LF a motherboard that will support SATA 3, PCIe x16, and USB3

[Tigole]

I am looking for some help in selecting the right board for a new PC build. I am looking for the following:

SATA 3 - 2 ports would be sufficient
PCIe 2.0 x16 support - 1 would be sufficient, 2+ would be a bonus in case I decide to ugrade later
USB3 support

I was also planning on building this for a quad-core i5 CPU to keep the price from running away from me but have not completely ruled out an i7 build.

I have also read some feedback on some motherboards (5-series Gigabyte and Asus boards for example) where people have enabled through the BIOS one of the 3 features I mention above only to have the motherboard restrict the usage of the other 2 to slower speeds - e.g. SATA3 is enabled but the PCIe is limited to x8 and the USB is dropped to USB2.0 functionality.

Can anyone here offer any suggestions or experience with a motherboard that meet this set of criteria?


Thanks.

 

[rolli59]

LGA1156? Or LGA1366 if you go with I7?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

What socket ? I got to the pointy where I was building so often,m and selecting an Asus board 85% of the time, that I got so familiar with the BIOS, build and TS procedures that it became a hassle to use anything else. Here's my top choices.,

1366 Recommendations:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007627%2050001315%20600007887&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=280|13-131-642^13-131-642-TS%2C13-131-641^13-131-641-TS%2C13-131-665^13-131-665-TS

1156 Recommendations
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007627%2050001315%20600007888&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=280|13-131-601^13-131-601-TS%2C13-131-594^13-131-594-TS%2C13-131-634^13-131-634-TS


1155 Recommendations
Asus Sabertooth TUF
Asus P8P67 Pro
Asus P8P67 Deluxe

 

[Tigole]

LGA1156 assuming an i5 build and LGA1366 if an i7 unless there is a good reason to do otherwise and still meet the goals stated above.

 

[rolli59]

This LGA 1156 board from Jacks list above would be my choice for possible Dual GPU setup http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131594
And again from Jacks list LGA1366 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131665

 

[Tigole]

Hrm. A couple of the board suggested don't support SATA3 (6gb/s). Also, feedback on newegg from a couple users on the ASUS P7P55D-E LX LGA 1156 states the following:

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Cons: SATA 6.0, USB 3.0 are mutually exclusive, turning on either drops the video card from x16 to x8. Leaving them disabled still gives plenty of SATA 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports, and since this PC is mostly for games the SATA 6 and USB 3 are not necessary, but the x16 is, so i leave them disabled.
If i had known the limitations i would have bought a different board since i'll probably never lower the video performance to enable those features, and they do waste energy, possibly reduce board performance since there may be some additional overhead to monitor them, and they are a possible source of hardware problems even when disabled. Granted, these concerns are probably not significant, but just factors to consider.

Other Thoughts: The product description on the website should list the limitation, if someone were buying this that needed SATA 6, USB 3, and X16 they would not be able to use this board, and there is no indication of that on the website.
------

This is what I am looking to avoid and am still a bit confused if this board is sufficient. Judging from that feedback it would appear that board would not work.

 

[jaquith]

If you want to steer clear of those 'shared' problems then the X58 currently is the better option. My favorite budget P55 is the P7P55D-E PRO http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131621

Q - What exactly drives are you planning to pair with the (2) SATA3 ports??

 

[Tigole]

The plan is to use one of the SATA3 ports for a 128GB SSD for the OS drive and a second 7200 RPM drive for data. Aparently, this is not possible to do while using a PCIe 2.0 x16 video on a P55 board. As far as I can tell this is only possible on an X58 chipset.

Also, thanks for the reccommendations. The Asus Sabertooth looks like it is a good board that meets my criteria.

 

[jaquith]

What exact SSD?

 

[Tigole]

Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148348

 

[jaquith]

Yep, you want that running on SATA3 and it's better by itself; I have a few. However, all MOBOs that I can think of -- oddly they work better in RAID 0 with either SATA2 ports or RAID Card.

In the past few builds I have migrated towards the RevoDrives in gaming rig. However, they require a free PCIe X4 slot.

Example OCZ RevoDrive OCZSSDPX-1RVD0120 PCI-E x4 120GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227578
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If it were me I would go the i7 950 {$200 @ microcenter.com if you live close}, ASUS P6X58D-E $215, and OCZ RevoDrive OCZSSDPX-1RVD0120 $309.