2500K motherboard choice

[mutantbambi]

Hi guys, I'm building a gaming-oriented system that'll also be used for some sound recording (using Ableton Live Suite 8) and multimedia. I've got my basic specs down no worries, but I'm still unsure about the motherboard. Here's the basic system parts list so far:

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K
VGA: Gigabyte Radeon HD5850
RAM: 8GB G.SKILL RipJawsX 4GBX2 DDR3 1600MHz CL9
SSD: G.SKILL Phoenix Pro 60GB
HDD: Western Digital 1TB Black 7200rpm SATA III

My intentions for the future as as follows:

1. I want the potential for Crossfire, so I need a board that will run at least x8/x8.
2. I want to put a sound card in there (probably a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series) so that'll need a PCI-E x1.
3. I need to connect it to a wireless router downstairs, so at first I plan to use a cheap-ish PCI wireless card until I can afford to buy a second router (and use ethernet after that).
4. I want the potential to add an internal hdtv tuner like this which would use a PCI slot too.

The point of me explaining what I'm looking to expand with is because I have concerns about slots sharing bandwidth.

I do plan to overclock eventually, so that is a factor.

I'll be using a generic 650W modular PSU at first (from an existing PC, it's run stable and no issues so it'll do for now) with two 4-pin CPU connectors if that makes a difference. Eventually I'll replace it with an 850-1000W gold-rated PSU, but I need a working PC ASAP and the motherboard is my last choice before I buy hopefully after getting paid on Wednesday.

With no further waffling, I have narrowed down my choice to the following four boards:

Asus P8P67 Pro

Asus P8P67 Evo

MSI P67A-GD65

Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4

My budget doesn't really stretch beyond these. I've seen repeatedly that the Asus Pro board is highly recommended, but I have bandwidth concerns. I'm unsure about the difference between it and the Evo, except that they have slightly different bandwidth restrictions. I've also heard these boards have had some issues. I also heard the Gigabyte board has had some instability issues too. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Hopefully you guys can help me out, I appreciate any help I can get. Cheers.

 

[mdsiu]

ASUS P8P67 EVO Motherboard B3 looks like it has dual LAN ports so if you are planning on connecting via CAT5 go with that one for higher throughput.

 

[jb1185]

hi mate (not directly connected to your question) but what version of windows are you using 32/64 bit ??? i use ableton live 8 too but wasnt aware theres a 64 bit version which would mean less than 4 gig of your ram would be used . If you are using 64 bit do you have many probs running vst synths /effects !!!
im just about to build a new i5 2500k system so you may be able to help me - cheers,john

 

[mutantbambi]

Thanks for the response mdsiu, I'll look into whether or not that can help me.

G'day John, I'm using a Vista 64-bit laptop that only has 4GB of RAM at the moment so I can't really comment on the effect of more/less RAM. I have no real issues using synths/effects, but to be honest, I use them fairly sparingly as I prefer to set up my sounds before recording (I'm into rock music, so not many synths/effects anyway). My mate uses the same software in a high-end Win 7 64-bit setup to play around with dubstep/house/electro and he hasn't mentioned any issues. I'd contact Ableton directly to see if Live 8 in 64-bit is supported in Win 7 though.

I'm chucking into the ring the ASRock P67 Extreme 4 and Extreme 6, they both look extremely similar to the above four contenders. Any problems with either of these boards?

 

[simonyee04]

Hi guys, I'm building a gaming-oriented system that'll also be used for some sound recording (using Ableton Live Suite 8) and multimedia. I've got my basic specs down no worries, but I'm still unsure about the motherboard. Here's the basic system parts list so far:

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K
VGA: Gigabyte Radeon HD5850
RAM: 8GB G.SKILL RipJawsX 4GBX2 DDR3 1600MHz CL9
SSD: G.SKILL Phoenix Pro 60GB
HDD: Western Digital 1TB Black 7200rpm SATA III

My intentions for the future as as follows:

1. I want the potential for Crossfire, so I need a board that will run at least x8/x8.
2. I want to put a sound card in there (probably a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series) so that'll need a PCI-E x1.
3. I need to connect it to a wireless router downstairs, so at first I plan to use a cheap-ish PCI wireless card until I can afford to buy a second router (and use ethernet after that).
4. I want the potential to add an internal hdtv tuner like this which would use a PCI slot too.

The point of me explaining what I'm looking to expand with is because I have concerns about slots sharing bandwidth.

I do plan to overclock eventually, so that is a factor.

I'll be using a generic 650W modular PSU at first (from an existing PC, it's run stable and no issues so it'll do for now) with two 4-pin CPU connectors if that makes a difference. Eventually I'll replace it with an 850-1000W gold-rated PSU, but I need a working PC ASAP and the motherboard is my last choice before I buy hopefully after getting paid on Wednesday.

With no further waffling, I have narrowed down my choice to the following four boards:

Asus P8P67 Pro

Asus P8P67 Evo

MSI P67A-GD65

Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4

My budget doesn't really stretch beyond these. I've seen repeatedly that the Asus Pro board is highly recommended, but I have bandwidth concerns. I'm unsure about the difference between it and the Evo, except that they have slightly different bandwidth restrictions. I've also heard these boards have had some issues. I also heard the Gigabyte board has had some instability issues too. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Hopefully you guys can help me out, I appreciate any help I can get. Cheers.

Hi,
Asus got a power supply calculator
MSI site also got that
Please go and calculate first.
Then only decide the power supply you want to buy
www.coolermaster.com

 

[davcon]

Here's a good start decide what features are relevant to your needs.
Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1548/1/
MSI P67A-GD65
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1495/1/
ASUS P8P67 series
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1500/1/
I don't think you'll need more then a high quality 750W psu from Corsair,Antec,XFX,or Seasonic.
A quality 650W from the above mentioned makers will run 2x5850's.
I run a Corsair HX750 in my main i7 860 1156 build with a 5850 and high quality soundcard.

 

[mutantbambi]

I'm going with a Corsair HX850/HX1000 or AX850. Both may be slight or significant overkill, but I don't know what my future upgrade plans will be specifically, other than I'll want to overclock and may eventually be using more power hungry video cards in Crossfire, so perhaps the extra headroom will be handy.

So far I am leaning towards an ASRock Extreme 4 because I can get the best price on that, but I'm still struggling to distinguish anything that sets these boards apart. The Gigabyte UD4 looks good as does the Asus P8P67 Pro, and the ASRock Extreme 4 is just as good in reviews. The MSI has got the highest OC I've seen so far. I just don't know.

Can anyone help me out with something that puts one of these above the others? Dual LAN capability isn't enough of an incentive, because to be honest, I don't know how I'd use more than one. Literally, I don't know. Even scuttlebutt about faults/bugs would be helpful because it's something else I can research. Anyone?

Big thanks to everyone who has helped so far, those reviews were really good Davcon.

 

[fullofzen]

ASUS P8P67 EVO Motherboard B3 looks like it has dual LAN ports so if you are planning on connecting via CAT5 go with that one for higher throughput.

How would having dual LAN ports yield higher throughput? I could only see this helping at all if you're transferring data between two separate networks -- such as if you're setting this computer up to be a high-bandwidth router, or if you have two separate connections to the Internet...who even has that?

 

[simonyee04]

Hi,
Eventually if anything happen to the first lan port you have a back up lan port to to work with saving yourself a LAN card using PCI or PCIE slot.

 

[mutantbambi]

That's a fair point, but for the near future I'm gunna be using a wireless card in a PCI slot anyway so I'll have one open for a LAN card if it was to break in the future anyway. I think I'm going to go with the MSI P67A-GD64, but I am yet to be convinced. I'm going to do some more research on that, and if it comes up clean I'll get it. Thanks for everyone's help, I appreciate it.

 

[mutantbambi]

Best answer selected by mutantbambi.

 

[simonyee04]

Ah Wireless on the PCI slot.
Forget it unless you using a good brand router because noisy computer will creat noisy wireless
how far will it go?
Unless you using a wireless lan with a replaceable antenna
and with the N-Router also with replaceable antenna.
No hope for USB because if the power supply is screwy you will usb port problem with printer, wireless and flash drive.
you might say that you better off with wired LAN cable when you gaming you do not want to kick of the game if you wireless lan is slow.
Get it?

 

[mutantbambi]

My current wireless network seems to work great, my bedroom is directly above the router without about 10m of open living room and stairs between. My eventual plan is to just buy a second router to go up here, allowing me to use ethernet to connect my PC to the second router, which will connect to the main router.