ECS Z87H3-A4(1.0) LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: I bought this and the i5 4670k to upgrade my current 965 system. I am having good experience with ECS products so far and the price of this board is unbeatble. I tested the OC capability of the board to 4GHz with stock fan and let it run stable for three straight days. So far the system has been running flawlessly.

Cons: None so far.

Overall Review: Next step is getting a 660 ti to replace my 5850.

Pros: I took a chance on this board after reading some negative reviews mainly because of the price. ended up being like 75 bucks after tax and they even gave me a free msata ssd to put my os on! it was a deal i couldn't resist, being that i was in highschool and was only able to save up about 25 a week for my shiny new build. It was an easy install, it was just like any other mobo i had seen in all the tutorial videos id watched to learn how to build. It started immediately, and i installed win7 on the ssd and it was awesome when paired to my i5 4600k compared to my old pentium. This thing hasnt stopped on me and was amazing for the price. The uefi bios was actually really cool and easy to use. Much more than i expected from a manufacturer id never really heard of.

Cons: not very pretty honestly couldn't overclock my i5 past 4.5ghz and i wanna say it was in part due to the fact that this only sported and 4 pin cpu power when the standard was 8 at the time.

Overall Review: glad i took the chance and im glad this was my first board

Pros: Go ahead and get it. I was very skeptical about purchasing a board from a manufacturer I hadn't heard about, but the current rebate promo convinced my wallet it was the right choice. So far, installation went VERY smoothly with no hiccups; BIOS is easy to navigate; runs my 2400 MHz RAM at 2400 MHz, and is aesthetically pleasing (even with the dust/heat shields). They say "for office or multimedia use" but I say its for everything in between, you can run it stock and enjoy it, or you can bump up performance with very VERY little effort. Currently using it as a mid-level gaming rig, no hiccups, lag, nothing.

Cons: Ummm none at the moment... However if something catches my eye, I'll be sure to note it!

Overall Review: Did not come with LAN Drivers installed. However not an issue, since they included the drivers in the installation CD that you pretty much never install except as a last resort. Also, they have the drivers online. Small potatoes IMO. Build: Cooler Master Centurion 5 ECS Z87H3-A4 i5-4570 8 GB of G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3 RAM Running at 2400 MHz Radeon HD 7850 1GB 320GB HDD with Windows 7 1TB HDD for storage

Pros: none so far

Cons: Defective mother board. I finally get all the parts I needed to get it started and only one Ram slot works and none of the PCIE slot works. Not even the 32gig msata drive works on it. I can get it to boot but what's the point if I can't use anything? Not a happy customer. It gets a 1 star. I'm only running Intel I3 dual core, 7600 nvidia, 4 gigs ddr3 ram and a 600 watt PSU. Nothing special. Everything is brand new as well.

Overall Review: Stay away from cheap mother boards. lesson learned. Don't waste your money.

Pros: Fast Doc had a good diagnostic diagram that helped me figure out why it would not power up. Otherwise the doc is pretty standard.

Cons: No screws for the ssd that came as a freebe. It is a small size. When it fits in the case the front part of the mb will bend down when you're trying to plug in the power supply cable. You need to put your finger under it to support it while you push the power cable in. One of the memory slots is close to the cpu so be careful in choosing cooling. The sata ports face forward instead of upward from the board. That can cause problems in tight cases. My case it pretty large and it was still no fun plugging in the hard drives. I ordered some shorter cables to deal with it.

Overall Review: I got it to power up finally. Turns out it wasn't the power to the cpu. It was one of the usb cables not plugging into the onboard usb 2.0 header correctly. That plug isn't standard size anyway. Once I disconnected it Viola. I loaded the drivers and after many reboots it is working great. After the bios initializes I'm at the login screen in 8 seconds. Norton 360 does a quick scan in just a few seconds. I do have a SSD as the main drive, a 64 gig ssd as the paging file and 2400 cas 10 memory. Loading applications is almost instantaneous. Correcting pictures is so fast you dont' think that it was done. I have never built or worked on a computer this fast before. I have an i5 4670k in it and haven't overclocked it yet. Can't wait until I have enough time to do that. All that being said, I have only had it running one day now. So, I cannot tell how long it will last or if I'll have future problems with it. But I can tell you that it's working fine and fast.

Pros: I got this when is was on sale $79.99 + $5.67 shipping and with a free msata 32gb ssd ( about 29gb of actaully storage, meaning the 3gb is used for better safety ) The board itself was nicely designed, the added cardboard box over the dust shield and antistatic foam really gives you a feeling of quality and care. pcb is a dark green color and is pretty sturdy. The ATX board fits perfectly in my Rosewill blackhawk mid, all the MOBO screw holes lined up with the pre installed standoffs. The bios is really simple to use the uefi is nice being able to switch to legacy is a bonus. The one USB 3.0 jumper lets me take full advantage of my usb 3.0 ports in the front.

Cons: -----not much of a con---- but the msata did not include the 2 little screws, but hey i have build quite a few computers so i got an assortment of random screw that worked.

Overall Review: i am using and corsair H100 cooler and yes it fits lga 1150 but the backplate kinda takes a little time to adjust, cause the the socket mount has a plate in the back that gets in the way. ----This is my first Intel build---- -i7 4770K turbo to 4.4ghz( i cant figure how to keep it 4.4 all the time, when i disable turbo it just goes from 3.5-4.4ghz) 16gb ram 1600mhz sapphire hd 7850 samsung 830(64gb) and 840(250gb) western digital 1tb psu rosewill 750w hive 80%bronze( a plus is the bios automatically disabled c6/c7 states since my psu is not haswell certified ) in a Rosewill Blackhawk mid tower ----i use the msata 32gb as a cache to lower ram usage. ----im my previous AMD fx 6300 build with MSI 970 Mobo i had no problem with boot to desktop( win7), but now it always shows the windows boot manager with 2 windows 7 home premium (recommended), it was just a bit annoying for the time being,a simple solution was to turn the delay from 30 sec to 0, but there is still a brief delay. ----i had to had to also update the bios using the disks software. ----elite group has always been great, even back then with my AMD phenom x4 970 3.5ghz overclocked to 3.8ghz on there ECS am3 880G Mobo with an ECS geforce gt 520 1gb 3 years later and they are till the best bang for the buck!

Pros: -Overclocking capability -Easy to use interface -Quality components

Cons: -Only 1 PCIx3 lane

Overall Review: For those questioning the brand or the fact that it is the cheapest z87 out there, let me just say that this is one of the easiest boards I have ever worked with, overclocking is a breeze, and remains perfectly stable. While that also has to do with the silicon lottery, I have seen some say that these "low end" boards can't hold their own. I have taken my 4670k to 4.6 at 1.25v, but currently have it at 4.5 for increased stability. Could most likely get 4.7 at 1.3v with this board. Rock solid recommendation.

Pros: So I decided to see how fast this system will boot. The system consists of the The free 30gb ecs msata drive and this ecs MB with 16gb gskill aeres 2400 memory running at 2400 boot times to win 7 and entering password... Complete startup 33.26 sec Complete shutdown 9 sec Startup after bios post 18.96 sec Restart 31.86 sec I have nothing else to compare with but for me it is pretty fast.

Cons: Could it be faster?