Budget: under $600, max $700 Main uses of intended build: Gaming, internet browsing, maybe video editing Parts required: motherboard, CPU, ram Previous build information: See sig for current build Monitor resolution: 1920x1200 Will you be overclocking: later in its life Any motherboard requirements: The more SATA the better, at least one SATA 6GBps. I like Gigabyte boards, but not required So I'm currently running a Q6600, it works but I feel like it's bottle (it's 3am here) necking my GTX570 and considering it's 5 years old, it's time for an upgrade. Anyways, I'm wondering what would be best, SB, SB-E or IB for my upgrade?
Depends how much of that you are doing? If it's a lot, and it's important to you, go with SB-E. If not, then go with IB. SB-E has no massive advantages with gaming, and general use. Most games don't really use more than 4 cores very efficiently, and nothing else you'll be doing is so demanding that you need the 6 cores or the quad channel RAM. hee heee.... he said bottom.
Then what you need sir, is the shiny new IB and.... although it pains me to recommend a non Asus motherboard... a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H as it has 4x SataII and 5x SATA III to satisfy your "more SATA the better" need. If you're building anew with a new CPU mobo and RAM, you may as well go Z77 if you're going IB. I'd still go for a i7 3770K. While video editing is not a mainstay of what you do, HT will still be useful here. The above board and i7 is still within your budget. [edit] Ahh.. 600 DOLLARS.. not pounds... OK.. maybe i5... but I still think the HT will be useful for editing... and the extra 2MB of L3. Not sure of exchange rate at the moment, but I'm still pretty sure a 3770K and a quality Z77 board is within your budget.
The funny thing is that I had both of those in my Newegg shopping cart: GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H - $190 Intel Core i7-3770K - $350 G.SKILL Ripjaws 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 - $47 Total: $585 What would you non-gigabyte would you recommend? I'm not saying it's a requirement, but I've had good luck my Gigabyte boards, + I've heard Asus support isn't that good (don't tell bindi )
I keep hearing about Asus support, but to be honest, so far I've never needed it, so can't comment. The reason I suggested the above Giga board was because it's very well featured, tons of I/O possibilities, and has the most SATAIII options, and also 3x USB 3.0 headers, so it kind of fitted your need the best. I can't think of a Asus Z77 board that has more than 4x SATAIII. The Asus P8Z77-V DELUXE looks tasty. 4x SATAIII and a stupid amount of USB 3.0. Read some good things about it too. Not cheap however. Maximus V Gene looks tasty, but lacks in the SATA and USB 3.0 dept in favour of OCing facilities. Damned expensive too. In your case... I'd still go for the GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H. If you have a thing for Asus though... the V Deluxe would be the one I went for.
Was going to suggest the MSI Z77A-GD65 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-...-sata-raid-pcie-30-(x16)-d-sub-dvi-d-hdmi-atx Because its a) cheaper (in UK anyways) b) Recieved very good reviews c) Does not have any PCI slot
I've had such runarounds with ASUS support... I can't even describe my frustration, but, in the past two weeks I've been in contact with two ASUS reps for partner programs, and had to call ASUS support for a server board. The support call went straight to someone who understood that the error I was having (HighPoint RocketU 1144A is incompatible, at the moment, with Z9PE-D16) could be due to a PCIe splitter chip on the RocketU card... that never happens at Tier 1. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that ASUS support is trying to turn over a new leaf. I'm in a some what similar situation to you, and I've chosen to go with an i7-2600K and P8P67 Pro motherboard with 16GB Corsair Dominator 1866MHz. Total at the Egg $595, but I bought an open box motherboard (3 actually) for $130. Also, I game pretty casually (read: not a lot), I multitask like crazy (hence the i7 with Hyperthreading), and I plan to overclock to 4.5-5GHz, wherever runs stable.
For overclocking stability I believe it is better to go with fewer DIMMs, but I am sure this largely depends on the DIMMs themselves, I heard rumor of some cheap, ultra stable Samsung chips due out about now that offered performance level overclocking in unassuming, value RAM style chips. For me, I am going with 4x4GB vs 2x8GB due to the Dominator heatspreader with it's removable heatsink to make room for the Frio fan blades and... price.