Sandybridge Motherboards

[ZeroG]

Does anyone have a recommendation of a good motherboard that would support the latest Sanybridge processors?

I think my motherboard might be on it's last legs as it's doing some funky crashing at the moment. It might be the time to look into an upgrade. Overclockers have some bundles but they look rather pricey.

Not sure whether to decide on an i5 or an i7. Main parts i would need to replace is the motherboard, the processor and the ram. Everything else would be using my existing kit. Although the motherboard would need to have a PCI slot if I wanted to use my existing SB sound card, I've noticed a lot of the new boards only have the PCI-E slots for peripheral cards.

 

[Deep Blue]

i7 imo is overkill, I'd take a look at somewhere like ebuyer and get a feel for prices then start getting reviews and benchmarks from google. If you ask me, premium high end boards like the RoG series are a complete waste of money unless you're an overclocker who knows what they are doing. Nearly every board these days comes with solid state capacitors so don't be fooled into getting a high end board just for that.

That board I've linked you to supports 2 graphics cards and has PCI slots. Don't know why they have gone back to using dual channel DDR3 memory though?

I run dual channel DDR3 in an AMD system and bang for buck there is no difference in gaming peformance compared to an intel rig (Runs like shit off a shovel!)

I'll try and help but I'm kinda out the loop not having looked in to it properly since Jan 2010

 

[Amesy]

Bang for buck, Dex is right. The AMD chips have come on leaps and bounds. the AMD 975 chip on an Asus Crosshair Forumla is wickedly quick.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/258000
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/206344
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/247678

That's what I'd have anyway

 

[ZeroG]

I'm not too sure about AMD's offerings, haven't looked at them in a while. I usually go by http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu-intel-core-i7-amd-phenom-ii,2926-5.html to compare chip levels then read the various reviews/benchmarks.

The i5 2500k looks to be a tier higher and is only a little more expensive i.e. approx £30 on first glance and apparently you can clock the hell out of them with their unlocked multiplier.

 

[ZeroG]

http://www.soupyo.co.uk/screenshots/oafcec.jpg

A quick slap together of a bundle for something I might be looking at.

Amazon so far are coming out cheapest at £328.30

 

[ZeroG]

http://www.soupyo.co.uk/screenshots/wbknne.jpg

Sorted.

 

[Deep Blue]

Awesome!

 

[ZeroG]

Might dabble properly in overclocking once I get it built since these chips are supposed to easily be able to hit 4.5GHz on air.

 

[ZeroG]

Little bit of failure on my part ordering the wrong RAM. 1333MHz instead of the 1600MHz. So ordered the right stuff and will return the other RAM once it arrives.

My account says it isn't to be dispatched until 27th yet when I phoned them they said it was already sent out :/

 

[ZeroG]

Proper RAM arrived yesterday, just need to wait for the rest of the stuff now.

I swapped out my g/card and put my old one back in and so far it hasn't crashed, looks like it could be either card going faulty, overheating, not seated properly due to sata cables or just another sign the motherboard is failing.