Right now I am running an ASUS Striker II Extreme with 4GB RAM and a QX9650 CPU. It is set up for liquid cooling and my video card is an EVGA 3GB GTX580 PCIe 2.0 x16 Hydro Copper 2.
I am interested in adding 2 more 24" 1920x1200 monitors to primarily use with MS Flight Sim X, and some other more demanding games.
My current plan is to get another identical graphics card and use it in SLI to support the additional monitors. I also want to upgrade the mobo, CPU and RAM, as well as reinstall Win 7 64 to an SSD. My current 1TB RAID 5 would be reformatted and set up as another RAID 5 for storage.
I am looking for advice as to a good mobo for this migration. I would like a good OC board that is not overkill. It would need to support two PCIe 2.0 video cards (and most do), and I want one PCI slot for my old Creative Xfi Extreme Music card. (I want to keep it as a second audio device to support some of the additional communication features of FSX.) It would also need SATA3 for the SSD and at least 3 SATA2 ports that go to a controller that does RAID 5. I am considering Gigabyte's Z68XP-UD4, but had also looked at the G1.Sniper 3 for about $70 more. Because I don't see myself going to PCIe 3.0 card(s) anytime soon, the initial main difference (to me) seems to be getting 2.0 x16/x16 support for both cards vs. x8/x8. And it has double the DIMM slots, not sure if this is a big deal to me. Reading around, it sounds like 2.0 x8 SLI is more than enough for demanding games. And I've read that the G1.Sniper 3 gets really hot and is a power hog at idle. Is the extra $70 worth it? Or are there different suggestions?
I am interested in adding 2 more 24" 1920x1200 monitors to primarily use with MS Flight Sim X, and some other more demanding games.
My current plan is to get another identical graphics card and use it in SLI to support the additional monitors. I also want to upgrade the mobo, CPU and RAM, as well as reinstall Win 7 64 to an SSD. My current 1TB RAID 5 would be reformatted and set up as another RAID 5 for storage.
I am looking for advice as to a good mobo for this migration. I would like a good OC board that is not overkill. It would need to support two PCIe 2.0 video cards (and most do), and I want one PCI slot for my old Creative Xfi Extreme Music card. (I want to keep it as a second audio device to support some of the additional communication features of FSX.) It would also need SATA3 for the SSD and at least 3 SATA2 ports that go to a controller that does RAID 5. I am considering Gigabyte's Z68XP-UD4, but had also looked at the G1.Sniper 3 for about $70 more. Because I don't see myself going to PCIe 3.0 card(s) anytime soon, the initial main difference (to me) seems to be getting 2.0 x16/x16 support for both cards vs. x8/x8. And it has double the DIMM slots, not sure if this is a big deal to me. Reading around, it sounds like 2.0 x8 SLI is more than enough for demanding games. And I've read that the G1.Sniper 3 gets really hot and is a power hog at idle. Is the extra $70 worth it? Or are there different suggestions?
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