Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z worth it?

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Shavako

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So I'm looking at this board for my next build but I'm having a tough time deciding if it's worth not being able to do crossfire (without significant heat issues). Crossfire was something I had been thinking about doing, but not until later on; I definitely wouldn't be buying two cards off the bat. Now I know it is possible to xfire with this board, but I'm guessing the heat issues are going to be way too bad and I don't plan on doing any liquid cooling. Other than that I really like this board. I'll be running an i5 2500k, HIS IceQ Turbo HD 6970, and 8GB Corsair Vengeance. This system will mainly be used for gaming at 1080p.

The reason I'm "iffy" on xfire is because the way I see it, by the time I need a second GPU I could just buy a newer model (albeit at a higher price). I'm not an enthusiast though so as long as I can play current games on high settings I'm good, I just don't know how long I could expect one GPU to do that.

So do you think I will end up disappointed if I go with a mATX? Or are the heat issues I've read about not that bad.


Note: I know the 7000 series is coming out soon and I may be going with a 7970 if they're not much more expensive. Also I know there is an eATX version of this board but it's out of my budget range :(
 
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v1zzle

v1zzle

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If you're not planning on Overclocking or doing any sort of tweaks, save the cash. I mean, do you really need all of those features. You simply want to do Crossfire or not, and you said you're not an 'enthusiast'. Just get something more simple for what you need. If you can get something cheaper than this one, why not. I say, check reviews, who knows..Just throwing it out there. if you don't want to Crossfire because of eat, just save more cash for a better single GPU. If you plan on Xfire in the future get a board with multiple pci-e slots, if not, just get a board with one, you'll save the cents. :)
 
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Its a great board. But if you don't need mAtx(one of the only decent matx motherboards) or overclock much, I would go for something cheaper.
 
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Shavako

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I was planning on overclocking but not much. Probably around 4.2ish. I don't really know what to look for in a mobo though. That one was just recommended to me by a friend.
 
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Shavako

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I was looking at that board but it doesn't have USB 3.0 which I'm probably just being picky about but the case I'm looking at (CM Storm Enforcer) has 3.0 ports with a mobo connection so that would be annoying lol.

Skyrim is actually one of the first games I'll be installing on this new system. I'm sure it runs fine though with no OC with still fairly high settings. OCing is probably something that will happen down the road when I start to actually need it. If the board I get has an auto overclock than I'll likely just use that.

Think there's anything in the sub $150 category with 3.0 headers and an auto overclock feature?
 
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kajabla

kajabla

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Do you really need front panel 3.0? If you have any 3.0 peripherals, they're probably external hard drives (which run faster off eSATA, by the way), and you can just leave them behind the computer, no?

OCing is ridiculously easy with Sandy Bridge (Core 2000-series). For modest overclocks like all you'll ever need, you can just set the multiplier in the BIOS. This is very, very easy. It'll be one of the first options that comes up. You don't have to mess with voltage or anything.
 
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Shavako

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I keep asking myself that too. I don't even have any USB 3.0 peripherals I guess I just think it would be a little more "future proofing". The only data transfers I really do with the USB ports is just transferring music, movies, small programs, homework, etc. to a flash drive. Movies and music can tend to take a while but I don't transfer that large of media very often. So really I'm probably not even going to NEED USB 3.0 any time soon.

I'll probably just go for the ASRock Extreme3 Gen3. What would I have to set the multiplier to to achieve 4.2ish?

Edit: Well now that I see the two boards that kajabla linked I'm probably going to go with one of those. Which of those two is better? They seem to have the same specs.
 
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42x. sandy is pretty easy to oc. You don't have to touch the base clock. All you have to touch is the multi. Maybe the vcore but you can be stable to 4.2x with default vcore.
 
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Shavako

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kajabla

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To set 4.2 ghz, set the multiplier to 42! Simple, eh?

I don't think you'll see any difference. Might as well get the cheaper one. What do you mean, doesn't look very good?
If you're ditched the MSI (don't know why), might as well go with the ASRock on the off chance that someday you'll drop in a SB-E CPU and graphics cards that can max out PCI 2.0 x8.
 
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Shavako

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From what I've read PCIe 3.0 labeling is just a marketing gimmick right now because you should just be able to update your bios and take advantage of PCIe 3.0 speeds once you upgrade to Ivy Bridge. The Gigabyte board is looking better to me right now. As far as I can tell the only thing the ASRock offers over the Gigabyte is the PCIe 3.0 slots. Gigabyte (in my eyes) is a more reputable brand, I mean the ASRock board doesn't even offer the standard 3 year warranty. Plus the Gigabyte has the OCGenie which from what I've read will easily OC a 2500k to 4.4.

So those are the reasons I'm leaning toward the Gigabyte is there anything I am overlooking?
 
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