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muskytaru

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Apr 18, 2012
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Hello,
What would be a good starting Motherboard (reasonable cost) that allows a wide variety of expansion and OC'ing? I do not want to have to replace my motherboard every 6 months. Newegg link appreciated, not needed. :p I will pick a case according to motherboard spec.

Approximate Purchase Date: Within 2 weeks

Budget Range:$300-400

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming ( Does that not cover everything else?)

Parts Not Required: Cat-5 Cable,

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg.com

Country: U.S.

Parts Preferences:

Overclocking: Yes

SLI or Crossfire: ?

Monitor Resolution:1920x1200

 
ddan49

ddan49

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Mar 13, 2012
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Please list all of your parts. Also, at $300-$400, you may be better off buying a pre-built desktop because of savings they can only do because they negotiate with manufacturers. You won't be able to play games on high at $400, and medium will only cover some games. Also, an Intel CPU would be ideal, but on your budget you'd have to go AMD. This would allow for overclocking, but even with overclocking you'd be under Intel (non overclocked).
 
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muskytaru

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Apr 18, 2012
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That is just for the motherboard. my price range is very flexible for all my other parts. I just cannot decide on a starting point, be it motherboard or processor.
 
M

muskytaru

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Apr 18, 2012
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Let me try to rephrase this, I want to build a desktop gaming pc, my budget for the Motherboard alone is 3-400$. Maybe more if it calls for it. $300-400 is not my budget for the entire build.
 
Rockdpm

Rockdpm

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Dec 26, 2011
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Well a good starting point can dpend on the grade of the board yo want. if you want Mid range, you can snag a board from 130$ and up easily. If you want a High end, they usually start anywhere from 179.99 to 240$ anything above that and your paying for the nit pick features.

Honestly, if you want full tower.... heres your choice:
Z77 Sabertooth
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131821

If you want Mid tower
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131830

Another group of board for either Size Case would be this ASRock board
these two:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007627&IsNodeId=1&Description=Z77&bop=And&CompareItemList=280%7C13-157-295%5E13-157-295-02%23%2C13-157-293%5E13-157-293-02%23
 
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muskytaru

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Apr 18, 2012
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Rockdpm, That is exactly what information I am looking for. And High end is typically what I go for. Cheap is cheap as they say.
 
V

venur

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Dec 7, 2011
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Not realy true as of today building a PC for gaming is realy cheap compare to making one for video editing or 3d modeling.

A 200$ or so mobo with an i5-2500k or its incoming ivy bridge counter part the i5-3570k (both just a little over 200$) is kinda your best bet for gaming.

A 1000$ CPU wont even improve your gaming performance by 1% over what I've just listed. 300$ or so mobo aren,t realy any bether for gaming then anything you can get for 200$ and cheaper. They usualy are just filled with a ton of option mostly used for the use of multiple HHD + SSD, more USB 2.0 and 3.0 that you can use and more PCIE slot that you will need for a 1080p set-up.

As of today if your playing in 1080p I'm not even sure its worth to spend even 2000$ on a desktop. A 150$ mobo + i5-2500k and a high end GPU (betwin 350 and 500$) will last your for years.

Edit: if your concerned about long therm desktop then just pick up a PSU allowing you room for improvement (you can plan to go sli/crossfire in a year or two or just buying a brand new GPU then selling the old one ).

Pick a case that have room for extra cooling (so you can overclock like mad)
 
Cold_War

Cold_War

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Apr 6, 2012
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SLI/CrossfireX : Running 2 cards instead of 1, SLI for NVIDIA cards and CrossfireX for AMD cards. By running two cards you basically get just under double the FPS of one. It is sometimes better just to go with 1 card which is of much higher performance though.
 
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venur

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Kinda what he said. Now we need to know what kind of resolution your going to play. We won,t reccomand the same build for a 1080p gamer then someone on a 30inch monitor in 2560x1600 res or a 3 monitor user in 5760x 1080p.

Edit: 1080p resolution realy don't need multiple GPU. A single 680gtx or hd7970 will max graphic and 4xAA for quite some times.
 
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venur

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Well then by no mean you should run 2 graphic cards right now. Personaly this what I would do if I was you.

Buy a 150-200$ mobo (get one with an overclocking UI. ASrock and Asus are 2 good one ASrock sell for cheaper and still net good performance).

Get either a 350$ or a 500$ GPU (7850 or 7870 beeing the 300$ or so price tag, Nvidia 680gtx and HD7970 beeing the 500$ ones). As of now even the 7850 will max out BF3 at ultra in DX11 so you don't realy have to get the 500$ GPUs). When you'll ever feel that your GPU can't play games at the level you want sell it and buy a new one. the radeon GPUs overclock realy well, the 7850 is probably the best $/performance card at this moment especialy once overclocked.

CPU: i5-2500k will probably still able to bottleneck the next generation of GPU, best gamer CPU available ATM.

Case: Get something allowing you to aad cheap cooling later on (if you want to overclock your CPU and GPU you'll need it). So you might end spending 100-150$. If your not going to overclock get something cheaper (their is good one at 75$ or so).

PSU: Don't buy a cheap one just to save money you'll regeret it. Get something that can provide more power then what you need so you can upgrade your GPU in a few years (But don't don't something to big or you'll loose power effiency). As brand I'm a fan of corsair but their is plenty of other good ones (just get a gold or platinum rated PSU).

Rams: 2x 4gb is enough 1333Hz or 1600Hz, you won't notice the difference betwin both but well they are so cheap nowadays.

hard Drive: 7200rpm HHD of a good brand, add a SSD if you have the money and want to boot and load gam faster (won't improve your graphix quality this is just a luxury toy).
 
V

venur

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Dec 7, 2011
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just post your final build so poeple can critic it. Some poeple on these forums know a lot about case and PSU and could provid tips.
 
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pfunkmd

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Apr 11, 2012
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motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157265 149

i5 2500 k http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072 219

Power supply http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139024&Tpk=corsair%20gs700 110

Video card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125419 260

Ram http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233142 60

case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133180 62

ssd http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0FU0928164&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle3&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle3-_-Solid+State+Disk-_-OCZ+Technology-_-9SIA0FU0928164 70

hard drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185 109

dvd rom http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204 17

cooler http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181016 94

windows http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986 99

Total 1250
This is a very good pc spared no expense. If the price is to steep you could cut back on a few things.
Like a 70 dollar psu a cheaper i5 chip a cheaper asrock motherboard we could knock around 150 off but honestly
i would leave it how it is. It will be a super fast beast especially if you overclock. I put the corsair h80 self contained
water cooler on the build so you will have a good cooler for OC. Anyway this is just what I would get what do you all think
 
ddan49

ddan49

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I've heard that the H100 and other pre-built liquid cooling units aren't really the best way to go, and that building your own setup is ideal, though expensive ($200ish from what I've heard). With that setup, though, you have EVERYTHING cooled through liquid... keeping temps low and sound even lower.

However, overclocking can easily be done with a $35 Hyper 212 Evo to about 4.2GHz at the least (I'm sure many will go to 4.5 and beyond). How far do you really want to overclock? Liquid is usually used to overclock farther than on average.
 
ddan49

ddan49

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I'm pretty sure the link is bad. Try reposting it. I'm sure it's better than air coolers... but is it necessary? It's also like 6 times as expensive.
 
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