Motherboards in general

[Falcula]

I'm looking to do a new build for the first time in a while. I was never an advanced user. I'm trying to decide between some boards, but I don't know what to look for these days. I remember having to check out bus speeds and such in the past, but I don't see things like that listed on a lot of spec sheets now.

I'm looking to build my new rig around an i7 3770k chip. It will be for gaming, primarily. I'll have two Radeon 6850 graphics cards within.

Here's my dilemma on boards:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/compare.asp?SelectedModel=Z77+Extreme4&SelectedModel=Z77+Extreme3&SelectedModel=Z77+Pro4

These three ASrock boards are a good example. What's the difference in performance between the three in that comparison? I see the difference on things like PCI-e, SATA 3 and USB3.0 port quantities, but is that the only difference? I don't see much about speeds there, or on any other mfgr spec sheets.

This will also be my first build using Crossfire, so if you have any tips on that, they would be appreciated. I put both cards in this rig yesterday and everything kinda went wrong. Even scrolling down webpages became laggy for some reason. But this is primarily a thread about the motherboards.

Thanks!

 

[Onus]

I would suggest getting a single more powerful card, like a HD7870. From the article a few months back on microstuttering, cards only as strong as the HD6850 may experience that. When you also consider that not all games run [well] with Crossfire, I am certain that a single more powerful card is the way to go. That still leaves Crossfire open as a future option, but with cards at a level powerful enough to likely not be visibly affected by microstuttering.
As to choice of motherboard, there will be little if any performance differences; essentially none at stock. Some boards OC better than others (Asus, ASRock), and some are more likely to have VRMs that will pop if you OC too far (e.g. MSI), but for stock performance the differences are likely to be <1%.

 

[jaquith]

Gaming then the i5-3570K + ASRock Z77 Extreme4 + AMD 7000 <or> GTX 600 series GPU + 2x4GB DDR3-1600 CAS 8 or 9 RAM @ 1.50v.

Regarding the side-by-side, everything 'important' is omitted and in particular the number of Phases to the CPU, DRAM and iGPU. Beyond that the differences are, in general, peripheral support, features, quality and price.

I would look at benchmark reviews for your games and resolution, about the best GPU/$ today is the nVidia GTX 660 Ti.

To give you a 'good' answer I'd need to know a lot more: Games, Use besides Gaming, peripherals, OC, etc. The days of BCLK OC'ing is about gone, only the SB-E/LGA 2011 allows for 'CPU Strap' OC (similar to BCLK) otherwise you need a (K) processors i.e. Unlocked CPU Multiplier.

 

[Falcula]

Thanks for the info on the boards. So they're all about as "fast", in a nutshell?

Is the 3770k a poor choice for gaming? Or i7 in general?

World of Warcraft (I know, old news) is all I'm really playing for now. With one of my 6850's, I can run most settings at or near full. But shadow quality and a couple others have to be kept relatively low, and I still lag badly on intense encounters. I really didn't notice much of a difference either way in-game with running Crossfire. It was everything out of the game that got laggy, like web-browsing as I mentioned.

I'm really looking for a new motherboard/cpu for now. As far as those two 6850's go, I already own them, and won't be able to afford a new card(s) right now in this build.

Oh, I forgot to note that I run a 1920x1080 resolution, and intend to add a second monitor sometime soon.

 

[jaquith]

i5-3570K vs i7-3770K ; $100 0~6FPS @ stock but OC nearly no differences
HD 6850 (1GB vRAM) vs HD 7870 (2GB vRAM) ; $100 5~50FPS

You do the math.

Run e.g. GPU-z in the background and look at the memory (vRAM) usage, my preference is FRAPS for real-time. Make certain the 'lags' aren't vRAM bottlenecks.

 

[Falcula]

I've never overclocked, so that would be another discussion entirely. If that i5 worked out as well in the end, that would be great with it being $100 cheaper and being able to pick it up locally. I'll be heading to Fry's Electronics (Tempe, AZ) shortly and am hoping to get both the board and the cpu there. According to their site, they have the i5 in stock. I suppose they'll have a good board to go with it. They don't carry ASrock though, so I'd have to look into another brand.

I'm not familiar with GPU-z either. I'll check into that as well.

 

[jaquith]

Overclocking on the SB/IB platform is dirt simple.

Then the ASUS P8Z77-V (or Pro version) - http://www.frys.com/product/7028861

GPU-z simple, run it in the background and look at the 'Sensor' tab (Memory) after you experience the 'lags.'

GPU-z - http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/