Upgrading to i7 need help with m/b choice

[mrzedx]

Hey all im looking at upgrading to a i7 2700 but im really confused with which mobo to go with.

My budget is roughly $150~ +- for a mobo 1155 pin but it has to have a smaller south bridge heatsink, as i currently have issues with my current setup because of my thick fat GPU, it hits against the heatpipe southbridge that is hitting the side of the gpu not letting it sit properly.

heres a pic

http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/AMD_Series/EAH6950_DCII2DI4S2GD5/

It would be great if it had 4 ddr3 slots at least. i might just put in 2x 4gb 2133mhz sticks and upgrade later.

Z68X-UD3 i had this one in mind do you guys recommend any others.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

The Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 would be a good board for you with a low cooler on the southbidge that shouldnt cause any problems and it is right at your price range. I would use DDR 3 1600 as the faster memory just doesn't offer as much performance for the cost increase that you get out of it. Just make sure what ever memory that you get is 1.5v since the 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processors don't support anything higher than this. Also watch out for memory that has large heatspreaders on them since they can hit a lot of the 3rd party HSF (heatsink/fan).


Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[mrzedx]

The Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 would be a good board for you with a low cooler on the southbidge that shouldnt cause any problems and it is right at your price range. I would use DDR 3 1600 as the faster memory just doesn't offer as much performance for the cost increase that you get out of it. Just make sure what ever memory that you get is 1.5v since the 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processors don't support anything higher than this. Also watch out for memory that has large heatspreaders on them since they can hit a lot of the 3rd party HSF (heatsink/fan).


Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

Thanks for the help, really appreciate it.

If you were to choose another m/b in the price range what would it be and anything else i should look out for? ie audio is all usually the same i require onboard optical support.

also will any ddr3 work on the mb because i came across 2 sections in my local stores price list


DDR3 For AM3, Intel 775/1155/1156/1136/2011pin MB

DDR3 For AM3, Intel 1156/1136/2011 i3, i5, i7 OC Motherboard

 

[mrzedx]

Best answer selected by mrzedx.

 

[jaquith]

The Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3

Hmm...Intel one day, ASUS the next, and Gigabyte thrown in just for kicks?! And I'm hard on Intel... :lol:

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Don't forget ASRock. Intel® boards are very good as long as you are not trying to get the best overclocking performance out of them. At this time if you are looking to overclock the low end of the the Intel boards that you can look at is the Intel DZ68BC whch is a $180 on sale at Newegg which would place it outside of this customers budget.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[jaquith]

Did you ever notice that I'm pretty consistent?! I find the one that works, works consistently and I know can OC the 'heck' out of (K) or (X) or whatever suffix Intel chooses to use.

IF you want the older Z68's vs the newer Z77's then either an ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 or P8Z68-V/GEN3 ; pick one both OC extremely well for the $ - Always.

There's no data on the Z77's (little anyway) to know which to pick for IB CPUs, so far the published (most) are using i7-2600K or i5-2500K.

There's no such a thing as a vanilla i7-2700, just the i7-2700K which isn't worth $0.01 more than the i7-2600K.

In the OP's price range once the BIOS bugs get worked-out I might consider the GA-Z77X-UD3H; review - http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/msi_gigabyte_z77/ . But even the Z77X-UD5H showed BIOS/driver problems - http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/4619/ivy_bridge_preview_with_gigabyte_z77x_ud5h_intel_z77_and_core_i7_3770k/index7.html