G3258 Motherboard advice

Hi,

I'm looking at upgrading my very old media server and as I'm cheapish I've decided that the G3258 offers a lot of value once overclocked. The upgraded server will also be doing double duty as a modded minecraft server so I think the intel chip is a done choice.

My question is due about motherboards...

It seems that the Z boards officially support overclocking but its possible to use non-Z boards to overclock as well. My concern here though is that I will be looking at an i5 (or up) as an upgrade option in a year or so and if I was to go for a K series chip would those only work with a Z board.

For any board I do choose I will need at least 5 SATA ports with +7 SATA ports being preferable.

Thanks in advance...

Is it on cost grounds that you want a non Z series motherboard? Because you can get a pretty decent Z97 board for about £60...

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...lan-usb-30-atx

You won't save much by going to a different chipset.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrJim

Is it on cost grounds that you want a non Z series motherboard? Because you can get a pretty decent Z97 board for about £60...

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...lan-usb-30-atx

You won't save much by going to a different chipset.

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Agree with Jim. Unless you watch every £, the board above is absolutely fine plus it comes with 6 x SATA ports (more that 6x is rather rare). Can always add more by a add-on card.

EDIT: for comparison, the cheapest board with more than 6 x SATA ports costs 50% extra (8 x SATA ports, MSI Z87 MPOWER for £95).

ASRock H97 Pro4 or use throttlestop.

Overall cost is a concern. I have drives and a PSU and a couple of GPUs I can toy with. I also need a case that can handle 4 drives and an ssd and possibly a HD5850. I like the look of the Node 804 but its pricey.

That motherboard looks nice but I was hoping to go small this build...

Cooler Master Elite 120/130? Takes full ATX PSU, multiple drives and a fairly sized GPU as well. Too bad the 4 x drives cause CM Elite 110 would be amazing but can take 3 x 3.5" + 1 x 2.5" only...

Sorry for taking so long to get back its a hectic month with buying a house, scouts and overtime at work...

This is going to be an under the tv in the front room pc so noise is a concern apart from when I'm gaming ;)

The Elite cases look a little holey but price wise they are really good.

So I'm hoping to take advantage of the black friday sales and get a micro atx Z series (so I can at least consider getting an overclockable i5 or i7 in the future).

A mATX motherboard? That is considerably bigger.

Right now Z87/97 mATX motherboards go for £72+. An ITX Z97 goes for £88. Just a perspective. Especially if you really need a Z-class motherboard.

If you want an upgrade path to something like an unlocked i5, then I'd strongly recommend a Z87/Z97. As others have said, you can pick one up cheap, as well as an mATX or mITX. The extra cost is worth the ability to upgrade later on.