March "enthusiast" build (or MoBo vs MoBo)

[count_rugen]

Riddle me this friendly forumites...

Tom's March "enthusiast" build ($1000) found here: System Builder Marathon shows an ASRock P67 Extreme4 motherboard. I was discussing this build with a coworker who pointed out that I could swap out the chosen mobo with this one GIGABYTE LGA 1155 Intel H61 and not lose a shred of performance.

He pointed out that I'd be saving money, and if some day I wished to exceed 8 gb of RAM I could always upgrade the mobo. He points out that yes, the SATA speed is 3.0ghz but the system couldn't realistically read any speeds higher than that to begin with.

I'm afraid I can't find any flaw in his logic.

Thoughts, anyone?

Thanks!

 

[crewton]

The asrock p67 board allows two video cards, the ability to overclock, and SATA III. The gigabyte can't...There really isn't a comparison.

 

[genghiskron]

well, you cant overclock on an h61, however, it is likely that for a while, cpu overclocking will have little effect on gaming performance as the gpu will still be the bottleneck. if you were to get an h61, you should also get an i5-2500 or i5-2400, not an i5-2500k, because the i5-2500k is more expensive as it is unlocked for overclocking. There are h61 boards with sata 6gb/s and usb3.0
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.642682
but he is right, these things are not terribly useful, unless you have a fast SSD or a usb 3.0 external hdd.

you would also lose performance compared to the asrock 4 should you choose to crossfire those 6950's, because the h61 board only has x16/x4 lanes instead of the asrocks x8/x8 (very roughly 10% performance loss) it can support 2 cards, contrary to crewton's statement.

If however, you have no plans to overclock or have a dual card setup, then the h61+i5-2500/2400 is the way to go, as the price difference, including the cost of a cpu cooler for overclocking, is over $100.

Theres definitely a very suitable, logical comparison to be made between the two setups.

 

[count_rugen]

Thanks for the input crewton!

Not that I don't follow your logic, but I'm not necessarily asking "here are 2 mobos, which is better?" I'm asking "given tom's march build, would swapping out the mobos cause a drop in performance?"

In other words, in the build there is only 1 video card shown, not two, so it's not an issue.
The hdd in the build only runs at 32mb of cache, so it wouldn't benefit from SATA 3, so that's not an issue.

The ability to overclock could be an issue though. Why do you say it can't overclock?

Thanks again.

 

[count_rugen]

well, you cant overclock on an h61, however, it is likely that for a while, cpu overclocking will have little effect on gaming performance as the gpu will still be the bottleneck. if you were to get an h61, you should also get an i5-2500 or i5-2400, not an i5-2500k, because the i5-2500k is more expensive as it is unlocked for overclocking. There are h61 boards with sata 6gb/s and usb3.0
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.642682
but he is right, these things are not terribly useful, unless you have a fast SSD or a usb 3.0 external hdd.

you would also lose performance compared to the asrock 4 should you choose to crossfire those 6950's, because the h61 board only has x16/x4 lanes instead of the asrocks x8/x8 (very roughly 10% performance loss) it can support 2 cards, contrary to crewton's statement.

If however, you have no plans to overclock or have a dual card setup, then the h61+i5-2500/2400 is the way to go.

Theres definitely a very suitable, logical comparison to be made between the two setups.

Fantastic summation genghiskron! I'm almost sold on the modified build now. Saving money on the mobo and processor would allow me to splurge on a higher-end video card too... mmmm

Thanks

 

[crewton]

I'm sorry, I didn't understand your angle. The $1000 build is a build designed to perform well now and have an upgrade path for futureproofing the build. With an H61 board like your friend said you'd just have to buy a new motherboard and then upgrade. Motherboards also force you to buy a new windows key so I hate having to upgrade a motherboard.

 

[count_rugen]

Best answer selected by count_rugen.