Advice on picking new motherboard (gaming)

[Mike518]

Just joined, but have been viewing these forums for over a year for advice, and always find an answer, good stuff.

I want to escape the 775 world and move onto an 1156 motherboard. I'll be recycling my outdated but still useful 8800gtx oc2. I'm shooting for an i3 that i'll oc, since gaming is my main use, so there isn't really much point imo to spend hundreds on anything better, and can always upgrade to i5/i7 down the road (on a bit of a budget also). I'm also coming from an old e5200 so... I'll see a ton of improvement in an i3 from my perspective anyway. I also can't justify upgrading to another 775, and my mobo is flaky and not able to oc. no bios updates available, it was a failure. My setup is a couple years old, and I was a total noob. Now that I'm just starting to grow out of noob status, I laugh to myself about the crap choices I made.

So in short, I need suggestions on a decent 1156 motherboard that will have good oc abilities, and sli would be nice down the road also, thanks.

Kinda leaning towards P55-UD3R (remember kind of on a budget, but don't want complete garbage... and that makes no sense???)

 

[tecmo34]

First... Welcome to the forum!

I would go with the ASUS P7P55D-E Pro over the Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R. The motherboard is better, provides better features and supports SLI, which the P55-UD3R doesn't.

 

[saint19]

Hi newcomer and welcome to the Tom's hardware forum.

I agree with the suggestion of tecmo34 and another good mobo that u can buy is the MSI P55-GD65.

 

[Mike518]

Hmm, I like both of your suggestions. Thanks for letting me know the gigabyte doesn't support sli, I must have overlooked/assumed. I have another question though. Both of the suggested boards look better than what I had originally picked, but do they support the i3? The gigabyte doesn't list the i3 as supported, but I found out that it actually does. Is this the same case with these two boards? Thanks for the replies.

The main reason for originally going with the gigabyte was that it was recommended for it's stability and overclocking in an article on "tom's hardware" (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i3-gaming,2588.html)

I will take both suggestions into consideration after I take a closer look at them, I just need to know about the i3 compatibility thing, thanks again.

 

[saint19]

Yeah, ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI support the i3 CPU but if u want a better reply let me know what specific i3 CPU do u wan install.

 

[Mike518]

sorry, i3 530.

 

[saint19]

CPU support list:

1- Gigabyte have the i3-530 as supported CPU
2- MSI also have the i3-530 as supported CPU in both GD65 and GD65 USB3 versions.
3- ASUS support the i3-530 too.

 

[Mike518]

Thanks for the info, it'll def help my decision guys.

 

[Mike518]

Best answer selected by Mike518.

 

[saint19]

Any time, that's why we are here. If u need more help come back to the forum.