ASUS-P8Z77-M mATX board

[Bryce]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131832

I was thinking of getting this board because it was in my price range and I'm kinda sick of my freaking ASRock board. And I was giving my ASRock board to my brother with my i5-2500k so he can have an upgraded computer for games and what not.

I'm also getting it for the Bitfenix Prodigy M case. Just wondering if the board was any good or what not or if I could find a better one for cheaper maybe, lol.

Can't do a full blown upgrade so a new board/case will have to do now, which is fine since my computer is somewhat still relevant I think. I will be turning my current case and the old board/cpu my brother has into a storage server so that takes care of all the HDDs I have currently. C2D E8400 should be more than enough for a simple storage server.

[Deleted]

Which CPU do you have or plan on getting?

[Bryce]

I have an i7-3770k, which is fine right now, awesome chip. I'm just looking for a decent board to put in a Prodigy M case. Would go mITX, but can't find a board that has a good layout to it that the 770 won't cover up.

[Biernot]

I have an i7-3770k, which is fine right now, awesome chip. I'm just looking for a decent board to put in a Prodigy M case. Would go mITX, but can't find a board that has a good layout to it that the 770 won't cover up.

The graphics card is not the problem with mini itx boards. It reaches beyond the border of the board, so you don't need to worry about that. You only need to be careful with big cpu heatsinks.
Prodigy (mini itx) with GTX 680: http://www.avadirect.com/forum/uploads/28/387965_3.jpg (works with all mini itx boards, as the layout of the pcie slot is the same)
Picture without a graphics card installed: http://www.hardwareoverclock.com/Cas...ni_ITX-017.jpg

[Bryce]

I meant the boards I've seen are 8pin instead of 4pin and are right up against the graphics card and shit. That's what I'm worried about. And there seems to be no good board makers in the $100 or less range besides eww ASRock, had enough of them.

[Deleted]

Only other one I'd consider in the lower around the same price is this:

MSI Z77MA-G45 slightly cheaper than the Asus.

[Bryce]

I've seen that board isn't as good for overclocking though, and I've never used MSI before.

[Deleted]

I've seen that board isn't as good for overclocking though, and I've never used MSI before.

Where have you seen this?

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/2672...-msi-z77ma-g45

[Bryce]

What about any decent mITX boards?

[Biernot]

http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/mother...#f=8&s=14&c=52

The best is probably the Asus one, but it's kinda expensive: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-mo...d-p8z77ideluxe
The cheapest of them are MSI and Gigabyte, but if you have a bigger air cooler, you might get into trouble (the socket is kinda close to the pcie slot)

[Bryce]

I'm going to have to find out if my power supply will even fit the mITX version of the Prodigy. It is modular and I've heard they have some space issues with the plugs and all.

[Deleted]

The one Biernot linked is probably the best best choice for itx.