Gigabyte X58 UD5 or Extreme. Plus- which ram?

[grither]

running a i7 920...

leaning towards the x58 UD5 but have also been checking out the extreme. think the only difference is that the extreme has a better cooler on the northbridge, and something is setup for water cooling. I doubt I will ever water cool therefore I guess its about $50 more for the better northbridge cooler...but maybe there are other differences Im not aware of...

can anyone help me through my decision?

also, can anyone recommend ram? i have heard the gigabytes can be fussy about which ram works...

all advice appreciated!

 

[Mongox]

These can be compared at:
http://www.gigabyte-usa.com/Products/Motherboard/Products_ComparisonSheet.aspx?ProductID=2960,2961

I don't think the Gigabyte fussiness would extend to these boards.

I'm not up on all these fancy MB cooling methods, but I think the water is self-contained, doesn't actually hook up to anything, but not sure. Oddly, the fancy page on the UD5 doesn't talk about the cooling but the Extreme has lots of marketing blurb about theirs.

If you read the reviews of the UD5 at NewEgg, some do say the Northbridge cooling could be better. From this, considering how expensive the even the UD5 is to start with (my MB cost ~$90) then how much more is the Extreme? Might be worth a few dollars.

For RAM, you can spend loads of money on fancy RAM in the 1600 and greater range. Read over this article by Tom's. Be sure to read the conclusions page if your eyes glaze over!
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-scaling-i7,2325.html

So, basically, the recommendation is for good solid 1333 DDR3 with low latency. I haven't seen any memory available that has better specs than this from G.Skill
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231276
But that is a 2 module set. Not sure why NewEgg doesn't have it in the triple. I like the CL=7 and 1.5V
This is a similar G.Skill with great timings
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231230

Do not buy any RAM with greater voltage requirements than 1.5V-1.65V

And you don't mention how much RAM you want, I'm assuming 6GBs. You want the Triple Channel so you're looking at 3 of something.

 

[grither]

awesome, thanks for the help.

you are right, the x58 ud5 is expensive to start with, and the extreme is another $50 bucks!!! of course better cooling is better but not sure if another 50 is worth it.. I will be getting a HSF and my lian li has great cooling... maybe I will pass

awesome thanks for the RAM recommendation... going to go with the Gskill you recommended

 

[grither]

ok correction... i know see neither of the ram I am optioning is on the approved list at Gigabyte!!!

the website does say that not all ram in existence is tested...

if I decide to just try one out should I go for

this GSkill

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231230

or

this Corsair. I like the heat spreader but not sure about timings etc

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145250&Tpk=TR3X6G1333C7

 

[bilbat]

If you intend to overclock, and don't need some particular feature available only on those two boards, I'd stick with the UD3R 1.6 - it's a second rev board, and already has the h'ware mod required to crank the i7... Also, current lead in my comparison chart in bang for the buck is OCZ OCZ3P1600LV6GK 1600 7-7-7-24 at roughly $145

 

[Mongox]

I think both are fine choices. I've been quite happy with G.Skill and they seem to lead the pack in several classes of RAM for performance. The timing specs for the Corsair are essentially equal to G.S

Note the 1.5V-1.65V vs 1.5V-1.6V between the two. If you overclock later, you might like having that extra .5V of space to push the RAM w/o upsetting Intel - LOL. (Intel demands no more than 1.65V be used in i7s.)

Don't worry about the QV list - they test RAM they have laying around rather than all on the market.

 

[Mongox]

LOL bilbat, will the OCZ's run at 1333 @ 6? I'm sure it was you that was posting that that i7 memory article to point out no one should spend for 1600s! Of course at this price, not really spending for em.

Looks really good tho - $145 on sale today!
This is an OCZ 1600 that has CL=7 timings - and a very nice heat spreader!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227381&Tpk=OCZ3P1600LV6GK

 

[bilbat]

That's exactly why i'd recommend 'em - they should give you 5-5-5-16 at 1066 - and , if you're partial to G.Skills (like I am) F3-12800CL8TU-6GBPI at the same price will likely give you 5-5-5-14 or 5-5-5-15 at 1066 - you wanna pay for lowest latency, not highest speed...