Z77 Motherboard Advice

[juddsan18]

Hi all,

I have almost completed my build, but I'm still up in the air about two components: the motherboard and cooling solution.

I'm going to have an i5 3570k ... trying to overclock to mid 4GHz range. I want room enough on the mobo for two 680s in SLI with enough breathing room. I'm looking for a good all-around gaming board - good overclocking ability with reasonably low temps, good LAN, good sound ... I was looking at two just now -

GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128545

and

GIGABYTE G1.Sniper M3 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128551

They seem pretty sweet. I really liked the Creative sound chip on the Sniper, but I'm not really looking for a micro ATX mobo. (I'm not against it, either.) I was just worried about high temps with the CPU/GPU in sli if I went that way. Plus it looks like a few of the connections at the bottom of the board would be cut off if I had a second video card.

ANYWAYS ...

I was planning on using a Noctua d14 to cool the 3570k, but I heard that the Corsair h80 actually does better when cooling an overclocked ivy bridge. So now I'm unsure ...

Any ideas/help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance

 

[wentworth]

You would be better of with the sniper 3. On the other hand, you should go for a i7 3770K which has a graphic chipset embedded that provides you with a 2Gb Inter Graph 4000 HD output. Then the only thing you will need is a single Gen 3 graph card that is twice faster than any Gen 2.1 graphic card. The 3770 series are the only CPU that enables Gen 3 on your PCIe. Gigabyte makes the embedded and discrete graph card work in tandem so you will not have to pay for a second card with all the cooling problem that it will create.

Hi all,

I have almost completed my build, but I'm still up in the air about two components: the motherboard and cooling solution.

I'm going to have an i5 3570k ... trying to overclock to mid 4GHz range. I want room enough on the mobo for two 680s in SLI with enough breathing room. I'm looking for a good all-around gaming board - good overclocking ability with reasonably low temps, good LAN, good sound ... I was looking at two just now -

GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128545

and

GIGABYTE G1.Sniper M3 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128551

They seem pretty sweet. I really liked the Creative sound chip on the Sniper, but I'm not really looking for a micro ATX mobo. (I'm not against it, either.) I was just worried about high temps with the CPU/GPU in sli if I went that way. Plus it looks like a few of the connections at the bottom of the board would be cut off if I had a second video card.

ANYWAYS ...

I was planning on using a Noctua d14 to cool the 3570k, but I heard that the Corsair h80 actually does better when cooling an overclocked ivy bridge. So now I'm unsure ...

Any ideas/help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance