Motherboard

[commander abdul]

I'm working on putting together a new machine, and need some help picking a good motherboard. I am going with an Intel CPU (i5 2500K) and an Nvidia GPU. For the time being, I'm going to run on a single video card, but I will be getting a 2nd one for SLI in about 3 months. I have pretty much everything picked out and can't make my mind up about the mobo. I plan on upgrading the cpu in 6-12 months, so if I can get a board which lets me do that, it would be great! I'm going to be running on fans right now, but I'll switch to liquid cooling once I go SLI. :)

The thing that is confusing me is the PCIe slots. I'm looking on newegg.ca and I keep seeing this: single at x16, dual at x8. What does it exactly mean? Some of these board are running dual at x16. Should I be going for dual x16 or are dual x8 good enough? Seems to have a significant price difference, and I would like to know if it's worth it!

 

[Pyro]

in my opinion, two video cards is not worth it. the asus boards are good (so long as it isnt deffective) and gigabyte is supposed to be good too. as for the cpu upgrade, the last i heard, intel's ivory bridge chips were supposed to be compatible with the old 1155 motherboards, so you should be fine to upgrade with the chipset you are getting

 

[Steve]

All I can say is dont fucking go crossfire.

 

[ItsaChris]

The thing that is confusing me is the PCIe slots. I'm looking on newegg.ca and I keep seeing this: single at x16, dual at x8. What does it exactly mean? Some of these board are running dual at x16. Should I be going for dual x16 or are dual x8 good enough? Seems to have a significant price difference, and I would like to know if it's worth it!

x16 and x8 is the bandwidth
if you want to run 2 ultra high end GPUs then grab the duel x16 slots. if you are looking to grab any gpu less then around $250 each then the bandwidth given from 2 x8 PCI-e slots should not limit your performance at all. the problem with SLI is some games do not use both cards. and the higher end cards seem to not work as nicely for the price or power consumption. the older AMD 4770s in crossfire worked great, and i think the 5770s would also work well. (I use ATI as I have had 2 NVIDA crap out just out side of warranty)

dule x16 would be a nice option much latter when the GPU dropped in price and you wanted to get a boost with out tossing a old gpu but to upgrade in only 3 months does not make seance unless you are looking at 2 cheaper GPUs that are know to work well together.

 

[dead mike]

Maybe get something cheap man, the next round of mobos around the corner are getting PCIe slot upgrades 2.0->3.0

 

[47]

got a mobo that overclocks well, read reviews, u can watch good reviews on your tube about specific mobos.

evga and asus and gigabyte are the top brands. look for one that will oc well and has all teh features u want, shit like usb3 and sata3.

 

[commander abdul]

So should I stick with 1 higher end gpu instead of going SLI, since this is a gaming rig? This way I can get a non sli mobo, and dump the difference into the GPU. I was thinking of going with gigabyte. Asus has given me way too much issues before. I no longer trust their brand, and their RMA is a nightmare.

Also regarding the ram, dual or triple channel? and how is G. skill compared to corsair?

 

[Pyro]

if you are doing an i5 2500k rig, they will all be dual channel

 

[47]

triple channel didnt stick for some reason. i think the improvements were very small and cost was too much, something like that.

 

[commander abdul]

Maybe get something cheap man, the next round of mobos around the corner are getting PCIe slot upgrades 2.0->3.0

Yah I keep hearing that. I looked around and settled on this ASRock motherboard. I read a few reviews making it my choice of mobo for my new gaming rig:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157265

All reviews I checked said good things about the company and its customer service, which will be very important in case I ever have to RMA. Last couple of Asus boards I got kept getting weird issues, their quality control sucks in recent years. I had to RMA my last one 3 times and their customer service gets -5/10.

Ok so by looks of it, here is the rest of what I picked for my new gaming rig:

i5 2500K
16 gig G.Skill Ripjaw 1600
Intel 510 SATA3 120GB SSD
WD Caviar Black 6.0Gb/s 1TB 7200 RPM
EVGA GTX 570
Haf 932
Corsair AX750 PSU


In a year or so I plan to upgrade to the new intel processor. Hoping this to run BF3 on pretty high graphics settings!

If you think I should change something in this build, please tell me why! Thank you for the comments and help!!

 

[Pyro]

yo if you are going to upgrade your chip in a year, you will want to either:
A) buy a nice cpu fan so you can overclock the i5-2500k; or
B) downgrade your chip to an i5-2500 (without the "K" modifier). this chip is the same, except it isn't unlocked for overclocking. it is a bit cheaper.

this rig will be monstrous! hope you have a HAF 932 to contain it.

 

[Cock]

triple channel didnt stick for some reason. i think the improvements were very small and cost was too much, something like that.

It's a lot more technical then that, and straight benchmarks aren't going to show you the improvements. It's more about bandwidth then speed, they needed to "make the pipe bigger" without drastically changing the design. But in any case The new LGA2011 will have Quad-channel motherboards that will replace the previous triple-channel LGA1366 boards. I'm waiting for LGA2011 to come out before I *possibly* buy a new machine.

To answer the original question - if you want two videos cards running at x16 you need to buy an enthusiast board - both higher-end LGA2011 and LGA1366 motherboards will do this. But really should only be done if you plan on running 2 very high end cards.

 

[Cock]

More info:
Any B65/H61/P67/Z68 motherboard that has PCI-E3.0 is full of bullshit. It's nothing more then a hack. The unreleased Z77 chipset is reported to natively support it. So wait If PCI-E 3.0 give you a nice stiffy.

***Take a look at the Z68 chipset. Major plus to Z68 is SSD caching which is explained here: http://bit.ly/itzvh5

 

[Glocky]

More info:
Any B65/H61/P67/Z68 motherboard that has PCI-E3.0 is full of bullshit. It's nothing more then a hack. The unreleased Z77 chipset is reported to natively support it. So wait If PCI-E 3.0 give you a nice stiffy.

***Take a look at the Z68 chipset. Major plus to Z68 is SSD caching which is explained here: http://bit.ly/itzvh5

Agreed. There have been bios updates (official and non-official) to support SRT, but might as well wait for the native support + ivy bridge anyway... and games that need a GEN3 video card

 

[OG buckshot jr]

I can vouch for the Z68 mobo and SSD caching. Bucky bought a dirrrrrrty EVGA Z68 (I'll get him to post which one, I can't remember). Cool looking mobo too (accent lights etc.)

 

[.44 caliber]

I had an Assrock board fry on me (Wasn't my fault that time) was a piece of shit and and had poor driver support.

I love my Gigabyte board with dual bios chip for added protection for those who enjoy tweaking.

 

[47]

no dude !!! no asrock !!!

evga, intel, gigabyte .

 

[dead mike]

asus, heart warming technology

 

[r3volution]

Listen to CoF. Wait for LGA2011 and get an Ivy Bridge processor when they come out end of Q1.

 

[47]

Listen to CoF. Wait for LGA2011 and get an Ivy Bridge processor when they come out end of Q1.

but then its gonna be a $2000 rig when that comes out vs $1300 now for 2500k. buyer preference, i guess.