BIOSTAR TZ77A Intel Z77 ATX Motherboard + 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM $98 + Free Shipping @ Newegg

Great RAM - but BIOSTAR? ... fwiw, Micro Center has their i3/15 combo discount right now in-store only and that includes the excellent Asus Z77 V-LK for eighty bucks with processor purchase. Better board, lower price - if you can get to a store and you're picking up a CPU.

Quote from ResidentPony : Great RAM - but BIOSTAR? ... fwiw, Micro Center has their i3/15 combo discount right now in-store only and that includes the excellent Asus Z77 V-LK for eighty bucks with processor purchase. Better board, lower price - if you can get to a store and you're picking up a CPU.

But for people like me who are hours and hours from a Micro Center this deal is decent.

I have had the TZ77B for about 2 weeks now running constantly, it came with 8GB Corsair RAM. I believe I paid $89 after the mail in rebate. I have had no issues, this is my second Biostar board, the other has been running a ton for 2 years now. Decent deal

Quote from ResidentPony : Great RAM - but BIOSTAR? ... fwiw, Micro Center has their i3/15 combo discount right now in-store only and that includes the excellent Asus Z77 V-LK for eighty bucks with processor purchase. Better board, lower price - if you can get to a store and you're picking up a CPU.

The sheer amount of people who don't realize that Microcenter is out of reach for many people is so frustrating at this point. My nearest one is about 8 hours away and I'm not planning a vacation just for the sole purpose of driving down to the nearest Microcenter to buy a cheap combo.

In my case, I have the Z77A and have been running it daily since late 2012, and I bought it at MicroCenter. For me it's been absolutely rock-solid with easy overclocking up to the limits of my i7-3770k. This is a very underrated board, probably deservedly because of Biostar's past reputation. But they did get it right with this one. The reason I chose this board is that at the time it was the only low-cost Z77 board that included DVI, VGA, and HDMI ports, and I needed all three. Yes I run 3 monitors off the built-in Intel video and it works perfectly as long as I'm not trying to run the latest games, which I have no interest in.

I use Corsair Vengeance ram in mine, so I don't know about the quality of the ram in this package, but otherwise I'd say it's a good deal.

Quote from LonelyHiker : In my case, I have the Z77A and have been running it daily since late 2012, and I bought it at MicroCenter. For me it's been absolutely rock-solid with fantastic overclocking up to the limits of my i7-3770k. This is a very underrated board, probably deservedly because of Biostar's past reputation. But they did get it right with this one. I use Corsair Vengeance ram in mine, so I don't know about the quality of the ram in this package, but otherwise I'd say it's a good deal.

Looking really quickly at the socket area, the Biostar does have more chokes caps which makes it more interesting in terms of cpu overclockability.

I would definitely go for the 77A version over the 77b. The placement of the headers seem better, 8 phase power design so there is more room for overclocking, and crossfire support if you ever need it. This is a great deal.

Biostar?

Have a TZ77B running a i5-3570k@4.5 just fine...

Quote from aznsniper911 : The sheer amount of people who don't realize that Microcenter is out of reach for many people is so frustrating at this point. My nearest one is about 8 hours away and I'm not planning a vacation just for the sole purpose of driving down to the nearest Microcenter to buy a cheap combo.

Nevertheless, somewhere near 50% of the US has a MC within their metro area or nearby (based on doing some quick math adding up the populations of the metro areas that have a MC). It's worth mentioning!

I just got the Biostar rebate submitted 26 weeks ago. I did called them a few time and not sure if you will get the rebate if you follow up with them.

I've had no problems with more recent Biostar offerings, TZ77XE4 or a mini amd board (can't remember the model, but recent) or the board I bought in 2011

Their BIOS is still ugly and less than intuitive but everything has been functional

I have had a lot of problems with ASUS in the last couple years. Like 2 out of 4 boards (all different models) have gone bad, one every time I got a replacement board it fried

Quote from vip00 : Nevertheless, somewhere near 50% of the US has a MC within their metro area or nearby (based on doing some quick math adding up the populations of the metro areas that have a MC). It's worth mentioning!

And may I ask how did you come about with that number?