Hey guys,
Currently I have the ASUS P8Z68-V. It's a great motherboard for what it was designed for, and hasn't ever given me a single problem. When I first bought it, I wanted something basic, but great and reliable for its price. And that's what I got. But now, about 1 and a half years from when I built my pc, my needs have changed and I need something a bit better than this. I'm currently running a 7970 on the top PCI-E slot and a Sound Blaster ZX sound card on the bottom one, and there's barely enough room to fit another card in there.
It's fine with it's current usage, but very soon I'm upgrading my 7970 to a 780 and the ZX to a ZXR (bigger, better sound card, although I won't be using it's daughter board). Also, down the road I plan on grabbing a second 780 for SLI. I do plan on overclocking my 780 quite a bit (this is my first card I'm ever going to try seriously overclocking).
So not only would I not have enough room, I'm afraid I would run out of bandwidth with PCI-E 2.0. I have decided then that it's time to upgrade. So can you please give me some suggestions or recommendations? I really like ASUS, don't know much about the reliability of the other brands, (a friend recommended to me the Gigabyte Sniper and one of the MSI boards). If I get another ASUS will I still have to do a fresh reinstall of the OS?
I also have a few questions.
1.) Is there any reason to get a Z68 or a P67 over a Z77?
2.) I realize I won't be able to take advantage of PCI-E 3.0 with my i5 2500k. So with any motherboard upgrade I'll be getting the same bus bandwidth as I'm currently getting with my Z68?
3.) For my uses, is PCI-E 3.0 needed or would make a good difference? I would really hate spending even more money on a new CPU. From what I know, from a performance standpoint there really is no reason to upgrade to Ivy Bridge or Haswell from an i5 2500k. Mine is OC'ed to 4.5 and never gets above 70C in any game, it's great. So is my bandwidth is going to be really tight with 2 (eventually 3) devices using my PCI-E lanes, making PCI-E 3.0 worth the upgrade to a new CPU? Besides that, I'm only worried about one other thing with my CPU, which is...
4.) With this new motherboard I'm getting and a 780, is my OC'ed i5 2500k going to be a bottleneck in games?
I really don't think I need or upgrade my CPU, nor do I want to. But if the bus bandwidth is too saturated and/or if the i5 2500k is not enough with a 780, please give me your honest opinion if a CPU is worth the upgrade.
Sorry for deviating from the original question, but they're all related. Thanks so much.
Currently I have the ASUS P8Z68-V. It's a great motherboard for what it was designed for, and hasn't ever given me a single problem. When I first bought it, I wanted something basic, but great and reliable for its price. And that's what I got. But now, about 1 and a half years from when I built my pc, my needs have changed and I need something a bit better than this. I'm currently running a 7970 on the top PCI-E slot and a Sound Blaster ZX sound card on the bottom one, and there's barely enough room to fit another card in there.
It's fine with it's current usage, but very soon I'm upgrading my 7970 to a 780 and the ZX to a ZXR (bigger, better sound card, although I won't be using it's daughter board). Also, down the road I plan on grabbing a second 780 for SLI. I do plan on overclocking my 780 quite a bit (this is my first card I'm ever going to try seriously overclocking).
So not only would I not have enough room, I'm afraid I would run out of bandwidth with PCI-E 2.0. I have decided then that it's time to upgrade. So can you please give me some suggestions or recommendations? I really like ASUS, don't know much about the reliability of the other brands, (a friend recommended to me the Gigabyte Sniper and one of the MSI boards). If I get another ASUS will I still have to do a fresh reinstall of the OS?
I also have a few questions.
1.) Is there any reason to get a Z68 or a P67 over a Z77?
2.) I realize I won't be able to take advantage of PCI-E 3.0 with my i5 2500k. So with any motherboard upgrade I'll be getting the same bus bandwidth as I'm currently getting with my Z68?
3.) For my uses, is PCI-E 3.0 needed or would make a good difference? I would really hate spending even more money on a new CPU. From what I know, from a performance standpoint there really is no reason to upgrade to Ivy Bridge or Haswell from an i5 2500k. Mine is OC'ed to 4.5 and never gets above 70C in any game, it's great. So is my bandwidth is going to be really tight with 2 (eventually 3) devices using my PCI-E lanes, making PCI-E 3.0 worth the upgrade to a new CPU? Besides that, I'm only worried about one other thing with my CPU, which is...
4.) With this new motherboard I'm getting and a 780, is my OC'ed i5 2500k going to be a bottleneck in games?
I really don't think I need or upgrade my CPU, nor do I want to. But if the bus bandwidth is too saturated and/or if the i5 2500k is not enough with a 780, please give me your honest opinion if a CPU is worth the upgrade.
Sorry for deviating from the original question, but they're all related. Thanks so much.
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