Need advice for a new motherboard

R

raving bonkers

New Member
Hey all. Have drifted around the forums for a while and read many articles but thought it was time to register and post. I'm still quite new to all this computing stuff and learning on the go. I currently have a good system but I got it on the idea of building it up, upgrading and learning more about computers after having used low cost laptops for quite sometime. So I'm not up to scratch on all the lingo or what does what as yet but I am getting there.

So at the moment I have:
H67M-GE Mother Board
16 GB RAM, (DDR3 I think)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2300 CPU @ 2.80GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 210

Now I have an AX1200 PSU sat around and a Coolmaster HAF X is on route in the post. My aim is to get a computer ready to SLI link two GeForce GTX 590s. So get a new motherboard, then one GTX 590, upgrade CPU to the i7 Extreme Edition, anything else I may need before finally the second GTX 590.

Now while browsing forums, searching google and checking the nVidia site has helped me out loads, there just seem to be so many options for motherboards and I want to be sure before I buy. So this is where I need a friendly bunch of peeps to push me in the right direction.

I have for the most part had my eye stuck on the 'Asus Socket 1366 P6T7 WS Super Computer 6400MT/S' priced between £300 and £350. I'm in no real rush so if there is a better MB out there I can save for it. My main needs is to ensure I can allow space between the two 590s while at the same time my wireless conection also takes up a PCI slot (unless getting a usb dongle is of the same connection speed or better???)

I have also seen the EVGA 170-BL-E762 as rated as one of the best. Now this may be just me and my luck searching online but EVGA customer reviews seem to have had more problems and faulty boards compared to other brands. Also the nVidia site doesn't mention any EVGA products in their advice to building a Quad SLI rig. So that has kept me from looking to much at them.

If there is any other specs you need to know please ask and I appreciate any help and/or advice you may have to offer.

Thanks, Ash
 
Why are you actually downgrading your cpu socket? Anything but a 1155 socket board is now dead. And if you only want to sli 2 cards, you definately don't need more then 2 pci express slots.
 
raving bonkers said:
Hey all. Have drifted around the forums for a while and read many articles but thought it was time to register and post. I'm still quite new to all this computing stuff and learning on the go. I currently have a good system but I got it on the idea of building it up, upgrading and learning more about computers after having used low cost laptops for quite sometime. So I'm not up to scratch on all the lingo or what does what as yet but I am getting there.

So at the moment I have:
H67M-GE Mother Board
16 GB RAM, (DDR3 I think)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2300 CPU @ 2.80GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 210

Now I have an AX1200 PSU sat around and a Coolmaster HAF X is on route in the post. My aim is to get a computer ready to SLI link two GeForce GTX 590s. So get a new motherboard, then one GTX 590, upgrade CPU to the i7 Extreme Edition, anything else I may need before finally the second GTX 590.

Now while browsing forums, searching google and checking the nVidia site has helped me out loads, there just seem to be so many options for motherboards and I want to be sure before I buy. So this is where I need a friendly bunch of peeps to push me in the right direction.

I have for the most part had my eye stuck on the 'Asus Socket 1366 P6T7 WS Super Computer 6400MT/S' priced between £300 and £350. I'm in no real rush so if there is a better MB out there I can save for it. My main needs is to ensure I can allow space between the two 590s while at the same time my wireless conection also takes up a PCI slot (unless getting a usb dongle is of the same connection speed or better???)

I have also seen the EVGA 170-BL-E762 as rated as one of the best. Now this may be just me and my luck searching online but EVGA customer reviews seem to have had more problems and faulty boards compared to other brands. Also the nVidia site doesn't mention any EVGA products in their advice to building a Quad SLI rig. So that has kept me from looking to much at them.

If there is any other specs you need to know please ask and I appreciate any help and/or advice you may have to offer.

Thanks, Ash
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I would get the ASRock X79 Extreme4 ATX Motherboard.

Also, I'm assuming that you're going to be using this for gaming so I don't understand why you're getting an i7 Extreme Edition. You should just go for the i5-2500k, it would save you a lot of money.

And btw, if you do go for the i5-2500k, you can't get the motherboard I suggested because the i5 has a LGA 1155 socket type.
 
Well this is the thing, I do not know what I need to look for with the motherboard or what is meant by the 'socket' you guys mention. I have tried looking online but there is so much info out there its hard to find where to start. The motherboards listed were ones recommended for SLI linking the 590. What motherboard or range can you guys recommend for me to look at. And any links you have so I can start to understand motherboards would be great.

For the PCI slots, without a water cooling unit I would prefer to have space between the GPUs as recommended and due to the 590 size it takes up the space of two slots already.

With the CPU, I already have the i5 2300, so would the 2500 be much of a change? Again this was from several sites recommending the i7 quad for the SLI linking and if I am going to upgrade I would just like to get my hands on the best. If the i7 extreme is something I won't need then an i7 2700?
 
there are no lga 1155 (which your i5 is) i7 extremes, and they aren't hardly any benefit, especially for the price. and even if you sli'd 4 590's, you still wouldn't get much of a benefit from an i7, next to no game uses over 4 cores, and since the i7 only has 4 acting like 8, there is no benefit of having that i7. plus i'd say unless you are buying like in the next week or 2, wait for a radeon hd 7990 to come out, the 7970 is a good bit better than the 580, so the 7990 should be a good bit better than the 590, but idk when it comes out yet. as for the motherboard, for what you want you might be looking at the 300+ buck asus and gigabyte z68's that have extra pci-e slots.
 
So stick to the i5, will I notice a difference between the 2300 and 2500? Will the 2300 be able to deal with 2 SLI linked GPUs? If so would you still recommend upgrading to the 2500 or instead should I look into watercooling? (which would mean I wouldn't need to worry about spacing my GPUs)

OK, its one thing I have tried to avoid looking at online as the discussions between AMD and nVidia GPUs always seem to get long winded drawn out debates that are more arguments than helpful advice to the original poster. So here goes. I assume my AX1200 PSU and HAF X chassis will be fine with almost any sytem. Now simplified and sumed up, what are the differences between the AMD and nVidia GPUs? I mean can it be explained easily?

It won't be for a good 6 months before I get the first graphics card so no rush there. (unless the new radeon is cheaper but still better of course lol) But if I went with the new Radeon does this mean I need to look at completely different motherboards, CPU and RAM???

edit:
Whilst money isn't an issue after looking up the Radeon 7990 the estimated release date is march. Thats from multiple sites saying such within the last week. Has AMD released any specs of the 7990 so that I would be able to build a system ready for it to go in to, as the initial price estimate seems to be cheaper than the GeForce GTX590?

Another question, I am sorry to keep bugging you, I notice all the different names to what sound like the same or similar RAM type, such as 'name' DDR3. Does the name matter or is it just the DDR2/3/5 that I need to be aware of? And how can I check mine to be sure?

Finally as I always seem to go on a bit, I noticed on zPixel's signature he uses an ASRock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3, I looked it up and has had good reviews and is SLI/Crossfire compatible, so would that be a good MB to go for? Its also a great price compared to others I had been wrongly looking at.
 
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only benefit over the 2300 would be a 2500k (and if you were going to upgrade you should get the ivy bridges coming out soon, they are slightly faster and use less power, the 2500k is 95w while the 3570k or whatever it is will be 77w i think) with a liquid cooler and stuck at 5ghz, the 2300 can't get there, non k models are overclocked in a less stable manner which won't get you more than a few 100 mhz.

case and power are fine, basically the difference is some games like on more than the other, and currently nvidia tends to have better drivers, but amd's are fine. basically it comes down to price point as to which is better. if somebody tells you one is always better, they are an assenine fanboy and you should basically disregard anything they said

any graphics card will aork with any motherboard, at least any new and new, currently everything upper end is pci-e 2.0 and 3.0 x16, which is what all the cards run on, and the 2.0 and 3.0 are interchangeable, they don't make any difference other than on the new 7XXX series on non-gaming tasks they do benefit from 3.0

i don't know how good it will be, but the 7970 has been tested by numerous sites and for 50 more than the 500 dollar gtx580, it averaged approximately 20% better, so it will definitely be better, i'd guess it'd be around 800 or so, idk what others are saying, but idk much about that, that's just my guess.

not sure what you're asking, your motherboard is going to be ddr3, a gtx590 would be gddr5, and the 7990 uses a newer different and from the benches supperior i'd say ram, don't remember the name though.

and that looks to be a great motherboard, they are one of the best brands, only surpassed by gigabyte and asus, but asus has support issues now and are getting a little iffy. but it will run one card at 3.0 x16, or 2 cards at 2.0 x16/x16, or 3 at 2.0 x16/x8/x8, and i forgot to put it in the other part, the difference from 2.0 to 3.0 is the bandwidth, 3.0 can send a good bit more info through at once, but so far no cards can use that in gaming, so it isn't very important.

also the problem with buying in 6 months is the gtx600's will be coming out then or within the month, although whether the 690 will be coming or even benched yet i can't say, they come out in weird ways, like so far we only know about the HD7970 so far but there are about 10 other cards to come
 
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Thanks for that, so I will be safe buying the ASRock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 MB.

Will I still be able to use my DDR3 ram or will I need to upgrade to DDR5 (or something different if the 7990 needs it) before I get the graphics card or will the DDR3 still work with it for now? Allowing me to upgrade the ram later?

And its worth waiting to see the new Ivy Bridges, so really for the graphics card, ram and CPU I should wait until March/April (hopefully no longer) as that seems to be the release dates. Will the Ivy's still be ok with the above mentioned motherboard?

It may be a bit side tracked but would two GTX 580's SLI linked be a good way to go for a gaming system? Would that run the likes of Battlefield 3 and Skyrim on ultra or even Metro? I have heard they are great cards by them selves and I have seen them going new for as low as £260 and that would work out a lot cheaper. Even compared to the 7970 prices.

Thanks again for your time.
 
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