I might be purchasing a i7 980x for rendering. Please can you recommend me the best motherboard that would be suited for this CPU and for a bit of overclocking later on? Thanks.
Depends how much money you want to spend! Ph4Zed's recommendation is the minimum you should aim for but there's nothing stopping you from buying a top-notch mobo; the Asus Rampage III Extreme for example. Quite frankly the 980x is a premium CPU and as such really should be paired with an OTT mobo.
That's about it...so just choose the motherboard with the features you require and that suits your pocket... EDIT: At present OcUK are doing the Asus P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition for ?119.99... ________ Volcano Vaporizer
I brought an ROG board for mine can run it stable at 4.7ghz on water fastest chip I've ever owned and it's very easy to overclock
I'd throw the ASUS P6TD Deluxe in the mix as well, it might not not have usb 3(yet), but it's as fast if not faster than just about anything out there.
For overclocking, pretty much every board is the same. All that gimmick of extra power phases just isn't worth it. How many video cards do you plan to run though. Any x58 board will do 3x SLI/Crossfire though a bit tight. If you get one with 7 PCI-E slots you can do 3x crossfire/sli with space between the cards or pack 4x crossfire/sli.
Just because! Seriously though, a better motherboard will make it easier to overclock and gives more freedom to the user. If you're spending £800 on the CPU, you may as well splash out on a mobo that's >£200.
Hi, Sorry i havent been replying - spent all day yesterday sorting out my wifes car for its mot! As far as the motherboard price goes, i dont mind - I agree that there is no point skimping on price for a CPU like this: I am not planning on overclocking straight away because i have never done it before and so just want speed "straight out of the box" until i get my PC tweeking confidence up. I will probably air cool rather than water cool. For the graphics card i am planning on using 1No Nvidia; Not an ATI card as i have read they can cause problems in Cinema 4D. I also wont be using a Quadro card as these have no benefit in Cinema. So, a quick Nividia with lots of memory for textures. All of the on board extras i am not too worried about - but i want something that is going to be up to date for a while. I was looking at the Asus P6TD deluxe, Rampage III extreme or P6T WS professional - what do you think about a workstation board with this CPU? Rollo: are you running a i7980x and what make is an ROG board?
Only if it adds extra performance, I assume? That's fair enough, we all had to start somewhere. Aim for 4GHz when you do start overclocking, then move up slowly from there. That's a solid choice, you get a lot more for your money (though I guess you won't be worrying about that so much!) All of these will be 'up to date' for the same amount of time, ie until Intel chooses to release a new socket. At this point (either the end of this year or early next year) there'll be no more new CPUs made, making the setups pretty much redundant. At this point in time, spending more just gets you the bells and whistles. ROG stands for 'Republic of Gamers', it's what Asus brands it's boards that have all the bells and whistles. For example, some of the top ones have little bits where you can measure the CPU voltage with a multimeter if you want. They generally don't have much better performance or quality than their respective 'general use' counterparts, but they cost a lot more. In your case, people have seen that you've got an expensive CPU and assume that you need an expensive motherboard to match. This is not the case. In truth, most motherboards perform about the same and do mostly the same stuff. One that this site reviewed recently to be good is the Gigabyte GA-X58a-UD3R (not the same as the EX58-UD3R). Alternatively, the long-standing favourite has been the Asus P6T Deluxe. Here's the review of that: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2010/05/07/gigabyte-ga-x58a-ud3r-motherboard-review/1 Trust me, it won't make it much easier. The beauty of an extreme chip is that you're free to choose the multiplier of your choice - the 980x can go up to I think 29. Most reasonable x58 motherboards can hit a bclk of 200, which would mean the CPU running at max 5.8GHz - it's clear that with an extreme chip the motherboard will not be pushed to the limits, and the CPU will be the limiting factor. The second point, spending for spending's sake, to me just seems illogical.
Oh but it does. My motherboard, an EVGA Classified, allows you to change any setting you need to. I built an X58 system for a friend using a cheaper motherboard and found that quite a few features were locked down. This argument is moot when the OP is buying a 980x!
does that mean that a extreme CPU will be limited by the motherboard and thus i might be wasting cash? Pete J I ahve also seen the EVGA motherboards, would one of these be suitable for me?
All I can say is that a more expensive mobo will help you squeeze a bit more out of the CPU. In regards to the EVGA motherboards, I find the BIOS extremely easy to use - everything is clearly laid out and all values have a 'white' value (completely safe), 'yellow' value (entering dangerous territory) and 'red' value (dangerous to use without fancy cooling). Resetting the BIOS is very easy too. Unfortunately I can't find any in stock at the moment, apart form the 4-way Classified which really would be far too excessive. Not only that but you may as well get a motherboard which supports SATA 6GB/s and USB3.
No, normal CPUs such as the i7 920s and 930s are usually limited by the motherboard, but extreme cpus will not be limited in the same way because you can change the multiplier to make them run quickly without any kind of motherboard overclocking. For example, on the 980x you can run the CPU at 3.85GHz without so much as overclocking the motherboard. The problem with extreme cpus is that you pay such a high premium for the processor that they're not really worth the money - for example you can buy two 32nm Xeon quad core CPUs with a lower clockspeed and a Xeon motherboard, you'd have an 8-core, 16 thread Xeon machine for roughly the same price. EVGA motherboards are generally kept in high regard, but they're very much aimed at gamers, and the good EVGA boards are expensive. It probably makes it easier in certain situations. When I was drafting that post I used the example of my personal motherboard, but I decided to generalise it. It depends what you mean by cheap. I use a Gigabyte EX58-UD3R, and that had no problems hitting the dizzy heights of 205MHz on the bclk, which would be a huge amount for an extreme motherboard. Whilst in your case the cheaper motherboard had less features, that does not mean that all are like that, and I had relative easy overclocking my 920 to 4.3GHz using an EX58-UDR3 - this extreme edition will be easier because the multiplier will be higher. Even though he's buying a 980x, there's still no point simply spending for spending's sake. You can get to the CPU's max on a £150 motherboard, why spend £250-£300 for little more?
Yes I run a i989 got mine at 4.2ghz on water without even adding vcore can push to 4.7ghz if really needed never will be asus maximus 3 rog I won it from a comp dout I would of brought it though
On Xeons you aren't paying for the EXTREME-word on the i7 chip, probably gives better bang for buck. But this depends on the software you use, etc. Better see some reviews...