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Recommend me an x79 board?

Arachnotronic

Arachnotronic

Lifer
Hi,

Looking to reward myself for the completion of a pretty long software project, so it's SNB-E + GTX 680 time for me.

I want to overclock, and while I have the money to spend, I'd prefer not to *waste* money. I just want a board that'll take a 3930K to 4.5GHz+. Thanks, all! 🙂
 
My original X79 board was the ASRock X79 Extreme 4 and it was amazing.

3930k.png
 
I'd say you'd be best off narrowing down your list of requirements

do you want more than 4 slots for memory?

What about CFX/SLI? Just about every X79 board will be built to be capable of running at lest two video cards, but some are clearly designed to be perfect for 2, but no more (my Sabertooth for instance), while others are built to accommodate 3 cards but really no more than that, and others still are definitely built for up to 4. Since it sounds like you're not wanting to go all out it sounds like you might not care about running more than 1 GPU, which would even leave something like a mATX option as a possiblity which could save you some money as well as open up the possibility of a smaller case.

avoiding chipset fans might also be a priority of yours in order to keep noise potential down, there are quite a few X79 boards that have fans.

for instance I ended up going with the Sabertooth because I liked the option to have 8 slots for RAM as well as knowing I'd never run more than 2 video cards and the extra spacing between the two primary PCI-e x16 slots would help if I ever do add a second card. And since I was going for performance first and foremost, the fact that the chipset has a little fan on it wasn't exactly a dealbreaker.

when it comes down to it there really aren't any "cheap" s2011 boards, they'll all be at least decent overclockers, and 4.5GHz is a goal that should be achievable on any of the X79 boards that I know of (provided you have a capable cooling and powersupply)
 
I would say the R4E is prob the best X79 you can buy at the moment. Bios is more frequently updated, has tons of options and will O/C like crazy if you know what you are doing. Its not a mobo for a beginner.
 
R4E is a huge waste of money. There is no point in spending 400 dollars on a motherboard when one for 200 dollars does the same exact thing unless you plan on running 4 cards
 
I would 2nd the sabertooth for all of the reasons bunnyfubbles gives, plus it has 4x SATA 3. Even if you don't use all of it's capabilities right away, it gives you room to grow without breaking the bank. Good warranty, too.
 
I, too, am looking at an X79 board since my system is feeling its age. (see the signature)

I am not too concerned with overclocking. The big things for me are stability and quiet.
I have narrowed it down to the Intel DX79SI and the ASUS P9X79 WS.

I have chosen those because they don't have fans, they don't have goofy heatsinks. they have expandability options and 8 RAM slots (I probably wont have more than 1 GPU, but I might have add-in cards), they should support IVB-E eventually, and I hope they're stable, but Newegg reviews would seem to say otherwise.

Of course, I am willing to be convinced that other boards I haven't heard of will meet my needs.

Thanks
 
Don Karnage said:
R4E is a huge waste of money. There is no point in spending 400 dollars on a motherboard when one for 200 dollars does the same exact thing unless you plan on running 4 cards
Click to expand...

The Bios is much better for one, better VRMs lots more options for memory tweaking.

That's just a start.

It does have some nice features but do you need it? That's a different question.
 
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