Considering upgrade from p67 to z77 board

[mlody]

I currently have a perfectly stable asus p8p67 pro rev 3.0 with i 7-2600k, 16gb ram and gtx 560 ti. The cpu is rock stable at 4.5 using default voltage, but i seldom need that power as i no longer game or push my system using virtualization.

I am very interested dual booting Windows 8 and hackintosh, but that wasn't as successful as i wished when i tried it few months ago.
I am seriously considering moving from asus board to a gigabyte Z77-DS3H - highly recommended for hackintosh builds. I know the gigabyte is not as future rich and does not have the same over-clocking capabilities as my current Asus board, but i do not use any of the extra bells and whistles on my Asus board -
from the stability standpoint ( normal and small overclock) are Gigabyte boards as stable as Asus? Is there anything else I should be aware when considering migration from Asus to Gigabyte board?

I am also considering selling my gaming video card in favor of utilizing the onboard intel 3000 - are there any problems over-clocking CPU and integrated graphic card?
Is there still a good market place for p67 boards and gtx560ti?

Thank you for any opinions and suggestions.

 

[mlody]

Forgot to add, does Gigabyte board offer enough clearance for tall dimms such Corsair Vengeance and Hyper 212 plus cooling fan? My Asus has barely enough space - my closest dimm is leaning against the cooling fan.

 

[bleucharm28]

Dual boot? Have you tried using VMware? Is a great software works nicely in Windows and install any OS within VM. just a suggestion.

 

[Vectronic]

He mentioned virtualization, so I would assume he is aware.

ASUS and Gigabyte are very close, in fact Gigabyte would probably be the better of the two now, but only in the higher-end boards, ASUS is a bit more consistent across the full range.

Obviously your chosen board, isn't in that category, it's more or less run of the mill.

Using the IGPU will probably knock about 150MHz off your potential overclock, but I would assume your 4.5GHz is already under what your 2600K might do... so you should be able to keep 4.5GHz it will probably just take a bit more playing around.

As far as RAM clearance?...

Pretty much the same distance from the socket, if not exactly... and the height difference will be the same.

 

[Charlie98]

My Giga Z68 board has clearance for tall RAM in the first 3 slots (#'s 1&3, and 2 but not 4.) You can slide the fan up on the 212 cooler, but probably not enough to accomodate something like Vengance RAM.

Here it is with G.Skill Sniper...

 

[mlody]

Thank you everyone for all the advice. Yesterday, I picked up my Gigabyte board at the local Microcenter (couldn’t go wrong with 85$ after MIR).
http://microcenter.com/product/388327/GA-Z77-DS3H_LGA_1155_Z77_ATX_Intel_Motherboard


So far, things are working very well – I only wished the board had 4x SATA 3 connectors and didn’t waste one connector on mSATA port; otherwise, I have no reasons to complain.

The good thing is that the board is narrower and somehow manages to offer more space between the CPU socket and the first dimm (I say 1-2mm – just enough that my hyper 212 does not touch my first dimm).

I haven’t tried the same overclock (4.5 Ghz) because I want to try the stock clocks to validate if the board is stable and problem free first. Even if I can’t achieve the same overclock as on my previous board, I am not really going to complain as I never felt like I needed 4.5 Ghz in the first place (it was more of a bragging rights then any actual need) – even running 5-7 VM’s at the same time wouldn’t push the CPU to hit 100% for any noticeable periods.