x58 board without Realtek devices?

[HumblePie]

I am wanting to pick up a good x58 mobo to go with my nice i7 I got from MC, but I haven't been able to find exactly what I'm looking for. I'm trying to stay away from the realtek built on devices and so far the only boards I found without are the Asus Rampage Gene II and the MSI board. Both of these have the Creative X-Fi sound which is more what I'm looking for along with Marvel Gigabit lan.

However, the Asus is mATX and is lacking a few slots I want for my main rig and the MSI one I keep reading isn't that good for OC'ing.

So, basically, I'm looking for a good x58 motherboard for high OC's, Creative X-fi sound, a marvel or yukon lan, 3 PCIe, and 6 ram slots. I know that using more than 3 hampers OCing on the x58 boards, so I might do a 3 slot board but only the Foxconn ones are doing that so no biggie if it has 3 I guess, but the foxconn boards don't have the rest of what I want.


So, is there a board I'm haven't seen that fits my requirements?

 

[jandlecack]

Rampage II Extreme. How did you miss that after looking at the Gene?

 

[HumblePie]

Was just going down the list on newegg. I noticed some of the newegg listings for sound just said, "8 channel" without saying which chip was being used. Okay, I'll look into the rampage 2 extreme. I already have the Rampage Formula x48 board with my Q9450 and have been relatively pleased thus far. Only thing I dislike about the Asus boards is I can't use winflash.

 

[HumblePie]

Asus Rampage 2 is spec for audio on newegg is "Audio Chipset ADI AD2000B" which isn't what I'm looking for. Also, the $370~ price tag is OUCH!

 

[jandlecack]

It comes with the same X-Fi "wannabe" that the MSI Eclipse and I believe the Classified come with.

Edit: If the high price puts you off you might actually be in the market for one that comes with Realtek. No offense.

 

[HumblePie]

No, the high price doesn't put me off, if it comes with everything I want. The problem is with the high price ones, they do not come with everything I want. The EVGA classified is a perfect example. Great OCing ability, but crappy realtek devices. For $400+ I expect more.If the MSI plat wasn't craptacular on OCing then I'd be all over it. But the fact is, the MSI has almost everything I want and for a cheaper price. The Gigabyte Extreme is looking almost as well.

It's just frustrating because I know what I want, and I can't get or find it.

 

[jandlecack]

The Classified is pointless. The Eclipse is issue-ridden. The EX58-Extreme is pretty awesome, but lacks some of the features that the R2E offers. It really competes more with the P6T Deluxe.

The R2E so far is the most complete x58 board on the market, far as I'm concerned. Also, you do know that the Eclipse comes with the same (good) soundchip, just with some X-Fi features layered on top of it, 1:1 like the R2E, right?

 

[tcsenter]

Better check whether the onboard X-Fi implementations require drivers from the OEM/IHV or are supported by the reference/generic drivers available directly from Creative. ASUS (and other motherboard manufacturers) are fairly poor at long-term driver support. Not an issue if the device can use drivers released by the chip vendor, but it can be a big issue if not, particularly now that we have driver-signing requirements for 64-bit Vista and beyond.

 

[nenforcer]

I hear you HumblePie, all these high priced X58 motherboards come with cheaper parts compared to even the X48 days.

Intel has even switched to the Realtek ALC889 audio CODEC on their very latest DX58SO board.

There is hope, however, as ASUS has released the ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 which has the AD2000B CODEC.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131365

and costs about $80 less than the Rampage 2 Extreme.

Some people don't like it because the removed the SAS controller but this was an addition few people actually need or use for a desktop motherboard IMO.

 

[HumblePie]

Yah, I just know what I want and yet not a single motherboard delivers. I am willing to PAY for what I want, although considering it really should be more than $250 as almost every other $250 board has about 90% of what I am looking for, but is just missing one or two things. It's really a piss poor situation.

 

[PCTC2]

If you really want a better sound solution, why not pick up the cheapest motherboard with the features you want, and then pick up a nice PCIe or PCI sound card with the features you want?

 

[HumblePie]

Originally posted by: PCTC2
If you really want a better sound solution, why not pick up the cheapest motherboard with the features you want, and then pick up a nice PCIe or PCI sound card with the features you want?

Because I don't like paying for things I am never going to use?

Why buy a motherboard with integrated sound, which you pay for because ANY component added on adds also to the cost, just to never use it? Also, since most motherboards now are actually getting more slot limited by being stuck with the ATX format this isn't always a viable solution.

Think about it. Most of these motherboards have 2 or 3 full length PCIe slots and 1 or 2 smaller PCIe, and maybe a PCI. The problem is if you are a gamer, the good video cards take up more space than one slot with their cooling solutions. So if you CF or SLI, then you end up losing access to the smaller PCIe and or PCI or some combination of smaller slots.

So now I'm stuck trying to shoehorn in a good sound card, my PCIe wireless N card, and other cards that I no longer have room for because the slots are blocked. Get the picture?

I don't understand the thought processes behind some of these motherboard manufacturers that are "pretending" to cater to the PC enthusiasts. They are not.


So right now I'm stuck trying to decide which piece of junk motherboard, that doesn't provide everything I want, to purchase. It's a bit frustrating.

 

[superunknown98]

Well instead of being idealistic about it, you should face the facts that every motherboard made today is going to have integrated sound. In fact if they made a board without it, it would probably cost more, because they would have to stop production and retool the assembly line not to include the chip, Come up with a new sku, silkscreen a diferrent model number on the board, make differnt stickers for the box, etc....

Given that the chips only add a few bucks to the price of the board, think of it as a bonus. If your sound card breaks, you'll have some sound, instead of nothing. And if you buy a new motherboard and move your sound card, the old motherboard will still have sound when you give it to grandma.

I think you can tell I'm reccomending a soundcard as well. It will produce a much higher quality aureal experience anyway. What speakers are you going to hook up to this thing anyway?

 

[nenforcer]

I am not going to recommend you buy a USB sound card, either. Those just sound like a bad idea.

 

[PCTC2]

How many expansion cards are you using?

I have the P6T Deluxe and I have a PCIe USB card, 2x GTX260's, and a PCI X-Fi Platinum installed. Unless you're using Tri-SLI, I'm sure you can find a board that will support all the cards you need, including a sound card. Otherwise, just live with the onboard sound that motherboard manufacturers use.