Looking for the right mother board for an i7 920 build

[sikonawt]

Motherboards are one part of the PC that I'm not quite sure how to evaluate. I'm doing my first homebuild gaming system and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to go with an i7 920 processor. In terms of features on board wifi is not necessary, but I would like a board that is crossfire compatible seeing as right now I'm leaning toward one or more ATI GPUs. That said, I could still go Nvidia so I could use some SLI suggestions as well. Let me know if you need more information! Thanks!

 

[starams5]

Hi

These are some ASUS choices.


ASUS P6T LGA 1366 Intel X58:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131359


ASUS P6T SE LGA 1366 Intel X58:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131386

ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131365

 

[sikonawt]

Thanks -- my issue is more that I don't really know how to identify precisely which board is the right choice for my purposes. For example, some of these boards use DDR3 1333 RAM and then offer other speeds (ie: DDR3 1600 or DDR3 2000) but specify (O.C.). Will such a board take straight DDR3 1600 RAM that isn't O.C.'ed 1333?

 

[starams5]

That's why I gave you so many choices because the bottom line is how much money you want to spend. In regard to the OCed ram. I personally don't know how to identify if the ram is OCed or not by the specs. Example: I run 8500 ram which in reality is OCed 6400 ram. You would have to put this question to someone who has 1600 ram and have them check it with CPU-Z. If it is OCed ram it will show a slower speed under Max Bandwidth (8500 shows as 6400). I hope that helps.

 

[starams5]

Okay, I found some additional info. Read this thread and see posters pics regarding Max Bandwidth.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/263658-31-done

 

[sikonawt]

That's a very helpful thread, thank you for the link!

 

[Crashman]

That's a very helpful thread, thank you for the link!

Ignore everything and just go by motherboard comparisons. Tom's Hardware has two X58 motherboard comparisons you can look at.

1.) All these boards support the same processors
2.) All these boards support the same memory speeds
3.) Core i7 retail samples support DDR3-1066, DDR3-1333, DDR3-1600, and DDR3-1866. The motherboards also allow you to select DDR3-2133, but it won't work with most processors (memory controller issue) or RAM.

 

[starams5]

"Ignore everything" You might not agree with what I posted but that was overkill.

 

[Crashman]

"Ignore everything" You might not agree with what I posted but that was overkill.

It would have been more targetted to say "quit worrying" but he seemed concerned about several issues that are already addressed in the motherboard comparisons.

 

[starams5]

No problem big guy, I'm fairly new here and you know the site much better than I do. Maybe I should see more of what Tom's have to offer.

 

[one-shot]

It would have been more targetted to say "quit worrying" but he seemed concerned about several issues that are already addressed in the motherboard comparisons.

Dang....43,000+ posts. Nice.....