which motherboard

stephenmarr

Thinking of building my first gaming pc but im stumped at which motherboard to go for.

thinking of INETL

Thinking of an i5/i7 system also would like to be able to go SLI or CROSSFIRE
not really up to speed on overclocking but maybe in the future.

would spend up to €800/€900 all in for the system.

it would be mainly used for gaming/surfing/watching movies.

the case im looking at is the HAF932

i have keyboard/mouse/monitor (dell 24" 1920x1200 native res)

what can yea all recommend

Leman_Russ

Omg, an i5, for GAMING?
Nono, stay away from that because it's actually good! </snark>

If you go for the 1156LGA i5 (which you should because the i7 is a con and a waste of money for gaming/movies), get a Gigabyte Motherboard, either a P55A UD3 or UD4 (or the P55 UD3/UD4 if they fit your budget better).

So are you looking for a full system recommendation or have you picked everything except the mobo?

stephenmarr

whats the difference between the P55A UD3 or UD4 and the P55 UD3/UD4
looking at recommendations for full system
think i will go with a 5850 for gaming

ive an XPS710 with a GTX280 for sale what kinda price would i get for it

its installed with VISTA home premium 32bit
Core 2 Extreme QX6700
4gb Crucial Ballistix Tracer RAM
creative x-fi gamer sound card

lmimmfn

most P55 and X58 mobos support both Crossfire and SLI, which is damn handy tbh, ATI cards are better if you're gonna use it for blu-ray movies( i dunno if you are? ) as it has onboard soundcard on the gpu to handle the encrypted HDMI audio.

stephenmarr

no wont be using it for blu-ray movies
would the on-board audio be good enough for gaming?

Solitaire

Leman_Russ wrote: »

Omg, an i5, for GAMING?
Nono, stay away from that because it's actually good! </snark>

Well then, stop snarking or you'll get a BanHammer wedged somewhere very painful. No-one's debating whether to go Intel or not on an upper-mid-range build like this and I'll be the first to criticize the first person who does wave the AMD flag on this occasion.

I still wish LGA1156 was a bit more reliable but as the likelihood of one detonating at stock clocks seems pretty slim I'd only be concered about someone trying to hit the 4GHz barrier with one - until we get some definite answers regarding cause and effect (and certain OEMs trying to void warranties!) I'd stick to LGA1366 for hardcore OC action for the moment...

Leman_Russ

Ok, Ok I'll stop being snarky

But as the OP said, he isn't gonna be OCing right away, and I have been OCing my i5 to 4ghz on a P55 UD3 with zero problems.

And the only company I know to not honour the warranties is ASUS, who "do not condone overclocking" apparently, even though 99% of their marketing material is about overclocking and their GPUs have custom bios for voltmods

leninbenjamin

Leman_Russ wrote: »

But as the OP said, he isn't gonna be OCing right away, and I have been OCing my i5 to 4ghz on a P55 UD3 with zero problems.

As I've been trying to point out to you in almost every post I've made on the issue to date, the exact cause of the problem has yet to be determined. Just because it works for you means nothing without further information.

Leman_Russ

Well, from what I have been reading, it is only an issue with extreme overvolts (ya know, just like every other CPU).

The whole "Exploding at stock settings" has been heavily overplayed, as was the foxconn thing (when Lotes do it at extreme voltages too)

Venom

Leman_Russ wrote: »

Well, from what I have been reading, it is only an issue with extreme overvolts (ya know, just like every other CPU).

The whole "Exploding at stock settings" has been heavily overplayed, as was the foxconn thing (when Lotes do it at extreme voltages too)

In all fairness there's been 1 report of a lotes socket going boom which could have just been a bad component. BTW what socket does your gigabyte have?

OP anything else your keeping from your current rig like soundcard,hard drives etc?

Leman_Russ

Venom wrote: »

In all fairness there's been 1 report of a lotes socket going boom which could have just been a bad component. BTW what socket does your gigabyte have?

A Dirty ol' Foxconn one :pac::pac::pac:

stephenmarr

think i will let the old rig go build from scratch thats if i can sell it.
if its to difficult to sell it i will keep the graphics and sound card for new rig.

lmimmfn

stephenmarr wrote: »

no wont be using it for blu-ray movies
would the on-board audio be good enough for gaming?

ahh ok, well ATI is best at the mo anyway simply for DX11.

Nah the onboard would be rubbish for gaming, Xfi Xtremegamer is a great card, its pretty cheap too, around 50euro, a world of difference in comparison with onboard for gaming, especially the virtual surround sound.

stephenmarr

cheers for the info what psu is recommended?
whats the difference between the P55A UD3/UD4 and the P55 UD3/UD4

Leman_Russ

stephenmarr wrote: »

cheers for the info what psu is recommended?
whats the difference between the P55A UD3/UD4 and the P55 UD3/UD4

I would recommend a Corsair HX650, for a few reasons. It's modular, so it looks nicer, its a single beefy rail so no power issues, Corsair are t3h best and it gives a lot of room for upgrading :pac:

The difference between the P55A and P55 are:
P55A support USB 3.0 and Sata 6gb/s, (but means your Graphics card will only run at 8x electrical or 4x/4x crossfire electrical if both are being used) P55 do not atm iirc
P55A are supposed to have LOTES sockets iirc (which doesn;t actually matter but anyway).

In short, P

stephenmarr

so stick with the p55 motherboards