[Motherboard] Which mid-range x58 mb to buy for i7 950?

[sacotash]

Hello,
long-time lurker, first time poster here.
Been looking to upgrade my system for a bit and waited for the i7 950 price drop.

System will be used mainly for After Effects CS4 (CS5 in the near future), photoshop and premiere and of course some gaming on win 7 x64.

My initial plan was to pair the i7-950 with Gigabyte's UD3R, but after some reading/browsing thru the forums, it seems that this mb seems to be a lil flaky.

I dont need a high end x58 mb,with all the features, as I prefer manual overclocking, needing only 2x pcie 16x slots for dual sli 460 gtx (not going for more than 2 gfx cards) with usb 3.0 a plus, preferably air-cooled.

Was thinking of MSI's big bang xpower mobo, but I find the extra pcie slots a waste and I dont really need the easy switch overclock features - I rather find a stable OC setting manually and run it 24/7.

I would really appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks.

 

[tecmo34]

If you don't want the UD3R, I would go with the ASUS P6X58D-E, as the next best board for the price. You can't go wrong with either board... IMO.

 

[sacotash]

Thanks Tecmo, I never considered the Asus P6X58D-E before this. Even reading through most mobo reviews and shootouts, I would always skim past the Asus and just concentrate on Gigabyte or MSI.

Another thing it has over the UD3R imho is the 6 slot RAM, so perhaps this gives me the option to upgrade to 12Gbs of ram total (2x triple channel 6Gb kits). Not sure how well that works tho, most reviews I read only has 6Gb slotted total - will 12Gb have problems such as not all the available memory is loaded on boot or in win 7?

 

[tecmo34]

No... As long as you have a 64-bit operating system, you will be able to utilize all of the available memory.

 

[sacotash]

Best answer selected by sacotash.