may well be talking nonsense.

In terms of upgrades I am open to the best solution obviously but I thought the processor as stated above or adding/replacing the graphics card with a 1080.

Thanks for your input so far.

[valseir24]

Motherboards are just about features... Tom's recently did a test where they put a H110 mobo against a H170 and there was basically no performance differential. Now if you want to overclock, I totally get it. Whether it's overkill or not really depends on that