Hey guys! I'm planning to upgrade my sig rig. The 3 components I'm upgrading are CPU, Motherboard, and Memory. My budged is $1200 dollars Canadian including TAX. Alright for the CPU I've thought of getting an i7 920 or would it be better to go with the i7 930? For the motherboard I'm stuck on the ASUS Rampage II Extreme or EVGA E760 CLASSIFIED, which mobo would be better at overclocking (4GHz+). For memory I am totally clueless I wish to get something like CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT 4GB but its only 4GB... Which triple channel memory would you guys recommend? Please feel free to edit my choices in which you think would give me a better bang for my money. Just too add I have made the chart of my original choices and the grand total is $1,129.54, Newegg.ca. Intel Core i7-930 - $307.99 EVGA E760 CLASSIFIED - $409.99 CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT 4GB - $264.49
go with Gigabyte motherboard. Just assemble, and your system is ready to work. No tricks, no strange stuff to do to make the system over up for the first time like all ASUS motherboards, and unlike ASUS you have a complete full manual, which is always nice. If I was you, I would not get the best of the best motherboard, as firstly it's kinda useless unless you have a water-cooling or liquid hydrogen and doing crazy overclocking. The money save, get a nice SSD to hold Windows 7 64-bit, and your most used programs/games.
I would also go with a cheaper board and an SSD (assuming you don't already own one). Actually, if you are not using an SSD at the moment, I bet you would see a greater difference overall by upgrading just this than upgrading the whole rig but keeping a regular HD
I don't know about other ASUS boards, but the Rampage 2 Extreme(what I have) is ABSOLUTELY customizable. There are like 20 freakin pages of tweakable options in the bios. Plus with dual bios and the overclock check it's completely idiot proof. I've forgotten to tweak certain options in overclocking that in the past would have fried my components, but the Rampage just tells you that the "overclock has failed" and sends you back to the bios. As for not being able to "over up for the first time," I've never had a single glitch or issue with anything on startup from day one on my rampage. I guess what I'm saying is that the sweeping generalizations you are making in trying to give someone advice on something you haven't ever used(sounds like you haven't at least) is a little misguiding. I mean if I had no idea about anything and read your comment about ASUS I could see myself avoiding them like the plague. But since I have used lots of components from various companies I must say that, especially regarding the Rampage 2 Extreme, you are wrong.
My problem is not with the motherboard features.... It’s the company. I have had ASUS motherboard for as long as I can remember, I was a big fan of ASUS. Then came 2003... Oh boy.. Since that moment a trick was required to boot up the computers for the first time. Insert 1 RAM stick, turn on computer, close it, add another stick, and so on until all your RAM stick are in. Put 2 at the same time, it won't post. Ok that was fine, I mean you just do it once and you’re done, and some RAM didn't have any problem at all. At this point, at every generation of boards ASUS was becoming worst and worst. My A7N8X, never overclocked, holder an AMD Athlon XP, one of the pin RAM dimm 2 socket was smoking. Fair enough, faulty motherboard, have that replaced... a month and half later ASUS after countless of long distance that cost me half my motherboard, or a used one on eBay (motherboard was discontinued) and I got a dusty board "refurbished" one. I did not care as long as my system worked. RMA my memory Kingston was nice, even upgraded my memory to higher end ones. Change my power adapter and PSU making sure their up to quality PSU (Antec TruPower - was the highest end from Antec at the time). Ok fair enough everything is up to quality now. The new motherboard was using the latest BIOS, and ASUS Tech support, was nice enough to pass through the BIOS configuration to ensure that everything is fine, RAM was deemed to be perfectly compatible with the motherboard. I said that the big delay in the motherboard RMA was probably they lost mine for validation/testing. 1 year later... same problem, same RAM socket, same pin... warranty is out, motherboard is well discontinued. As a BIG fan of ASUS I was, I just ignored this issue as design flaw, it's ASUS, I was unlucky. It was packed with great features, very stable. not complaining. 2006 - A8N-SLI *Deluxe* 32x SLI - First 32x SLI board, and highest priced motherboard on the market at a wooping 250$ Canadian. Can't go wrong? right? Well the system was working perfectly (same RAM trick that was required but ok), that I have 2 friends who purchased ASUS motherboards in the year that followed with the Intel Core 2 duo. They were also pleased. Then their motherboard stop posting - not at the same time, delayed by a about 5 months. It took them both a month and half to get a refurbished one from ASUS, not dusty, clean. They motherboard was about a year to a year and half old, one of my friend motherboard replacement did not work, and got an MSI at a local store for easy return. He did that to test his system... he puts everything in, and everything works perfectly. No tweaks or anything. Not bad for a low end MSI. Not crazy features, meh OC feature, but hey it works. Today, he still uses that MSI board... as a media center computer, but still hold strong. My other friend, after few later, his motherboard broke again... no POST. Ok, no problem, he buys an new P5Q Premium due to good reviews. 2 months later it stops working. BTW, I don't know if you guys recall by Gigabyte was saying how ASUS is crap in quality... And ASUS wanted to sue them... anyway, back to the story. 2 month this time. He calls and now the RMA service was near unreachable, after 3 days of trying, finally he reach RMA department, and 2 month (longest time) he gets a dusty super scratch P5Q Premium, which did not work. He snap the board in 2 (no joke), and went and buy MSI, and voila strong solid system still working today. My turn... 2 months before my warranty finishes, both my Ethernet ports did not work, and wtv USB memory key once inserted was locking up the USB controller (system was still operational, but no USB keyboard and mouse). I re-install Windows Vista 64-bit, thinking it's was Vista, but nope... I tried XP.... same results. I called ASUS, very hard to reach RMA< took 2 days, and got my RMA. Shipped it, 1 month later I got my super dusty deeply scratch motherboard so call refurbished. I called ASUS to confirm that what got was fine, and they said these are "fixed" motherboard from a pool of returned motherboards. huuuuh I said.. Oh well, I clean it deeply with brush (no choice) and compressed air can. Put it in my computer and runs fine! YAAAY.. 3 month later, when you sleep the computer USB controller doesn't wake up and eSATA port on the back doesn't detect anymore any plugged external HDD, and the Nvidia Ethernet gigabite port stop working (using marvel's now - the second one). This occurs in XP 32-bit, Vista 64-bit and Win7 64-bit, using latest BIOS and drivers. Today, the system holds... but all this made me from an ASUS fan to a ASUS hater. I tried Gigabyte motherboard in my brother computer and I was very happy with the results, and you can see and feel the increase of quality over ASUS. Summer time, I'll change my desktop... CPU, Motherboard, RAM, and I am going with Gigabyte. Gigabyte was not lying about ASUS crap quality. Be in my position... and I think I gave ASUS WAY over a chance here. Look at my system specs on my signature, where do you see that I use crap quality. I also moved around the city, if you wonder for electricity. So, now what? I am told by many here that in U.K ASUS is fine... well doesn't seem like it in Canada. So I shut up about my rant... but DorkSterr is in Canada.
Oh that annoys me ....Really does get right on my left man tit. I buy a brand new Mobo.. it fails.. I return it and low and behold I get a chuffin Refurbished Mobo.. Whooooaaa ... Did I buy a second hand mobo ? No ..I bought a new one and its broke, I want a new one sending out to replace the defective item they shipped in the first place. (oh thats so much better, spleen vented) I had similar issues with a 680 Asus board p5n 32 SLI or something. Eventually it was replaced with a brand new board, not a refurbished one. I did go back to using Asus though, I do have two asus boards though P6TD Del and a Rampage II 775socket P48. Features, gaming applications etc Back to the thread though...I have had absolutely no trouble using Gigabyte Mobos Those series 3 ones...in the office, 3 machines working Monday - Friday 8 while 6 not so much as a stutter on any.
I have to say things are going off-topic quite a bit but you lot have been very unlucky with ASUS. Mine have been rock solid. My A7N8X is still going today..... My A8N-SLI is still going today. No product I have ever had from ASUS has let me down. That's not to say I am a fan boy but I have just had a great experience.
So what sort of specs does a CAD Computer demand, I was planning to do the same, correct me if I'm wrong - CPU - Medium Power - Cores/Threads > MHz GPU - Powerful - Rendering GPU (more RAM) RAM - Lots? ???
