Sandy mobo recommendation

[AMG]

Hi guys long time no see.

 

In a few months ( when I get stuff sorted) I will building a new pc to replace my ageing q9550, with a gtx480. So a complete new build assuming I manage to buy hdd for a sensible price this year..

 

The sandy bridge CPU I have have chosen is a 2500k and I might go SLI later. The main point is overclocking, so more power phases etc

 

I have spotted a few boards

Gigabyte GA Z68xp ud4 or ud3p

Asus p8z68 v pro

ASrock Z68 extreme 4 gen3

 

Anyone got expirances with any of theses boards? I'm going towards gigabyte however would like personal options on boards I have mentioned

 

I don't care for fancy bios as long as it works well.

 

I'm pretty much set on Z68 because I can it fits in budget plus I'm interested in the graphics hybird solution and the SSD feature, while I'm here I'm looking at getting a corsair force 80gb I'm think lol

 

Cheers for reading guys

[Tjj226_Angel]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131791

 

This one would be the best for overclocking, but you might want to wait a bit. In February Ivy Bridge will come out and soon after that the AMD 7000 series and the Nvidia 600 series will be out. It would be a much smarter investment if you could wait a little bit. If not, then I also would not go with the gtx 480. Unless you are getting a super awesome deal on the 480 a 570 or a 580 on sale might be a great way to go.

[Waco]

Sounds like he already has the 480. . As for the mobo I really like my UD4 but I haven't had a chance to really push it yet.

[AMG]

Yeah I understand what your saying, but new tech comes out all the time, GPUs are only king for less than 10 months at times, same thing for my 480, I got one two months after they came out holded out till the price was right, 3 months later Nvidia did a refresh with the GTX5XX oh well.

 

I haven't looked into Ivywall too much don't think its the replacemnt for SB? I will have a look at that.

 

but yeah my current gaming rig is on its last legs i can't find a replamcent board for it unless I try and recover my ROG P45 mobo from bent pins I dunno how that happened. So I ve missed quite a few generations in terms of chipsets and CPUs.

 

At the end of the day you gotta bite the bulliet one day, no point in waiting too much, unless it looks promising, I was thinking of going back to AMD but bulldozer was a bit of a flop..

 

back to the boards, yes I was looking at the asus, again i ve always had asus, also the colour () ASrock and gigabyte are in my colours, again yes I could have ROG Z68 gen but I m having a sound card that will hinder feature expanstion, such a shame as I ve got a big weakness for ROG boards, as they are very nice boards ( or is it cos I like black and red )

 

cheers again

[Drdeath]

+1 to the Z68 Extreme4. Mine overclocks both a 2500K and 2600K to 4.8GHz and no problems. It is a flawless board but the Asus is good too.

[AMG]

+1 to the Z68 Extreme4. Mine overclocks both a 2500K and 2600K to 4.8GHz and no problems. It is a flawless board but the Asus is good too.

I ve always had asus boards, but I have noticed they got alot of issues, and thier features is all over the place ( and i don't like blue! ) I m not saying other onces don't, ASrock is a very popular board and they seem to have odd firmware niggles with odd mouse movments or it not working. but nothing major.

 

To be honest I would like a Gigabyte, as in terms of overclocking, its a no brainer UD4 has 16 phase for CPU so it *should* overclock better and be safer for the cpu. the asrock is only a 10+4 for the cpu? but I would like PCIe 3.0 () althrough the cards are not out for it yet, I will land up with one eventaully....or two

 

So I will see what happens closer to the time, if gigabyte rolls out full PCIe 3.0 UD4 or UD3P whatever I decided to go for. one of the reasons why I m holding fire

[El_Capitan]

I stick with the tried and true, which would be the ASUS P8Z68-V Pro. However, those other boards listed are also solid options. I don't think you'd go wrong with either of them.

[Drdeath]

I ve always had asus boards, but I have noticed they got alot of issues, and thier features is all over the place ( and i don't like blue! ) I m not saying other onces don't, ASrock is a very popular board and they seem to have odd firmware niggles with odd mouse movments or it not working. but nothing major.

 

To be honest I would like a Gigabyte, as in terms of overclocking, its a no brainer UD4 has 16 phase for CPU so it *should* overclock better and be safer for the cpu. the asrock is only a 10+4 for the cpu? but I would like PCIe 3.0 () althrough the cards are not out for it yet, I will land up with one eventaully....or two

 

So I will see what happens closer to the time, if gigabyte rolls out full PCIe 3.0 UD4 or UD3P whatever I decided to go for. one of the reasons why I m holding fire

 

 

Asus owns ASRock FYI and the Asrocks are solid. I review boards and Asus has the same issues.

 

With the boards in question, stable overclocks are processor dependent. The should all OC wssentially the same reguardless of power phase

Edited November 29, 2011 by Drdeath

[Waco]

Asus owns ASRock FYI and the Asrocks are solid. I review boards and Asus has the same issues.

Nope. Asus and ASRrock are completely seperate companies and have been for a while.

 

As for power phases - the more the merrier to a point. They'll run cooler, last longer, and be more stable when pushed hard when there are more of them. They may not make a huge difference but they certainly influence your OC at the bleeding edge.

[Drdeath]

Nope. Asus and ASRrock are completely seperate companies and have been for a while.

 

As for power phases - the more the merrier to a point. They'll run cooler, last longer, and be more stable when pushed hard when there are more of them. They may not make a huge difference but they certainly influence your OC at the bleeding edge.

 

 

Never said they were the same company(thus one is named Asus and one is named Asrock). Asus restructured there business and formed the Pegatron Corporation which owns ASrock. They share many things between the companies and some they don't.

 

With stable overclocks on the boards listed the power phase will handle max stable overclock on a processor. Its not like one of them is using 4+1 power phase. In the case of the 4 motherboards listed for overclocking a Sandybridge chip, overclocking should be essentially the same......

Edited November 29, 2011 by Drdeath

[Waco]

Never said they were the same company(thus one is named Asus and one is named Asrock). Asus restructured there business and formed the Pegatron Corporation which owns ASrock. They share many things between the companies and some they don't.

Asus does not own ASRock nor do they own Pegatron. IIRC they share a board manufacturer and that's about it these days.

[scr4wl]

Asus restructured there business and formed the Pegatron Corporation which owns ASrock.

 

"In January 2010, Pegatron's then parent company Asustek announced a plan to spin off and to transfer its long term equity investment in Pegatron to its wholly owned subsidiary, Pegatron International Investment Co., Ltd. On June 10, 2010, Pegatron merged with Pegatron International, and Pegatron has since been the surviving spin off independent company."

 

I might have read this wrong, but it looks like Pegatron is no longer owned by Asus.

 

 

EDIT: Oops Waco beat me to it.