Your thoughts on the ASUS MAXIMUS III FORMULA

hey all,

I currently have an Asus P5K Deluxe Wifi board with a Q6600 which is overclocked to 3.16Ghz (following Clunk's amazing OC guide for this board and chip combo)

I've had it for a couple of years (ish) and it has served me well, but I feel it is upgrade time once again :D

I've been looking at the ASUS SKT-1156 MAXIMUS III FORMULA S/L and Intel i5-750 Quad Core Processor (2.66 GHz version)

What does everyone think of this board and chip? Are they friendly to overclocking? Is overclocking as easy as with my current board?

I guess the Ghz limit I can go to with these 2 will be around the same as I have currently unless I want to move over to liquid cooling (which I'm not sure I would at this point, but I would consider it)?

I have quite a badass cooler with a yate-loon fan on it, can't remember exactly which one it is but it looks a little like a Harley's twin v engine! It's pretty big and has no built in fans if that helps...

At the same time I upgrade the board and chip I will also get new memory (currently have 4gb of XMS-2), an SSD drive (thinking 150GB) to replace 2x raptors in a RAID0 (not as fast I originally hoped they would be) and maybe an additional 8800 GTX graphics card to match the one I have already...

What do you think?

Cheers

My thoughts are that it's complete overkill for a socket 1156 system. If you're going to spend that much then go for a 1366 based sytem.

Ok, thanks for the advice, that's the last time I believe anything I read in a magazine ;)

Any suggestions for a 1366 system?

I noticed the Asus P6TD Deluxe which at just over £200 I could probably stretch to, or maybe the Asus P6T which seems pretty good for £167..?

Any idea if these will be as OC friendly as my current board?

Cheers

You should be able to get a Rev D0 920 up to 3.8Ghz very easily with even the P6T. This reviewer went to 4.1Ghz on air:

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/asus_p6t/8.htm

If the OP is gaming stick to a socket 1156 system unless they want Crossfire or SLI at PCI-E 2.0 16X. TBH,the Core i5 750 would be the best value socket 1156 CPU if the system is for gaming.

However,TBH a Q6600 at 3.16GHZ is more than fast enough for gaming since even a Phenom II at 2.8GHZ will not bottleneck an HD5970:

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=869

To the OP I would probably get an SSD and a new graphics card instead of getting a new CPU now. In 2011 there should be some new architecture chips from Intel and AMD(Bulldozer) which woul be a much bigger improvement in CPU performance.

Thanks for the advice :D

I'll go the SSD + gcard route I think...I guess it makes sense to wait at this point with USB3 starting to appear

I'd agree with an earlier poster, I'd spend the money on a 1366 based system instead. =)