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Building new PC, need help choosing mobo

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May 14, 2011 11:46:48 AM

Hi guys, i'm new to the forums and I was looking for some advice on motherboards.

I am planning on building a new PC around the end of this month with a budget of about £1300.
It will be mainly for gaming, maybe some video and image editing too.
I have already decide on some parts, maily CPU, GPU, and case, but I'm still flexible if for some reason the don't work out.

What I was thinking was:

Case: Coolermaster HAF 912 - http://www.coolermaster.co.uk/product.php?product_id=66...
Processor: Intel i7-2600 (socket LGA1155) - http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=52213
GPU: nVidia Geforce GTX580 (still on decided on the manufucturer) - http://uk.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx...

I am also planning on having 8Gb of DDR3 RAM, 1 ~80Gb SSD for window7 only, 2 HDDs for storage. I am also planning on getting another GTX580 in a few months time to run them in SLi.

What I need help with really is a starting point on what I should start looking for on a motherboard, since I really haven't been keeping up on the newest mobos. I really dont know much about chipsets and all that stuff. All I know is that it should have an LGA1155 socket, DRR3 memory support (i'm guessing dual-channel), and support for SLi (I'm not sure if aiming for a mobo that can run both PCI-e slots on 16x is gonna be too expensive).

Hope some of you guys can give me some advice on what to look for.

More about : building choosing mobo

a b V Motherboard
May 14, 2011 4:32:12 PM

You leave lots of room for suggestions for mobos, below are just a couple good ones:
But suggest you go with the 2600k, not the 2600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
ASRock Z68 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $200

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
ASUS P8P67 PRO (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $180

You can find equivelant boards on a UK site.
May 14, 2011 6:14:27 PM

I was looking more for things like, what chipset is best for my setup and what kind of specific features i should look for on the motherboard (other than the obvious ones).

And yes, after talking to some people on another board I think i will go with the 2600k.
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a c 243 V Motherboard
May 14, 2011 7:07:59 PM

The 912 is a bit small for twin 580's .... lotta heat being generated....at the very least I'd do an HAF-922 (no front USB ports tho) or Antec 902 V3. Prefereably, you'd use a full tower such as the HAF-X or DF-85 with the twin 580's

The 2600k is the top processor but if you are OC'ing, recognize that it runs about 7C hotter than the 2500k when OC'd. The normal response from gamers for HT equipped CPU's running too hot is to turn off HT .... but if you do that, why not save $100 and get a 2500k ? For mixed use systems, that is those that use video editing, CAD, PhotoShop, big number crunching, I'd use a 2600k .... setting the regular BIOS boot profile to about 4.5 GHz for that stuff and an alternate BIOS boot profile for extreme gaming at 4.8 Ghz and HT turned off. If it's primarily a gaming box, I'd use the 2500k.

Yes, with a 580, the x16 x16 thing via the NF200 should definitely be in the picture.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/p67-gaming-3-way-sl...

Personally, any manufacturer which doesn't provide a 3 year industry standard warranty is not on my shopping list .... that excludes Asrock. That leaves the Asus WS Revolution and Gigabyte UD7 as the main competitors and the WS kicks butt:

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3795/asus_p8p67_ws_rev...

For the GFX, I'd consider twin factory OC'd 560's. Two 900 MHz 560's garner 862 fps for $440 US. Twin 580's garner 953 fps for $1000 US..... Decide if it's worth paying 127 % more for the 580's for a 10.5 % increase in performance. The 560's can get by in a mid tower w/ a 850 watt PSU....you'll really want a full tower w/ 1000 watt PSU for twin 580's. The 560 (900MHz versions) easily over clock to 1000 MHz) .

I'd want low CAS memory as it will help w/ minimum frame rates as w/ twin cards in SLI, GFX won't be the bottleneck. CAS 7 Mushkin Redlines (2 x 4GB DDR3-1600 CAS 7) are getting pretty cheap.

I'd want at least 120 GB for the boot drive ..... I been getting lotta calls of late from peeps I have built for asking how to solve the low disk space issue on 60 and 80 GB drives.

Instead of 2 x 1TB HD's, consider a 2 TB or 3TB Barracuda XT

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_conten...

Quote:
For a hard drive, the Barracuda XT series offers the best performance available from a 7200 RPM mechanical storage device.


Don't forget a cooler and TIM





May 14, 2011 7:50:04 PM

Hi Jack, thanks for your reply.

I can see what you mean about the HAF912, from what i had seen in pictures I thought that the HAF922 would be very similar in size, but now that I've checked on the CM website, there is actually a sizeable difference between the two, and it seems that the 922 does have from UBS ports. I really want to avoid going with a full tower right now, even if I'd love the extra space and cooling, but I'm still a student and in the past 4 years I've moved houses 4times and lugging a full tower PC around is no easy task.

As for the processor, I don't think that it running a few degrees hotter should be a huge problem, especially since I'm considering getting a Noctua cooler for it. I've learned from past mistakes and I'm never using a stock fan on a CPU again, even if I don't intend to OC it.

As for the gfx, I'm definetly not planning on getting 2x GTX580s straight away, I will get one now, and another one when the prices start to drop, so I don't think the price will be a big problem. But from what I've been reading around, I will have to buy a more powerfull PSU than what I had planned (850W), I will definetly go for a 1000W.

On my boot SSD I was only planning on installing windows7 and ubuntu which I only use when I'm writing code and for nothing else. Do you really think that I will need more than 80GB?
For storage drive I already have a 2TB drive in my old PC that i'm just gonna tranfer over along with a smaller/faster one that I use to install games on.
!