Need help to decide on motherboard for i7

Hello everyone.

I've finally decided to get an i7( i7 920, 3 GB of ram) instead of a c2q and I'm stuck on what mother board I should get. I'm not interested in overclocking, however I would like to have a good quality motherboard that lasts for a while.

I've looked around at several sites and found the following:
MSI x58 Pro £160.99(reflecting build quality?)
Gigabyte EX58-UD3R £171.55 2 (only 4 memory slots, makes upgrading to 6 GB by buying another 3GB impossible)
Asus P6T, Gigabyte EX58-UD4 and EX58-UD4P for £~200

The budget should be within £500(cpu, ram and motherboard) . I have all the other components(4850, Noctua NH-U12P, harddrives and a corsair tx 650) required to build the pc.

Well, I am sure they will all work fine at default as long as they have the right amount of PCI-E, SATA, DIMM etc that you require.

If aren't overclocking just choose the board that has the features you prefer.

As Scan have built round the Asus P6T range we can highly recomend these for stability and overclockability. Most of our I7 builds are based around these motherboards.

Regards

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by shaithis

Well, I am sure they will all work fine at default as long as they have the right amount of PCI-E, SATA, DIMM etc that you require.

If aren't overclocking just choose the board that has the features you prefer.

---

But aren't there quite significant differences between the manufacturers?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cleaverlch

But aren't there quite significant differences between the manufacturers?

---

In what way? It either works, or it doesn't.

If your overclocking, then the build quality of the boards start to become more apparent as you start to stress them beyond their normal operating parameters.....

Don't forget the heart of all those boards is the same chipset....Intel X58

For example, manufacturer A sell the cheapest x58 motherboard but has horrible customer support, takes forever to replace faulty boards and rarely release bios' to fix problems. Would you buy a board from such a company?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cleaverlch

But aren't there quite significant differences between the manufacturers?

---

Yes, MSI make cheap junk. Many might not agree with me, but after two failed mobos from them, I'm never buying MSI products again.

Let me ask you this, do you value your money? If you don't, ignore what I am about to say.

Now that we only have rational people left reading this, don't buy an i7. Your original post will agree with me, the cheapest mobo that comes with the upgrade possibilities you need costs £200. And of course the CPU is coming with a premium for being "new tech".

So why don't you just buy whatever C2Q CPU has similar performance, save the dosh, and get a mobo based on a mature production process? Yes, i7s are faster. But the difference in speed is like that between a lion and a leopard - if you are anywhere near them, they'll both tear you up before you've managed to piss your pants. ;)

If you set aside the theoretical advantages of i7, which in no way justify the price premium in my eyes, you'll see a ton of bargain-priced older generation processors just begging to be loved. In general, I'd always advise buying penultimate generation hardware. That is, one step short of the latest and greatest. That's where the bang for the buck (TM pending, hexus.net) is greatest.

You might be blocking off your future upgrade path, because of the 775 socket, but in my experience, CPUs last longer than motherboards. Thus, by the time your processor starts getting out of puff because of the latest bloated software, you'll be wanting to upgrade your motherboard anyway.

I would say ASUS P6T. I think I'm going to get one, my shopping list here: http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...ml#post1645510