This is the same board that i have (msi GD-80) but i havent installed a cpu or ram as yet but this picture makes it look like it will all be ok.
To be honest the i7-860 is right now a horrible choice in performance vs price... The i5 750 matches in gaming preformance and overclockers to 4ghz at £70 less.. and also the i7 920 is cheaper and a higher model. Anyways, I haven't heard this issue before, I'm putting my i5 rig together on monday. I'll take some pictures.
yikes...dunno how you got to that conclusion, but to each their own i guess. i built a 750 rig last week and had no issues with any of those things (the 65 board though)
I recently built a machine with 8gb's of RAM (all ram slots used) on a GD-65 with a Zalman CNPS 10x Extreme Fact of the matter, it didn't fit and was an absolute nightmare to mount the cooler. The fan was too low so didn't fit over the ram. Got so frustrated that I sent back the cooler to Scan and replaced it with a Noctua cooler that fits easily Just be a bit wary I guess but it all should be fine.
one, thats extreme overclocking. you wont...or shouldn't...come anywhere near that. the performance gain for hyperthreading on the 860 is nothing compared to the price increase. might as well go i7.
i get what you are saying thermally, but that wouldn't be worth it for me vs the triple channel memory (both performance and cost). not sure what you mean about the x58 not being a calm breeze. i haven't had one issue with it in 4-5 builds. but you are right, the setup is a little tight. i wouldn't worry about msi p55 boards though, they seem to be pretty solid. and never really been bad boards previously. the asus p7 series is pretty well liked on here. but yeah, definitely watch yourself on a big cpu cooler...
i think the Asus p7 is liked here because some of us gotten freebies out of them they are very close and indeed if you fill all 4 slots, you'll need normal RAM (no fancy heatsink) to allow big CPU coolers. VadimWolf's picture shows it, you can clearly see it's a tight fit with the RAM when it's installed in the other socket, i bet the cooler and RAM won't fit if you install the RAM on the inside socket. this is on my Asus board, with newly installed Corsair H50.
currently got it 95% stable (need to do over-night Prime, Intel Burn test stable) at: 196 x 21 => 4.1Ghz at 1.44v (i always go for stability). tryed 4.2Ghz but needed more than 1.5v for 95% stable, so gave up. Prime goes to 75c, Intel Burn test goes to 85c, but we all know no application can top Prime's top temperature, so i think im fine in temperature part. i think i can improve my temperature by playing with fan arrangements. currently it's a high airflow Corsair as push from inside the case, low airflow Noiseblocker as pull to outside of the case. if i install 2 low airflow Noiseblocker, i could get better temperature due to fans now complement eachother. only problem is that Asus motherboard doesn't have fine tuning of fans, so i'll need to soldier 2 fans to together to make them run at same speeds.
