Its time for me to upgrade.. and it seems Xeon E3 is the way to go

wolfeking said:
Are you planning on using a dedicated Sound Card? (I highly recommend one. They are worth it even on mediocre speakers (as in $50 5.1 Logitech))?
Do you need SLI/CFx?
Any need for memory overclocking?
Do you need SAS/RAID/Extra SATA/SAS ports?
Any brand preference?
will you be using a dedicated cooler? (that can make a difference).

Answer these, and we can find you a board.
Click to expand...

I wont be using a sound card, though i may buy in maybe a year or two, (using monitor speakers lol), memory overclocking? not really though I may adjust latency's but will keep at 1.5v, will not use sas, will raid 0 two 500gb 7200rpm seagate sata (one is sata 3, the other sata 2, but neither will saturate the full speed of sata 3 so it hardly matters) hard drives, my brand preference is gigabyte cause of ultra durable, but tbh I could careless, ive had good experiences with asus and msi too. I will be using my current hyper 212+ since I happen to have a extra 1155 bracket for it lying around. I dont need sli but I would love to have it as a bonus, I wouldnt mind 8x/8, though 16x/16x would be better, i plan on getting a gtx 660, and will add another one after one when I start to need it.
 
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Both of the boards wolfeking mentioned would be good. Get a evga GTX 660 ti, or MSI, or gigaybyte if you want matching brands. But i would go with evga for the warranty.
 
Just so you know the G1 sniper requires an extended atx case, it won't fit in a regular atx case.
 
johnb35 said:
Just so you know the G1 sniper requires an extended atx case, it won't fit in a regular atx case.
Click to expand...
It is supposed to require a extended case. Weather or not it will actually fit depends on the case design. Some larger Plain ATX cases will work just fine (the bolt holes are the same iirc)
 
Audio don't look terrible. BLEH! Wait till you get a sound card and you will see how bad the audio is! (or get a decent upgrade from an old sound card). (still personal choice though)

Without OC ability, it should be fine. You will be loosing some useful features (intel LAN, VRM cooling quality. VRM count), but if you want to do without them, it should be decent. The lowest board I would personally recommend would be a UD3H though.
 
Thanks for the input, and I've actually never heard of those features xD, what do they do? I might consider going up a few tiers if it looks like it's worth it, and I dont mind switching brands, I've never actually used a gigabyte mobo, but I have a gigabyte 4850 and has alot more kick then one would think.

As for the sound card, I have a old creative sound blaster (anyone knows the name knows how infamous it is for bad drivers), wasnt a great experience, and now Im using my VIA 1700(17xx something idk lol), does just fine by me, though I bet a sound card would really do me a lot, I'll probably buy auzentech card in the future, but atm Im using monitor speaker so I doubt it would make a difference for me.

And another thing I will be using wireless, so having a good ethernet controller is pretty useless for me, My current adapter is real fast (downloading torrents at 3.5mbps with a standard high speed plan, nothing special) and has great range/signal strength, its just not super reliable (though of recent it hasnt given me any issues for a whole month now!) and the ping seems to suffer something heavy, I get 21-26ms on speed test on here, where as on the wired pc (my dad's) he gets 12-16ms, and did a ping test to League of legends using cmd, I would get 90-110ms, my dad's pc would get 60-70ms.
 
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The only downside to the HD4000 series is the noise. There are Rolls Royce Merlins quieter than this at full load. :(

Intel Lan is just what it says. It is Ethernet controller that is manufactured by Intel. Personally, I would not use any other network card brand if at all possible, but that is just me. Intel has better (as in less troublesome and more up to date) drivers for their products, and I find the latency is a tad lower (only by about 2ms, but it can make a difference in game) on intel vs Marvell.

VRM is responsible for supplying power to the processor. The more Phases (VRMs in a matter of reasoning) you have, the less ripple your Voltage will have and thus the more stable your processor will be. At stock speeds though, it is not going to make a great deal of difference.

VRM cooling, is just what it says. It is the heatsinks responsible for keeping teh VRMs cool. At stock load, any cooling will be fine. This is more targeted at overclockers. But also note that the cooler they run, the longer they last (that goes for practically all computer parts to a point).
 
OK so should I go for the GA-Z77X-UD5H-WB? It has wifi in the name so its suppose to have good wifi??? lol. Is there a "intel wan" i should be looking for? lol
 
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WLAN. Wireless Local Area Network. WAN is Wide Area Network. A desktop will not need to access a WAN.
And You can grab a normal UD5H (I probably did not pay attention when linking), and grab a Intel WLAN card should you need one.
 
lol OK sorry meant WLAN lol, why the WLAN with the wifi version isnt any good? And for $200 there isnt any 16x/16x mobos?

Edit, wow nvm, just looked, however teh z77x-up4h-th seems to be in the same price range, whats the differences? (other then thunderbolt which is completely useless to me lol) seems one has ultra durable 4 while the other is ultra durable 5.
 
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likely not any 16/16 in that price range. To get 16/16 on LGA1155 you need to get a board with NF200, and they don't come cheap.

Likely (not sure as I have not looked at it in detail) the included Wireless is Atheros or Raeltek and they are not the best option. Not horrible options, but if you are putting money into it you don't want them.
 
i dont really want to put alot of money into a new wireless, I found this:
Z77X-UD5H
-CPU Power: 12+2+1 Phase

Z77X-UP4 TH
-CPU Power: 10 Phases

But will that be important since I cant overclock?

Also found (from here) :
"UP4 has slightly upgraded VRM compared to UD5H. It uses IR3550 mosfets with IR3563 6 phase PWM (same as UD5H) and upgraded chocks.
UD5H offers better audio with headphone amplifier, and gives you SATA ports instead of thunderbolt."
and
"UP5-TH is a different thing. It has 8 phase IR3563 PWM. It also has one of the best ALC898 audio implementations with the same headphone amplifier as on UD5H"

And whats the difference between ultra durable 5 and 4?
 
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lol ok, il choose tommorow since I dont order for a month.
though im leaning towards the ud5h wifi, since I want a better wifi adapter lol. only $30 more then the ud4h.
 
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The only difference between Xeons and i7s for LGA1155 is that they don't have IGP and they're multiplier locked (just like non-K i-series chips). There are other minor differences like ECC support (still works fine with non-ECC RAM) and some extra virtualisation related technologies, but given otherwise identical hardware those things won't matter the slightest. None of them negatively affect everyday computer usage in any even most minute ways. As far as socket 1155 goes, the main difference between Xeon and iX is marketing, not the actual hardware. They're not in any way "designed" for workstations or servers, they're the exact same chips, just with the IGP disabled and some advanced features left intact. The claim that Xeons are worse for desktop users than comparable i7 chips is just unfounded piffle and I have no idea why that myth is still in circulation.

It used to be the case that you would have to get a server/workstation/high-end motherboard to use a Xeon even when the sockets were the same, true enough, but mobo support as of Ivy Bridge is very good and finding a reasonably priced desktop board that supports Xeon isn't hard at all these days. I know, I've got one. And it's not snake oil. It makes perfect sense to get a Xeon if you don't plan to OC and don't need an IGP, that money saved won't come back to bite you.

And I repeat: if you have no use for the IGP and you don't OC, you won't miss out on anything if you get a Xeon. All other claims are nonsense.

FWIW, here's the comparison between the E3-1230V2 (the Xeon I have) and i7-3770, a similarly clocked i7, on Intel's own site: yo! I encourage everyone to have a look and find all the relevant features that make the Xeon "unsuitable" for normal desktops/gaming computers.
 
Thanks for clearing that up! Helps alot. Only con I see is having to explain to friends why you have xeon lmao.
 
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