Motherboard purchase advise Plz

[blueefire]

Hi Everyone,

I am trying to upgrade my gaming rig as my xfx 680i mobo died after excellent performance for 3 years. But, I do not know much about h/w side of computers, So I would appreciate any piece of help.

My friend works for Intel and he has offered me intel components with discount (30&#37. I have finalized i7-2600 but can't decide which intel motherboard (manufactured by Intel) I should buy for hardcore gaming.

If you can please post your suggestions, that will be awesome. My budget is around 150$ for motherboard.

Thank you.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Hi Everyone,

I am trying to upgrade my gaming rig as my xfx 680i mobo died after excellent performance for 3 years. But, I do not know much about h/w side of computers, So I would appreciate any piece of help.

My friend works for Intel and he has offered me intel components with discount (30%). I have finalized i7-2600 but can't decide which intel motherboard (manufactured by Intel) I should buy for hardcore gaming.

If you can please post your suggestions, that will be awesome. My budget is around 150$ for motherboard.

Thank you.

If you don't EVER plan to over-clock your processor, I suppose the i7-2600 is fine. But you can really get a decent over-clock setting with an i7-2600K or i5-2500K just by using onboard features of a good motherboard -- in other words, "automatic" overclocking. And, in fact, Intel has just released an i7-2700K processor available at NewEgg -- about $60 more in price than the i7-2600K.

The ASUS P8Z68-V-Pro and similar boards offer the "auto" over-clocking capability for a price around $200. There is a P8Z68-V and P8Z68-LE board available for lower prices -- probably the same BIOS features. They may have less in the way of phase-power design. these all use the Intel Z68 chipset.

If you want a motherboard of Intel manufacture, maybe someone else can give you more information. But if you can, find an Intel board with the Intel Z68 chipset. There should be a few models available with that chipset.

 

[blueefire]

Thank you!

I have two options - (links for ref only / not buying from newegg)

DH67GD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121509

DP67BG
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121511

Later one is 90$ expensive to directly buy from intel.
I do not really plan to do SLI / overclocking as I change GPU usually every year. I am thinking to get DH67GD though it is advertised more as media center mobo to save 90$ and use that money to upgrade my GTX 285 => GTX 560. Please tell me if that's the wrong choice and I should go for gaming board - DP67BG. Will appreciate any opinion your have!

 

[nenforcer]

If you only ever plan to use a single graphics card (or your new onchip video) and never use SLI / Crossfire then I would recommend the first, microATX H67 board.

The second P67 board will probably have a slightly higher resale value and allows dual PCI-E x16 2.0 slots for SLI and Crossfire configurations. Remember that the P67 boards were tainted with SATA 3Gbps bugs at launch and you will want a B3 stepping for sure.

Can you not get any Z68 based boards from Intel? These basically combine the best of both the previous boards into one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813121527

and this one which costs a bit more

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813121533

but also includes features like Intel Smart Response Technology (SSD Cacheing).

 

[blueefire]

Thx nenforcer.
Z68 based motherboard (first hyperlink) is only 40$ cheaper than DP67BG.
DP67BG has support for DDR 1600, more resell value.

I think I will go for DP67BG.
B3 stepping problem was seen around Feb'11 time and I think newer mobos don't have that problem. Still I will make sure I got the later version board when I receive it.

I hope everything works out. Thank you Bonzaiduck and nenforcer for quick and expert guidance.