Need help choosing a motherboad

[cschuele]

Hi, I am looking to buy an i3 540 and overclock to about 4ghz or more if things go well. I really like this Asus board ( Asus P7H57D) but it's $100 more then these otherboards.

MSI H55M-P31
GigaByte GA-H55M-S2H
GigaByte GA-H55M-UD2H
Asus P7H55-M Pro

Is it worth the extra price? Are any of these motherboads as good?
Can anyone suggest a great overclocking motherboad for this h55 chipset

thanks
 

 

[o1die]

The asus board is new so it costs more; it has onboard video where the others probably don't. You can get a low end video card for around $40 to go with one of the cheaper boards.

 

[jamers99]

So which mobo did you decide on? I too am interested in the ASUS P7H57D-V but it's $200.

If you did get this mobo, please share which cooler you put on it. I'm guessing with the OCing you would ne using the stock fan.

 

[cschuele]

I ended up buying GigaByte GA-P55A-UD3 Intel P55 Chipset cause it offers USB 3.0 and I have a 5770 graphics card. Alot of questions about h55, h57 chipsets so I just went with a more established p55 chipset. I havent got my parts yet ill let you know how it overclocks when I get it setup.

 

[Techno-boy]

I ended up buying GigaByte GA-P55A-UD3 Intel P55 Chipset cause it offers USB 3.0 and I have a 5770 graphics card. Alot of questions about h55, h57 chipsets so I just went with a more established p55 chipset. I havent got my parts yet ill let you know how it overclocks when I get it setup.

Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 has problem with its SATA 3 and USB 3.0 solution. When using SATA 3 or USB 3.0, your single video card would be bottleneck to x8 mode and if you do crossfire or sli then the SATA 3 and USB 3.0 would automactically turn off. This is do to sharing the same PCIe circuit lanes which limits the video card's bandwidth when turning those new features on.

You should have get ASUS P7P55D-E PRO more since it has onboard SATA 3 and USB 3.0 and its solution is better because it won't bottleneck your PCIe x16 slot's bandwidth when using those new features...

So far as I know, the only Gigabyte's motherboard that support SATA 3 and USB 3.0 without bottlenecking the video card or PCIe x16 slot's bandwidth is the newest flagship GA-P55A-UD7 but it would cost a lot.

Most of Gigabyte's mainstream P55A got screwed with that problem or being kinda defected due to flaw in design.

Sorry to say this since you already bought it. I'm just wondering if you can still return it and get a better product...

 

[cschuele]

Best answer selected by Cschuele.

 

[cschuele]

and to add it seems you have to disable to usb 3.0 in BIOS, its not just like u can game and full bus for video card just cause you arnt using the usb 3.0 at the time