Motherboard Advice

[Feachie]

intel pricing sucks, but you get what you pay for. i wait about 2 weeks after launch, that's enough time to see what steppings are total crap and which ones are overperforming.

ivy > sandy > bulldozer. imho wait a couple months. no current boards will support ivy bridge core.

[Gwence]

Originally Posted by Feachie [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

intel pricing sucks, but you get what you pay for.

ivy > sandy > bulldozer. imho wait a couple months. no current boards will support ivy bridge core.

ivy bridge cpus are going to run on socket 1155 which has been out for a while now.

[Feachie]

Originally Posted by Gwence [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

ivy bridge cpus are going to run on socket 1155 which has been out for a while now.

doesn't matter, everything i've read thus far has said the same thing. current boards, even socket 1155 ones, will not work with ivy. qpi link too slow on current boards i bet.

[Gwence]

hmm interesting, all the reviews I've read said 1155 is going to be backward compatable.

[Honest]

There is a certain alloy they use in manufacturing DDR2 that makes it more expensive than DDR3. DDR3 is the better ram, also happens to be the cheaper. As far as overclocking, it's not too difficult once you understand the concept. Do keep in mind that the larger the MB and the more powerful the processor your gonna need a larger PSU. You can probably build a decent machine for 600 bucks.

[Gwence]

Overclocking is all one touch nowadays with UEFI or the manufacture suites that come with pretty much every newer motherboard, a retarded monkey could do it with no trouble, it's very easy and companies like Intel and AMD are starting to underclock their processors just so people feel all warm and fuzzy when they one touch their speed up past 4 GHz

I wouldn't bother OC'ing your memory, it doesn't do much for you just check the specs on the modules and the latency times and make sure you're getting those times when they get installed it might need some tweaking to get the specs that the modules are rated for but that also isn't very difficult with how easy the UEFI's are right now. Example of this is when a person buys a dual channel kit with the modules rated for 1600Mhz alot of the time the motherboard will default the modules to 1333Mhz so you just have to change that in the bios. The motherboards also tell you what speeds they support without overclocking.

I would however OC your video card whichever you choose to buy and in most cases you can save money on video cards by buying a Non-OC'd card and then doing it yourself with windows software (MSI afterburner is free software and will OC Nvidia GPU's as well as AMD GPU's) ASUS also has one they just came out with too, can't remember the name. This is very easy as well as you're pretty much just moving a slider bar in the program and then restarting. You may have to tweak voltage depending on how high of an OC you want but they're minor tweaks. I'm making it sound easy but it really is just dont go overboard and 99.9% of the time you'll be just fine.

I will say your buying method is a bit risky imo, motherboards are something I usually buy last in my builds because of the DOA risk I want to be able to RMA or return if needed. It's not something that happens often but better safe than sorry. What I normally do is decide on the board and then buy everything else other than solid state drive before the MB. Buying a processor first is fine those things are solid as steel.

I would suggest deciding on your CPU before anything else, once that is done, decide on a video card and get the dimensions of it, after that pick out a case making sure it will be big enough to house your video card and any aftermarket cooling solutions if you plan on doing that. Then pick out your power supply and make sure it can handle whatever video card you picked. Now pick out your motherboard because at this point you know which socket you need, you know how big it can be, and you know which expansion slot(s) you will need for your video card, and you also know which power supply connectors you have and double check to make sure the board calls for them and the video card connectors as well (from the psu). It sounds like a lot of information but it's not too bad. After that figure what you want for your storage and boot or if it's going to be the same drive (wouldn't reccommend that) and pick out some memory and an optical drive and that's about it.

Give me a few min I'll link to some good processors in your price range.

[pickled_heretic]

Originally Posted by Honest [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There is a certain alloy they use in manufacturing DDR2 that makes it more expensive than DDR3. DDR3 is the better ram, also happens to be the cheaper. As far as overclocking, it's not too difficult once you understand the concept. Do keep in mind that the larger the MB and the more powerful the processor your gonna need a larger PSU. You can probably build a decent machine for 600 bucks.

this is actually bullshit. DDR3 has a much higher latency than DDR2. DDR2 will outperform DDR3 until you reach higher clockspeeds. If you are looking for performance at a low price point you should stick with DDR2. You get what you pay for... cheaper DDR3 will not perform as well as equivalent DDR2. At identical price points the DDR2 will outperform DDR3 until you reach the higher performance RAM.

[Honest]

Originally Posted by pickled_heretic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

this is actually bullshit. DDR3 has a much higher latency than DDR2. DDR2 will outperform DDR3 until you reach higher clockspeeds. If you are looking for performance at a low price point you should stick with DDR2. You get what you pay for... cheaper DDR3 will not perform as well as equivalent DDR2. At identical price points the DDR2 will outperform DDR3 until you reach the higher performance RAM.

I agree that quality DDR2 will outperform cheap DDR3 but thats not what i was saying. DDR3 is only going to get better, where they have reached the ceiling with DDR2, and can no longer increase the frequency. There are advantages to DDR3, less power consumption. It has twice as many internal banks on it that DDR2. It can provide higher speeds at a lower voltage. But more importantly there will be better DDR3 out there. Most of the newer chipsets use DDR3. You shouldnt dump your current system, if its decent, just to get DDR3 for a 1-2% increase. Fact of the matter is DDR2 is more expensive. If you want to get a mobo that is going to support DDR2 as well SATA III and all the other new ports its gonna end up costing more money., then getting the same mother board that supports DDR3. Would you rather have a DX10 video card or one that supports DX11. There may not be many games that run in DX11 right now, doesnt mean there wont be in the future. Same difference here. No system will be "future proof" but you have more, cheaper, options than running a DDR2 system (which i do). But for me it was cheaper and more logical to stay with what i had. He is making a new system.

[Humerox]

Gwence is pretty much spot on with advice here.

If you OC go AMD or go home. Just watch the heat.

Their "Bulldozer" looks mean as hell.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/24176...uch_42ghz.html

That's a hell of a wallop for $245.00.

They put all other processors to shame with OCing too. Can you say 8.429GHz? 'Course the helium would be a little costly.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/23985..._the_dust.html

[Gwence]

well I'd say you would probably get better performance from the 2nd gen sandy bridge cpu's over AMD right now in terms of OC'ing. But I hadn't read that article on bulldozer that is a really hot price for an 8 core cpu lol. Although I'm always a bit weary of buying brand new tech for fear of potential recalls and bugs that pop up.

Intel really does piss me off with their pricing though.