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Future Proofing: ASROCK Mobos

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Last response: October 1, 2011 3:22 AM in Motherboards

Chirality

September 22, 2011 11:28:45 PM

My question involves which of these mobo's to pick for my extreme gaming build

I'm buying one EVGA GTX 590 to go with it, and in a few months I'll be putting one more in the PC for QUAD SLI.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Z68%20Extre...

ASROCK Extreme 7 Gen 3
This mobo is really sexy and has a lot of things I like. I've read that for a single or two card SLI it is a great pick. The downside being it only has 1 PCI 3.0 x 16 slot. It is future proofed for 3.0 GPU's and Ivy Bridge when it comes out.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Fatal1ty%20...

ASROCK Fatality Pro Gen 3
This mobo is ironically cheaper and seems to be the better choice for future proofing. It has two PCI 3.0 slots for future GPU's and supports QUAD SLI as well. Same thing goes for this one when it comes to the Ivy Bridge CPU.

Both of these boards from what I've read will let you put the new Intel chip on it and upcoming GPU 3.0 products.

I'm going for three monitor setup, and the 590 is more than fine to run them thanks to the DVI ports.

Is the Fatality the best choice? I know the Extreme 7 has that NF200 chip, but really - who the hell wants to run VGA monitors?

Other suggestions I'd be welcome to hearing. However with MSI's criticism of Gigabyte's lack of PCI 3.0 support I'm not so keen on picking one of their mobos. I also don't like ASUS, I find that their support is total garbage. Spend a year in RMA hell with ASUS. I know ASROCK is owned by them, but I'm willing to give these new guys my money for a stellar product.

Whatcha guys think?

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inzone

Motherboard Master

September 23, 2011 12:22:54 AM

The thing is you have to be aware of what the slots are running for lanes , not all are running x16 lanes and they are dropping down to x8 and some even x4. When you are putting a GTX 590 in a slot I think to get the most bandwidth you want that slot to run 16 lanes and if you intend to run two of those then you really are looking for two slots to be running a full 16 lanes. The problem with the newer chipsets (p67, z68 and so on) is that they are not like the X58 and they are sharing lanes and bandwidth. Did you consider running a GTX 590 and a GTX 580 in 3-way , you would still get to do your multiple displays and you can run the 580 in a x8 slot. Nvidia offers a way around using two different cards as long as they are the same gpu die family (500 series) and it is called "coolbits".
The z68 board offers you two x16 slots but not quad sli and the p67 board offers you one x16 and one x8 and supports quad sli. My vote would be for the Extreme 7 and 3-way sli.

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roscolo

September 23, 2011 4:50:23 AM

Chirality said:

ASROCK Fatality Pro Gen 3
This mobo is ironically cheaper and seems to be the better choice for future proofing. It has two PCI 3.0 slots for future GPU's and supports QUAD SLI as well. Same thing goes for this one when it comes to the Ivy Bridge CPU.

Whatcha guys think?

Bingo. The z68 Fatal1ty Pro Gen 3 is the better board I believe as well. The Extreme7 only has one PCI slot. The Fatality Pro has 2. Love this board and it has given me no problems.

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roscolo

September 23, 2011 4:50:23 AM

Chirality said:

Bingo. The z68 Fatal1ty Pro Gen 3 is the better board I believe as wel. The Extreme7 only has one PCI slot. The Fatality Pro has 2. Love this board and it has given me no problems.