EVGA 4 Way Classified vs Asus Rampage III Black Edition vs G1 Assassin

AG Renagade

Distinguished
Nov 9, 2010
132
0
18,690
Alright guys, whats good with each, whats not?

Things to go with them:
i7 970 (possibly 990X)
Corsair H70
HAF X
2x GTX 580
OCZ Vertex 2E SSD
Corsair AX1200

So yeah, help me decide which board is the best among these power houses, whats the ups and downs?

Thanks.
 

asantesoul

Distinguished
Nov 10, 2010
611
0
19,010
Your best bet at this time is the G1 Assassin...it currently has all of the capabilities that the R3E and EVGA board has..but, far more stable, and more robust.. Currently, the rampage 3 can be acquired at a fairly decent price for the features...but, I would recommend, if you can, waiting for the Rampage 3 Extreme Black edition..

But, of the 3, the G1 Assassin will work really well..The EVGA board has had some issue in the past with its 24 pin on the board...too much power = a fried motherboard and friend 24 pin cord..however, they may have put out new revisions..I am unsure..But, the G1 Assassin is your best bet if your looking for the best of the best, period! Second to that, the R3E...and, if your willing to wait the R3E Black edition..comes with the Thunderbolt (sounds card/NIC that boasts incredible speeds)
 

AG Renagade

Distinguished
Nov 9, 2010
132
0
18,690
If you read the OP, I was mentioning the R3 Black Edition, not the standard extreme. After reading around I've noticed people still prefer the 4Way SLI for its scaling capabilities and I didn't notice too many power failures. Could you please link to what you're referring to?
 
What are you planning on doing? Do you already have some parts? Scaling beyond 2 cards has documented diminishing returns.

If you haven't bought any parts yet, you should rethink that entire build. CPU, SSD, PSU--none are optimized. You could instead spend some of that dough on monitors. See: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261222-31-build-advice

I'm sorry I didn't really address your question. But it looks like you're getting ready to spend $2.5K on a build that gets beat by a $2K build.
 
Well the first thing Id mention is that you seem to be building a gaming box and with only 2 boards in SLI, the 1366 platform is a bit gimped. Two 580's will certainly show a difference at x16 x16 but you can get that on the 1155 platform. Going for quad SLI, OK, stick w/ 1366 but two boards + an optional 3rd in dedicated PhysX duty is the realm of 1155.....even if ya want x16 x16 as all ya need is a NF200 chip on the board.

With twin 580's I'd grab the Asus Revolution and an i7-2600 (x16 x16)
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3795/asus_p8p67_ws_revolution_intel_p67_express_motherboard/index.html
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131714&cm_re=WS_Revolutioin-_-13-131-714-_-Product

With twin 580's + a dedicated PhysX card, I'd grab the Asus Maximus IV Extreme and an i7-2600 (x16 x16 x8)

Either of those will be faster than any of the combos you listed ..... not in 3D rendering, movie editing, huge spreadsheets / databases, but in gaming the 1155 is king at this point.

Another thing ya might consider is that the factory OC'd 560 Ti's perform very close to the 570's. Guru3D uses the following games in their test suite, COD-MW, Bad Company 2, Dirt 2, Far Cry 2, Metro 2033, Dawn of Discovery, Crysis Warhead. Total fps (summing fps in each game) for the various options (single card / SL or CF) are tabulated below. In this table, for example, the 6850 gets 371 fps total in those games as single card, 634 in SLI and costs $0.42 per frame as a single card and $0.49 n SLI

6850 (371/634) $0.42 - $0.49
6950 (479/751) $0.51 - $0.65
560 Ti (455/792) $0.53 - $0.61
6970 (526/825) $0.64 - $0.81
560 Ti - 900 Mhz (495/862) $0.43 - $0.50
570 (524/873) $0.64 - $0.77
580 (616/953) $0.81 - $1.05
6990 (762/903) $0.95 - $1.61
590 (881/982) $0.79 - $1.43

The 560 can be OC'd to 1000 Mhz per the many published reviews .... I'll be taking a shot at it tomorrow .... expecting (535 / 932 performance if scaling holds.

The H70 is nothing to get excited about. Note that the 1155 CPU's simply are not limited by heat. BMR writes:

I think the Silver Arrow represents the ultimate air cooler than can be built and still fit within the constraints of an ATX motherboard and a standard computer case......

It's almost ironic that coolers like this are becoming available just as processors transition to designs that may ultimately render them unnecessary; even overclocked to 5GHz, an Intel Sandy Bridge 2600K doesn't need anywhere near this level of cooling. Still, it wouldn't hurt, and as I noted earlier, there are still CPUs out there that can benefit from it.

With regard to the H70, it really is not that great a performer .... with the same fans, it gets thrashed by the much cheaper Antec 620 (note the 620 as well as the H50 and H70 are OEM'd by Asetek, but the Antec has some improvements not available on either the Corsair or Asetek's own models).

Ya really don't need anything better than the Scythe Mugen 2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185142&Tpk=scmg%202100

Ya want the top dog .... 3rd fan can be added .... but as said above, heat is not gonna be the issue here.
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/11676/cpu-tri-77/Thermalright_Silver_Arrow_Dual_160mm_x_140mm_Fan_Universal_CPU_Cooler_Sockets_775_1156_1366_AM2_AM2_AM3.html

I won't recommend any of the self contained water units (H50/H70/620) cause in multi SLI configurations, these things hit the GFX card in the PCI-E No. 1 slot..... yes Been There / Done That, shipped it back.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=694&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=4

I have built twin SLI systems in both the DF-85 and HAF-X and the DF is the easier build and I prefer the DF's feature set. But cases are most often an aesthetic choice so buy what ya like. Of late most builds I'm doing contain twin 900 Mhz 560 Ti's. In the DF-85 I use the CP-850 .

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story4&reid=142

[The CP-850] is completely unmatched by any ATX unit on the market I can think of. You'd have to spend twice as much as this thing costs to find the next best thing, performance wise.

The XFX Black 850 (can get away w/ 750) is the best choice for the HAF-X. With the 580's, you're gonna want a 1,000 watter. The Corsaie AX and HX series are all capable of handling those and get 10,0 performance ratings at jonnyguru .... as does thr XFX Black and CP-850.

With the Vertex 3 hitting the shelves, you don't wanna invest in the older tech Vertex 2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227706
 
First off--great advice JackNaylorPE.

OP, I was assuming that you wanted SLI'd GTX 580's because you'd be gaming on triple monitors or maybe 3D on multiple monitors. If that's the case, a GTX 560Ti overclocked might not get it done--especially when you can OC GTX 580's still.

@JackNaylorPE--If the OP intends to use triple monitors, do you think the 2GB frame buffer of Radeon cards is relevant?
 
I recently answered a post where the plan was three 120 Hz monitors and I don't think anything can run say Metro on that. Having never built a triple monitor rig, I hate to give advice absent personal experience. But from what I have read, and that's getting difficult to take as gospel in light of repeated "payola" allegations at various sites, the 2GB cards do certainly have an advantage at huge resolutions.
 

AG Renagade

Distinguished
Nov 9, 2010
132
0
18,690
Thanks a lot for your help guys.

I would like to point out though that gaming isn't the only purpose of this rig. I may be doing some workstation tasks like the ones mentioned above. If you had to choose between those 1366 boards though? I don't really see too much point in the R3 Black Edition at this moment other than the NIC and it carries a price tag.

As for your questions about monitors, I will be using just a 27" at 2560 x 1440 but will be going multi later on. I would like to hit high frames on today's demanding games, that's why I was looking at the 580s. Most likely 2 580's + PhysX, potentially an upgrade to 3 580's in the not so near future.

As for the H70, I've used it in a HAF 932 before where I mounted it to the top rather than the back and it worked great with SLI, can't really do that with a HAF X though.

Anyway guys, let me know once again what you would choose if you had to go with those 3 boards.

Any and all help is appreciated, thanks.
 

AG Renagade

Distinguished
Nov 9, 2010
132
0
18,690
Plus I don't see too much point in buying Sandy bridge now with Ivy bridge on the way. The older i7's were known to be good but when Sandy bridge came out, there were so many southbridge issues. I know Sandy may clock better but I'd rather get Bloomsfield even. Its known to work well, and now with games being so GPU intensive rather than CPU except for the odd few. Sure I could hit over 5Ghz on air with a Sandy bridge but I'd be just as happy with 4.6 with an H70. Neither would bottleneck my cards. :lol:
 
I suppose Nehalem MIGHT have meaning if you're using that many PCI-e lanes. But I still don't recommend it. It's too expensive with minimal performance benefits. Read: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pcie-geforce-gtx-480-x16-x8-x4,2696-17.html

Clock for clock, Bloomfield is worse. You factor in the clockspeed increase and we're talking a 2500K beating a 950 by 35% for less money. So at least according to reviews I can find, you'll be more limited by your i7-950 than your bandwidth.

Bandwidth...has anyone tested OC'ing the PCI-e from 100MHz to 105 or 110? I think it's usually stable at slight OC's.

But at 2560 x 1440, I really doubt you'd get much of a measurable performance improvement with Bloomfield over SB.

Btw, Ivy Bridge IS Sandy Bridge--just a die shrink to 22nm (except for LGA 2011). Same architecture from what I last heard. So the "so many southbridge issues" they had in the past should be out of the way. Although, that's drastically blowing their "issues" out of proportion. They were minor SATA II issues that have been fixed.

EDIT: An i7-2600K soundly beats a 990X. That processor is just a well to throw money down.
 
Between the boards you asked about, it all depends on the PCI-e lane spacing. I also prefer ASUS & Gigabyte over EVGA. I had some trouble finding specs on the lane assignments, but you want spacing that allows cooling. So if you have 4 slots, you'd want slots 1 & 3 to be fullspeed 16x.

EVGA Classified 4-Way SLI: I can only find specs for a similar Classified (http://www.evga.com/support/manuals/files/141-BL-E759.pdf). The top two slots are 16x--not spaced to allow best cooling.

ASUS Rampage III BE: Lane 1 & 3 are at 16x--ideal for cooling (http://www.iusermanual.com/motherboard/asus-rampage-iii-black-edition-motherboard-manual.htm). It also has a more comprehensive manual with an extra special sound card included. It all seems like it's a higher class package with more features than the EVGA. Have you ever bought an OCZ PSU? Then a Corsair? The Corsair is just packaged nicer in every way.

Gigabyte: Lane 1 & 3 are at 16x--ideal for cooling (http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_g1.assassin_e.pdf). The Gigabyte board also has useful extra features like the ASUS (although not as pretty of a manual).

I'd pick between the ASUS or Gigabyte. My decision would be based off of color schemes. How high of an overclock you can get will almost entirely depend on the CPU with these boards.


Keep in mind that spending $500 on any of these motherboards is a poor purchase choice. If you actually care about your gaming experience, you'd save $400, buy Sandy Bridge AND an extra monitor. I REALLY hope you're not buying 24GB of RAM or something crazy like that. Because more monitors are gonna impact your experience more than any of that stuff.

Of course, if you go multi-monitors at these resolutions, you should go for one or two 6990's (which requires an acoustic dampening case). The frame buffer will really come into play. Unfortunately, there is very limited testing for such high end setups. I think Lian makes some quiet cases or you can go for a waterblock.

Once again, you may end up CPU limited in the excessive scenarios I'm suggesting.
 

ipolis64

Distinguished
Sep 20, 2011
1
0
18,510
have asimilar question on the mater so i am prefer asking her than opening anew thread.

I have currently the following:
i7-965 extreme processor oc with airflow at 3.9 mhz
asus rampage extreme ii
2x 150 mb velociraptors hd
gibabyte nvidai 580

Lately one the velociraptors is acting up with cold boot up failure and formm some daignostics tolls i recon it about o fail soon.

Thus i must change it. However i would like prefer( know money down the drain and all but a fresh up wont hurt me after all no?) with the following to replace them with faster ssd one.Since the new fast ssd sata iii ones are not supported form my motherbaord i figured i would aquire the equilvamnt of my mobo

The Asus Ramapage iii extreme one
1x ocz vertex 3 ssd 120 gb, 1x segate barcuda sata iii 1 tb
Corsair H100( i want to oveclock my processor over 4 mhz which i cant seem to aquire now with my curent noctua ariccoloing. The h100 sytem can be easily mounted on the top of the case which i will post below.I dotn wnat to go to liquid cooling yet since it will increase the whole budget alot anf the h100 seem the last step before it.
Case Corsair Osbisian 800 D

i awit your suggestions comments.