el cheapo rig, long live diy

that's stock, built-in motherboard, plenty mobo have this, don't you know this?

maybe you can consider to change to this kind of motherboard
normally this type of motherboard has better onboard soundcard

It's not a high-end one, just a normal H97 chipset motherboard. H97 chipset motherboard the cheapest one also over RM300
the processor is just an i3.

btw, your did the sleeve job nice.
CM690 III is a nice designed casing, just that the CM690 III is too big for your motherboard

i didn't get the small board because it's just RM20 difference. Bigger board I get a M.2 & sata express interface, more pci slots (although I don't give a shit on pci anymore), 2 more sata cables, and better VRM.
The sata cables alone already worth RM20, isn't it?

I don't game either. But if you would like to bring the best graphic of of GRID2, I think you should get a graphic card like GeForce GTX750Ti (low power consumption).

Don't waste money changing motherboard, use those budget to add a ssd.

mine is i3-4150. the heatsink fan looks junk to me. even my p4 1.5 old heatsink fan has a better built quality
maybe someday in future i might get a cooler master tx3 cooler for aesthetic purpose

don't think i will be changing it in short time because i3 doesn't need that
somemore i5 stock heatsink fan is better than i3 due to the heatsink got copper core.

old motherboard has low resale value and the new motherboard's price is ridiculous high due to price hike. not a wise decision to change a motherboard that is functioning well.

but if you insist, you better upgrade to H97 PRO GAMER rather than H97M Plus. (if you only want Asus, otherwise you can opt for MSI or Gigabyte H97 Gaming 3)

M.2 price now is still freaking expensive.

This post has been edited by BOTAK_WAI: Feb 17 2015, 10:12 PM

well, design is very subjective. one man's meat is another man's poison

btw, i doubt you can get the board easily because i think the board is just newly available in Malaysia.

Last month Asus website only has 3 H97 chipset motherboards, which are: H97-PRO GAMER, H97-PLUS, and H97M-E.

I think H97I-PLUS, H97-PRO, and H97M-PLUS are their new boards.

fyi, H97-PRO GAMER and H97-PLUS are currently priced at 445 and 420 respectively, if the H97M-PLUS is higher than RM420, definitely not worth buying.


btw, in order not out of topic, we talk about the cable management. Does this thread only talking about the in-casing cable management? no out-casing cable management discusion?