Help choosing right Z77 board for me!

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3lgringo

Junior Member
Feb 12, 2005
2
0
0
I need some serious help choosing the right mobo for my overclocked gaming rig
Lets start with the components I've bough thus far:

PSU - 1200w corsair
CPU - Intel 3770k
GPU - 2x 690 gtx
Ram - 16gb tridentX
SSD - 2x 256gb Samsung 830's
HDD - 2x 2TB caviar green (haven't bough those yet)
Custom water cooling 1x 240mm rad not wc those sexy 690's yet though.

So my question is between the:

-Evga z77 ftw
-Asus Maximus V formula
-Gigabyte g1 sniper 3
-Insert recomendation

which would be the best board for a gaming rig?
Since I'm going quad sli with 2 cards I guess maximum PCI bandwidth is recomended right? which kind of leaves out the Asus formula as I read it only has 16x lanes 8x/8x in SLI while if im not mistaken the sniper can have 16x/16x.
Another thing I should add is that wi-fi and nice onboard sound would be nice too.

Thanks in advance!
 
IntelEnthusiast

IntelEnthusiast

Intel Representative
Feb 10, 2011
582
2
0
I believe all the Z77 chipsets based boards if they support a second PCI-E x16 slot when you place the second card in it drops both slots down to x8 / x8. It is important to understand that with this drop you are still running PCI-E 3.0 which is double the bandwidth of PCI-E 2.0. So even if it does drop it down to x8 / x8 you are still going to have the same bandwidth of PCI-E x16 / x16.
 
n0x1ous

n0x1ous

Platinum Member
Sep 9, 2010
2,574
252
126
3lgringo said:
I need some serious help choosing the right mobo for my overclocked gaming rig
Lets start with the components I've bough thus far:

PSU - 1200w corsair
CPU - Intel 3770k
GPU - 2x 690 gtx
Ram - 16gb tridentX
SSD - 2x 256gb Samsung 830's
HDD - 2x 2TB caviar green (haven't bough those yet)
Custom water cooling 1x 240mm rad not wc those sexy 690's yet though.

So my question is between the:

-Evga z77 ftw
-Asus Maximus V formula
-Gigabyte g1 sniper 3
-Insert recomendation

which would be the best board for a gaming rig?
Since I'm going quad sli with 2 cards I guess maximum PCI bandwidth is recomended right? which kind of leaves out the Asus formula as I read it only has 16x lanes 8x/8x in SLI while if im not mistaken the sniper can have 16x/16x.
Another thing I should add is that wi-fi and nice onboard sound would be nice too.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

I think the Gigabyte would be the best choice out of those given your prerequisites as it has the PLX chip for extra PCIE lanes.

IMO EVGA's mobo quality has gone down hill recently.

EDIT: noticed you are running 690's so X8/X8 would be the same as pCIE 2.0 X16/x16 so you should be fine with the ASUS or the GB. the ASROCK Extreme's seem to be good to
 
M

MrWizzard

Platinum Member
Mar 24, 2002
2,493
0
71
I personally like the Asus the most out of those choices..but that is just me.

Any holy moley OP that is going to be a monster machine....for what you are paying you could almost get 1 porsche rim and maybe a tire. :p
 
3

3lgringo

Junior Member
Feb 12, 2005
2
0
0
Thanks for all the feedback! Its nice to know that x8/x8 wont bottleneck the 690's.

People keep telling me to check out the asrock board which i will! They kinda sucked a couple of years ago when I build my last rig (6 years ago, hope this one lasts as long :p) but the reviews look great maybe they swapped places with evga hehe...
As it is now I'm inclined to go with the Sniper 3 since it has a unique color scheme might as well go creative on the PC's looks tough permormance weights more for me.



MrWizzard said:
I personally like the Asus the most out of those choices..but that is just me.

Any holy moley OP that is going to be a monster machine....for what you are paying you could almost get 1 porsche rim and maybe a tire. :p
Click to expand...

Saving up for that next :p
 
cmdrdredd

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
The Asus has the best BIOS, but the Gigabyte has the best hardware features overall.

If the Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3 wasn't $280 I'd probably buy it after reading the reviews. It's a very fine motherboard. The UEFI Bios from Gigabyte needs some massaging but it works well enough from what I've read.
 
Last edited:
DigDog

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
14,798
3,084
136
"won't bottleneck the 690s" ...

dude.. is that even relevant? would you even notice? are you doing your own protein folding calculations on this rig, or playing Minecraft?

geez ... two 690s .. i sure hope you can run battlefield 3 on that.

(troll-free: the gigabyte sniper is a bad choice. UD5H would be better, but go Asus.)
 
DigDog

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
14,798
3,084
136
"Posted By: LeeKay Posted: 05-12-2012 08:04 PM

GI.Sniper 2 1155. Will never fully support ivy bridge.

I asked gigabyte when they plan to release a bios to fully support my 3770k processor.

Gigabytes responce.

Answer : Unfortunately it cannot be fixed due to the bios limitation as this board does not support UEFI compared to the Z77 chipset board.


So if your like me and you bought a gigabyte board for PCI e 3.0 well tough cookies...."

from somewhere here on these boards
http://atforums.mobi/msg.php?threadid=2245514&catid=6&rnum=29
 
cmdrdredd

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
That's the Sniper 2

I'm talking about the Sniper 3. Your basic reading skills failed you hard.

Nobody even mentioned the Sniper 2 which is not a z77 board anyway.

The Sniper 3 is Z77 with dual LAN (one is an Atheros Killer Nic, other an Intel), a very good sound chip with full EAX support(Creative CA0132) and a built in front audio headphone amplifier, 4way SLI/XFire support(PCIe 3.0 8x/8x/8x/8x), 15phase design 12+1+2
 
Last edited:
DigDog

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
14,798
3,084
136
sorry. was tired. half knew that was the wrong board but couldn't be arsed to double check. my bad.
 
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