Hello,

I'm building my 1st PC, trying at least. I've only been able to pick the following products so far:

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: ASUS Z77 Sabertooth

Regarding the Sabertooth motherboard, can someone who owns the board tell me how loud the little fans are when they are on normal setting?? My desktop will be under my desk.

You are just asking for trouble. I am highly confident that this board has not been optimized for silence or ease of replacement and repair.

I recommend you consider buying a motherboard without the y chromosome black bling.If you need good motherboard cooling, you are better off with a dual fan downdraft heat sink like the Noctua NH-C14. It will cool you board and the CPU, and one fan breaks, the other will still carry on and prevent any melt downs.

See:
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.c ... 562&page=5

Which motherboard would you recommend then?

What information makes you confident that the Sabertooth has not been optimized for silence?

It is marketed to overclockers who like the macho bling. The same people to whom fast memory with heat sinks and heat sink memory fans are marketed to. This market segment values many things... but not silence... so it would be foolish to make any design tradeoffs in that direction.

What uses do you intend to put it to? What features do you expect to need? What types of performance attributes are most important to you... efficiency, rapid boot, easy over clocking, or ?????

I've only choosing between Asus models. I don't need Deluxe because I don't use most of the features so Pro is the only alternative for me. Easy overclocking I could care less about. I do want the motherboard to have that option though. I care about quality first and foremost.

The P8z77-V http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_ ... 55/P8Z77V/ brings fan expert II and all the goodies incorporated into Z77 without the "y-gene" additions.

As far as i have seen it is on par with the Sabertooth regarding chipset functionality.

Don't forget there's capable compact options in the market. For the price of the P8Z77-V, you can get an Asus Maximus V Gene. To save some 30 % on that, get the P8Z77-M Pro - the tradeoff there is you lose Fan Xpert 2, but Fan Xpert+ is quite capable, especially for a First DIY System.

The Gene is mATX and offers all the features you could ask for (USB3.0, PCIe 3.0, SATA 6 Gbps, Fan Xpert 2) and more (even does SLI and overclocking). No annoying little fans yet powerful cooling and that macho colour scheme, thanks to being geared towards gamers. TechPowerUp's review finds the power consumption figures good, although I don't know what to think of their method as I didn't go in-depth.

I am personally a fan of compact boards, as they allow for easier installation and compact systems. If you don't need a lot of expansion slots or some other feature of a bigger board, why waste all that space?

This looks to me to be a much better choice than the ASUS Z77 Sabertooth. What does the Sabertooth have that this board does not? And what is the difference in price?

I got curious and researched the question, and while I was replying, Firefox crashed once again due to Flash.

I'll just summarise the findings: Sabretooth has more connectors if you want to build a GPU or SATA drive or USB device or fan farm. Gene has better memory speed support according to spec, better sound, a CMOS Clear button in the rear and a smaller footprint (while still having a good number of connectors - on par with any standard ATX board even). Both, funnily enough, feature things like UEFI, an identical number of SATA3.0 and USB3.0 ports and Intel NICs.

For me the price difference is 185 Gene to 216 Sabertooth. 16% extra on an already expensive board, for a few connectors more.

I don't know how the Sabertooth's TUF Thermal Radar compares to Fan Xpert 2. It looks identical, but of course the functionality may differ (e.g. lower/higher starting % limit).