Which is best for gamings X77, X79, or X68 Motherboards?

[kincaid88]

I realize this may be a ridiculous question but which is better for gaming the X77, X79, or X68 mobos? If someone can tell me this and possibly add in why one is better than the other that would be great. Thank you for your time.

 

[tyranthoth]

Do you mean z77 vs z68 vs x79? -- I've looked for the x77 and x68 chipset like you said think maybe I missed something and other than review sites intel has no reference to x68 or x77 and newegg doesn't have a chipset for sale that is x68 or x77 either. So i am going to assume you mean "z77 vs z68 vs x79".

For Starters:
Z68 is a LGA1155 Chipset while able to run Ivy is meant for SB. If you want to keep your cost down this is a good chipset, but it doesn't support PCI-E 3 or usb 3
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/mainstream-chipsets/z68-express-chipset.html?wapkw=intel+z68+express+chipset

Z77 Is also a LGA1155 chipset and only support dual channel DDR3 memory but does support up to 1600MHZ overr the 1333MHZ of the Z68. it also has usb 3 and PCI-E 3 support and the newer feature offered by intel for the IB CPU.
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/performance-chipsets/z77-express-chipset.html

X79 is a LGA2011 chipset -- supporting quad channel DDR3 and PCI-E 3 and USB 3
This Chipset was meant for the SB-E CPU but will work with IB and when it comes out ( "possiblely" ) IB-E.
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/performance-chipsets/x79-express-chipset.html

If price is no object you'll be best off with the X79 LGA 2011 Chipset for gaming, but if your like most of us the Z77 is the best choice for price and performance considering the IB-E has nearly a year before coming out if it's not delayed and the SB-E was really meant for workstations and it is a great workhorse, games need thoroughbreeds not workhorse.

In short for price/performance/power consumtion I would go with the Z77 as the best option.

 

[kincaid88]

Yes your right i did get it wrong i did mean Z77, Z68, and X79. But thanks for the help and tips if i have anymore questions ill post.

 

[Guest]

the ONLY difference between a Z68 and Z77 is the usb3 is native on the Z77 whereas the Z68 supports usb3 with a third party chip.

BOTH support ddr3 1600 memory.

BOTH support PCI 3.0 with any ivy bridge chip.

the X79 are sandy bridge-E and really just over priced for the increase in performance with quad channel memory and the more expensive CPUs, more for video encoding than gaming.

 

[mightymaxio]

Obviously the most expensive would be the X79 and would be best for gaming since if you can afford to you can make an insanely expensive insanely good rig. Like $5000+ range for some of those.

 

[SkyWalker1726]

Z77 Supports 16x PCIe 3.0 and can Crossfire/Sli PCIe 3.0 @ 8x , Z68 is Limited to 8x PCIe 3.0 ( both need IB CPU of course )

 

[mightymaxio]

Oh and i forgot, the man reason people get X79 is for quad SLI or quad Xfire because it wouldn't be limited by the CPU you pay $1000 to get.

 

[kincaid88]

Well I deffinetly would like the one best for gaming and game development, but one that also supports the IB CPU, PCI-E 3.0 x16 and x8, also one that will support crossfire/sli. Therefore which one out of the 3 would you all go with ( i take it the Z77, correct?)

 

[Guest]

Z77 Supports 16x PCIe 3.0 and can Crossfire/Sli PCIe 3.0 @ 8x , Z68 is Limited to 8x PCIe 3.0 ( both need IB CPU of course )

do you have a link for that?
because if your saying that you cannot pci 3.0 x16 on a z68, that is not correct.

 

[kincaid88]

So from my understanding you would all go with the Z77 rather then the Z68 or X79 because Z68 is limited too x8 PCIe 3.0 and X79 is more expensive, correct?

 

[Guest]

So from my understanding you would all go with the Z77 rather then the Z68 or X79 because Z68 is limited too x8 PCIe 3.0 and X79 is more expensive, correct?

that is NOT correct. the Z68 x16 slot supports pci 3.0 with 32Gbs transfer speed with an ivy bridge cpu.

 

[kincaid88]

Ok so can someone be clear and give me a good official answer about which out of the 3 then would be best for my gaming and game development needs?

 

[Guest]

honestly it is a toss up between the Z68 and Z77. what is your budget and just what are your "gaming development" needs?

 

[SkyWalker1726]

do you have a link for that?
because if your saying that you cannot pci 3.0 x16 on a z68, that is not correct.

Link ? can find one but i'll try to explain it ...

in Z68 SB

1-16x lane comes out of ur CPU
2- they are separated into two part of 8x
3-8 are directed into the First PCIe Slot ( Primary ) and the 8 others are Directed into a "Switch" , if the switch detects a Secondary VGA it will Forward those 8x into the Secondary PCie Slot , resulting in a 8x * 2 MultiGpu Configuration
4-If no second card is detected , it will redirect the 8x back to the first PCIe Slot resulting in a full 16x PCIe for ur only card

most of these Switches ( on Z68 ) Can not "understand" and therefore support PCIe 3.0 Signal => the forwarding Back and MultiGpu support will be disabled , so the only lanes that ull have working are the 8x coming directly from ur IB CPU to the primary PCie Slot ...

of course they are exceptions , u must have seen all these "GEN 3.0 READY" Slogans before the IB was out , right ? in those MB they changed the "PCie 2.0 Only Switches" to a 3.0 capable one , so unless u get a "Z68 GEN 3.0" u are stuck with only 8x PCie 3.0 ...


and of course i would recommend a Z77 over a Z68 , not because of PCi 3.0 ( even a 690GTX doesnt make full use of PCie2.0 Bandwith) but because of VirtuHybrid Tech that allows the use of the CPU integrated GPU along with a discrete Gpu ... ( kinda MultiGpu configuration with ur CPU's GPU )

 

[Guest]

Link ? can find one but i'll try to explain it ...

in Z68 SB

1-16x lane comes out of ur CPU
2- they are separated into two part of 8x
3-8 are directed into the First PCIe Slot ( Primary ) and the 8 others are Directed into a "Switch" , if the switch detects a Secondary VGA it will Forward those 8x into the Secondary PCie Slot , resulting in a 8x * 2 MultiGpu Configuration
4-If no second card is detected , it will redirect the 8x back to the first PCIe Slot resulting in a full 16x PCIe for ur only card

most of these Switches ( on Z68 ) Can not "understand" and therefore support PCIe 3.0 Signal => the forwarding Back and MultiGpu support will be disabled , so the only lanes that ull have working are the 8x coming directly from ur IB CPU to the primary PCie Slot ...

of course they are exceptions , u must have seen all these "GEN 3.0 READY" Slogans before the IB was out , right ? in those MB they changed the "PCie 2.0 Only Switches" to a 3.0 capable one , so unless u get a "Z68 GEN 3.0" u are stuck with only 8x PCie 3.0 ...

the switch you are referring to is the NF200 which doesn't understand PCI 3.0 on the P67 for x16/x16 .

the pci 3.0 is handled by the ivy bridge cpu a on newer Z68 board as you refered to, since febuary of this year.

i believe you are confusing old news and different boards with new.
EDIT:
Getting Educated on the Status of PCI-E 3.0

How It All Works

The changes in architecture for Sandy Bridge made it so that PCI Express lanes are all handled by the processor. The PCI-E lanes coming out of the CPU get split, running eight lanes to the first PCI-E slot and then another eight lanes into the switch chip. The switch then looks at your configuration to control bandwidth to a single x16 slot (routing the lanes back to pair up with the eight coming from the CPU) or as dual x8 slots (routing the lanes to the second slot).

Naturally, this means that newer Gen 3 speeds also would have to come from these lanes, but unfortunately, support for the Gen 3 won’t officially happen until Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors hit the market in early 2012. The circuitries inside the current Intel 6-series chipset motherboards are theoretically capable of a PCI-E 3 connection, but as the Gen 3 lanes are linked with the upcoming Ivy Bridge CPUs, you will have to upgrade your motherboard’s BIOS to recognize and communicate the new standard without issues.

Most current motherboards only feature PCI-E 2.0 switches (a notable one being NVIDIA’s NF200 for “True SLI”), so when an Ivy Bridge CPU that has PCI-E 3 capabilities is plugged in, only eight lanes (out of the full 16) will actually function.

Motherboards with multiple PCI Express slots have the most up-to-date switch chips from vendors like Pericom or PLX to actually support the full Gen 3 bandwidth availability on NVIDIA SLI and/or AMD’s CrossFireX multi-GPU configurations. Many older motherboards that claim they are “Gen 3” ready are just hiding behind the fact that they are compatible with Ivy Bridge CPUs and aim to take advantage of consumers uneducated on the technical aspects behind this technology.

so in other words an older Z68 that uses the NF200 will be limited. but newer Z68, since the beginning of this year, with the plextor chips will not.

 

[tyranthoth]

to make this clearer for you, If you got the money and your doing game dev go with x79 if you want to save money and want the better of the two chipsets with out having to worry if you got the right verison on z68 third party chip go with the Z77. Simply put, best choice is still the Z77 for the money.

 

[SkyWalker1726]

the switch you are referring to is the NF200 which doesn't understand PCI 3.0 on the P67 for x16/x16 .

the pci 3.0 is handled by the ivy bridge cpu a on newer Z68 board as you refered to, since febuary of this year.

i believe you are confusing old news and different boards with new.
EDIT:
Getting Educated on the Status of PCI-E 3.0

How It All Works

The changes in architecture for Sandy Bridge made it so that PCI Express lanes are all handled by the processor. The PCI-E lanes coming out of the CPU get split, running eight lanes to the first PCI-E slot and then another eight lanes into the switch chip. The switch then looks at your configuration to control bandwidth to a single x16 slot (routing the lanes back to pair up with the eight coming from the CPU) or as dual x8 slots (routing the lanes to the second slot).

Naturally, this means that newer Gen 3 speeds also would have to come from these lanes, but unfortunately, support for the Gen 3 won’t officially happen until Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors hit the market in early 2012. The circuitries inside the current Intel 6-series chipset motherboards are theoretically capable of a PCI-E 3 connection, but as the Gen 3 lanes are linked with the upcoming Ivy Bridge CPUs, you will have to upgrade your motherboard’s BIOS to recognize and communicate the new standard without issues.

Most current motherboards only feature PCI-E 2.0 switches (a notable one being NVIDIA’s NF200 for “True SLI”), so when an Ivy Bridge CPU that has PCI-E 3 capabilities is plugged in, only eight lanes (out of the full 16) will actually function.

Motherboards with multiple PCI Express slots have the most up-to-date switch chips from vendors like Pericom or PLX to actually support the full Gen 3 bandwidth availability on NVIDIA SLI and/or AMD’s CrossFireX multi-GPU configurations. Many older motherboards that claim they are “Gen 3” ready are just hiding behind the fact that they are compatible with Ivy Bridge CPUs and aim to take advantage of consumers uneducated on the technical aspects behind this technology.

so in other words an older Z68 that uses the NF200 will be limited. but newer Z68, since the beginning of this year, with the plextor chips will not.

isn't the article mentioning the same thing that i said ?

the IC beeing replaced isn't the NF200 ...

http://www.asrock.com/microsite/PCIe3/overview.html


the ones with Plextor ICs ( that u are refering to as "after Feb Manufact." ) have a BIG YELLOW GEN 3.0 slogan on their Boxes
Like the Z68-V Pro Gen3 , Z68-Deluxe Gen3 or the Z68-Fatality Professional Gen3 , Extreme 7 Gen3 and so on ...

 

[dreadlokz]

z77 if you are just a gamer!

 

[monsta]

Z77 definately for gaming , especially with now the addition of VIRTU MVP which utilises your igpu in games for better performance and to reduce screen tearing.

 

[Guest]

isn't the article mentioning the same thing that i said ?

the IC beeing replaced isn't the NF200 ...

http://www.asrock.com/microsite/PCIe3/overview.html


the ones with Plextor ICs ( that u are refering to as "after Feb Manufact." ) have a BIG YELLOW GEN 3.0 slogan on their Boxes
Like the Z68-V Pro Gen3 , Z68-Deluxe Gen3 or the Z68-Fatality Professional Gen3 , Extreme 7 Gen3 and so on ...

no it doesn't say the same thing. the article explains how third party SLI/Xfire chips could not support pci 3.0 in SLI/Xfire. i believe you stated in your first post:

Z77 Supports 16x PCIe 3.0 and can Crossfire/Sli PCIe 3.0 @ 8x , Z68 is Limited to 8x PCIe 3.0 ( both need IB CPU of course )

Z68 does support pci 3.0 x16 with an IB cpu. you brought up old news which is not longer relevant.

actually this really is moot since pci 3.0 isn't all that compared to pci 2.0 unless you have a x4 slot which will run the same bandwidth as a pci 2.0 x8 slot with a IB cpu.

 

[kincaid88]

Ok so from what im reading and understanding from everyones responses is if your into gaming or game development then the X79 and the Z77 are my best choices, but the X79 is more expensive so I should go with the Z77, would you all agree with this??

 

[Guest]

no. the Z68 is just as good.
:lol:
however you never stated what your "gaming development" was and budget.
a Z68/i5-2500k is still the a good gaming rig to get. unless you have money to blow and don't care about price/performance.

 

[tyranthoth]

Kincaid88 -- the answer most of us would agree with z77 being the best choice

 

[Guest]

until the OP gives some specifics; games, CPU, PSU ect. that will be used; this is just a merry go round; a high end Z68 will be better than a low end Z77. a single graphics card solution will not need to bother with a SLI/Xfire concern.

a BUDGET would HELP!

but when it comes to a head to head performance in GAMING:

NO DIFFERENCE, even with the "magical" MVP . .
ciao.

 

[monsta]

Really?

Here it shows a difference
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Virtu-Universal-MVP-Review/1548
And here

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/4651/lucid_virtu_mvp_hyperformance_tested_with_asrock_z77_and_intel_ivy_bridge/index1.html

ciao