Motherboard and Ram questions for I7 Build

buiboy

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Mar 17, 2009
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I'm planning on purchasing the parts for an I7 build within the next week or so. I was looking at these 3 motherboards and was wondering if there was a big difference in performance between the 3. My main purposes for this build are gaming and longevity. For GPU I'm going with a GTX 285 now and another one probably around mid summer, so I will be SLI'ing.

ASUS P6T - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131359

ASUS P6T Deluxe - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131365

GIGABYTE UD3R - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128386

I would like to go with the Gigabyte based on price and I don't really see myself needing more than 4 memory slots, but I do see a lot people here going with ASUS, specifically the deluxe version. Also there is an open box for the deluxe right now for 205.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131346R

Do you think its safe or asking for trouble?

I am also looking at these two for RAM and was wondering if there would be a noticeable difference going with the OCZ over the G.SKILL.

G.SKILL - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225

OCZ Platinum - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227381

Of course if anyone has anything to recommend besides these parts please do :)




 

xthekidx

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Dec 24, 2008
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Open box items are always a gamble. Sometimes you get an awesome deal, sometimes you end up spending more because you have to send it back. Open box items aren't guaranteed to come with anything, like the manual (VERY IMPORTANT) or the proper cables, SLI Bridge ect.

If you want to SLI, then I recommend you get the Deluxe board because it has better spacing of its PCIEx16 slots, 2 spaces in between instead of 1 on the other two boards. This allows for better airflow between the GPU's and better cooling.

I don't think you will see much of a difference between the two kits, at that speed the bandwidth on the i7 platform is just rediculous and your ram won't bottleneck your PC, even if you get ram with higher timings. The OCZ ram is better, and if you are alright with waiting for the rebate then go with those, if you can't, then you will be happy with the G Skills I'm sure.
 

Siggy19

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Mar 5, 2009
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The problem with the gigabyte is having only 4 memory slots... not very upgradeable. ON the plus side, I gather from an article on Tom's website that even 3GB should be ample and there is (currently) minimal improvement going to 6GB let alone 12 (which is what 6 slots would allow).
 

buiboy

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Thank you for the responses :) So if I SLI go with the deluxe, what if I don't SLI I might just go with the 285 now and in a years time or so just upgrade the GPU. Is there a big difference between the P6T and the Gigabyte?
 

xthekidx

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Dec 24, 2008
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The P6T has more ram slots, and can overclock slightly better than the gigabyte UD3R. If you aren't going for something over like 3.6ghz and won't use more than 6gb of ram, then the UD3R seems like it would be a good fit for you. If you aren't sure then go with the P6T