New Mobo Needed socket 1156

BazMcG

Hi all, basically need a new motherboard as the last one is bust. Have a core i5, my previous board was an msi p55 gd80. Price wise.. Im undecided yet.. But im not sure whats the best value for money at the minute.

Any help appreciated.
Baz

Solitaire

No value for money among Intel's current gen sockets whatsoever - its only a case of deciding how many features you need, and prepare to be raped by the appropriate amount for them. GA-P55-USB3 is okayish for price and has, uhm, USB3. GA-P55A-UD3 is expensive for a "budget" mobo but pretty solid and has both USB3 and SATA3 if you ever need them.

Unregistered.

Solitaire wrote: »

No value for money among Intel's current gen sockets whatsoever - its only a case of deciding how many features you need, and prepare to be raped by the appropriate amount for them. GA-P55-USB3 is okayish for price and has, uhm, USB3. GA-P55A-UD3 is expensive for a "budget" mobo but pretty solid and has both USB3 and SATA3 if you ever need them.

Gigabyte is a very good choice. The UD3 was really good value when it came out when you compare it to what else was available but since then it has not gone down in price, in fact, it's gone up!:mad:

Anti

I've the Asus formula III in my 1156 rig at the moment. Never had any issues with it. Bit pricey, but easilly the best 1156 boards out there imho.

54kroc

I'm using an Asus P7P55D at the moment and for the money it's a cracker.
It's the first time I've used a budget board for my own build, It doesn't have all the bell's and whistle's of a high end board but I can still get a 4GHZ oc with my i7 860 and it has SATA 6 Gbps and USB 3.0 as well.

BazMcG

Thanks for posting.

I had a look at all the boards mentioned. I think I could spend upto around 150 max! (sterling)

I was watching this card on ebay and if i could sneak in at 150 that would be amazing lol but i doubt it will happen.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ASUS-Maximus-III-Extreme-LGA1156-ATX-Motherboard-/320593622991?pt=UK_Motherboards_CPUs&hash=item4aa4de77cf

Think i need something that has support for xfire and sli, possibly some usb 3.0 and sata 6 but in general a solid board that will let me do a bit of overclocking. I had the i5 at 3.6 and was hoping to push 4 quite easily.

TBH i had a look at the Gigabyte boards they seem quite good value for money imo. Who would you buy off? I normally buy off aria and ebuyer is there anyone better?

Anti

Thats a good mobo alright. Only problem is it really is aimed at the very high end of the spectrum, i.e crazy ass overclockers who can get their hands on ln2 or dice. There would be so many features you would never use. If you want sli and xfire then you would be looking at a x58 which is a 1366 only board. It's been a while since i've looked at 1156 mobos, 8 months in fact. And back then i can't remember if any could do both sli and xfire. There more than likely is now. And if not no doubt there will be hacked drivers to sort it out.

Since your system would be cpu limited as you have a i5, i'm not knocking the chips its just if you add in some high end graphics cards the CPU will be the bottleneck. Why not just buy a bargain board that can either support sli or xfire. Then if you change cards you can change the mobo too? Oh and another thing. If you have a iPhone and plan on using a H55/57 or P55 motherboard you will need to get a pci-e usb card. For some reason the way the board handles usb id's isn't compatible with a lot of smart phones. Completely OT i know, but might be worth mentioning

Hank Scorpio

how did your old board die out of interest? im using the same one

BazMcG

Anti wrote: »

Thats a good mobo alright. Only problem is it really is aimed at the very high end of the spectrum, i.e crazy ass overclockers who can get their hands on ln2 or dice. There would be so many features you would never use. If you want sli and xfire then you would be looking at a x58 which is a 1366 only board. It's been a while since i've looked at 1156 mobos, 8 months in fact. And back then i can't remember if any could do both sli and xfire. There more than likely is now. And if not no doubt there will be hacked drivers to sort it out.

Since your system would be cpu limited as you have a i5, i'm not knocking the chips its just if you add in some high end graphics cards the CPU will be the bottleneck. Why not just buy a bargain board that can either support sli or xfire. Then if you change cards you can change the mobo too? Oh and another thing. If you have a iPhone and plan on using a H55/57 or P55 motherboard you will need to get a pci-e usb card. For some reason the way the board handles usb id's isn't compatible with a lot of smart phones. Completely OT i know, but might be worth mentioning

Thanks Anti, i phrased myself wrong i did mean either sli or xfire so apologies lol dont have enough money for both

Did not know that about the iPhone thing i have one atm but it works fine on my mobo.

I think ill have a little nosey around the web and look at the ones that were mentioned in this thread. In response to the question of how it is bust. Well technically its not bust as such, but i was having problems with my system and so on. After reseating the CPU several times.. such a pain with a megahelm.. I think i have either broken or done something to the pins on the mobo where the CPU sits. There is definately something wrong, but its strange the system works perfectly fine apart from the fact that it is constantly reserving 2gb of my 4gb of ram for hardware..

I have tested the RAM and tried other identical RAM sticks, another i5 and another hard drive yet nothing helped.. I updated the BIOS, checked for maximum memory in msconfig and done various other things including a fresh instal of win7 64. Basically i narrowed it down to the mobo and the fact it appears to be damaged..

BazMcG

BTW that mobo on ebay went for £100 :eek: brand new and it retails at £245

youcancallmeal

Are you not still under warranty with MSI? Also have you tried carefully examining the pins on the motherboard and if you see any bent then straighten them up?