P67 - going out of my mind

lrlcr

lrlcr

lrlcr

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I've got around £200 (preferably less) for a P67 mobo, I'm simply going out of my mind about which to choose. You hear plenty of horror stories about the asus boards, which are what i've used (fairly successfully in the past), are these generally okay?

My Requirement:

At least 6 Sata ports (at least 1 6Gbps, ideally handled by the intel controller)
Gigabit (Again ideally an intel controller but not essential)
1155 socket
Rock stable but a good clocker
Potential for xfire in the future

My short list:

Asus P8P67 Pro
Asus P67 Sabertooth
Gigabyte UD3/UD5
GD65
GD80
Asrock possibly

Are any of these duff boards? I just want a simple hassle free build, after spending the last two weeks tearing my hair out over a hardware failure.

Or should I just save a bunch of money and simply replace the dead skt775 motherboard and run my q9650 a bit longer?
 
ASUS P8P67 base board (Do not need Pro unless you are going for 50+ multis, or want full 8x8 Crossfire/SLI support)

Mien has been rock solid. B3 Rev 3.0
 
Alternatively, The MSI P67A-GD53.

The GD53/GD55 & GD65 are all based on the same PCB, with the same PWM design, they even use the same BIOS versions. The performance and reliability will be identical as the only spec differences are connectivity based (USB 3.0, Firewire, SATA). The GD53 is a GD65 minus one of the two USB 3.0 controllers, the firewire and two marvel controlled SATA 6gbps ports. The GD55 is a GD65 minus just the Marvel controlled SATA. Either way they all have two Intel controlled SATA 6gbps ports.

The GD53 just won the Custom PC Premium Award in this month's P67 shootout, ahead of the P8P67 and P67 Sabretooth boards. It is now their Elite recommended P67 motherboard and it's price will mean that you would have quite a bit of budget left over.
 
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ScottiB said:
Alternatively, The MSI P67A-GD53.

The GD53/GD55 & GD65 are all based on the same PCB, with the same PWM design, they even use the same BIOS versions. The performance and reliability will be identical as the only spec differences are connectivity based (USB 3.0, Firewire, SATA). The GD53 is a GD65 minus one of the two USB 3.0 controllers, the firewire and two marvel controlled SATA 6gbps ports. The GD55 is a GD65 minus just the Marvel controlled SATA. Either way they all have two Intel controlled SATA 6gbps ports.

The GD53 just won the Custom PC Premium Award in this month's P67 shootout, ahead of the P8P67 and P67 Sabretooth boards. It is now their Elite recommended P67 motherboard and it's price will mean that you would have quite a bit of budget left over.
Click to expand...

Nice summary, been looking at these 2, wonder how much use the dual bios is on the GD65 though.
 
I have P8P67 Pro and its brilliant not had a problem with it, Paired with my i5 2500k and
8Gb of XMS3 1600Mhz Corsair RAM. cant fault it. not pun intended lol
 
VaderDSL said:
Nice summary, been looking at these 2, wonder how much use the dual bios is on the GD65 though.
Click to expand...

depends....

are you a crazy OCer with no regard for your hardware? :p

I only know of three people who have needed to use the second BIOS & they were trying to break records :eek:
 
it's a back up BIOS incase you manage to corrupt the primary BIOS.

In the event of a problem you can boot from the BIOS and as long as the problem was software related & not a damaged BIOS chip the board will reflash the primary BIOS from the secondary.
 
ScottiB said:
Alternatively, The MSI P67A-GD53.

The GD53/GD55 & GD65 are all based on the same PCB, with the same PWM design, they even use the same BIOS versions. The performance and reliability will be identical as the only spec differences are connectivity based (USB 3.0, Firewire, SATA). The GD53 is a GD65 minus one of the two USB 3.0 controllers, the firewire and two marvel controlled SATA 6gbps ports. The GD55 is a GD65 minus just the Marvel controlled SATA. Either way they all have two Intel controlled SATA 6gbps ports.

The GD53 just won the Custom PC Premium Award in this month's P67 shootout, ahead of the P8P67 and P67 Sabretooth boards. It is now their Elite recommended P67 motherboard and it's price will mean that you would have quite a bit of budget left over.
Click to expand...
Out of stock :(
 
It's all down to the construction.

They both have SLI & Crossfire, the same number of USB 2.0 and USB3.0, the same number of SATA-II and III but the GD45 is an upgraded C45 whereas the GD53 is a trimmed down GD55.

What this means is that the G45 has a different, slightly light weight PCB, it doesnt have the Hi-C Capacitors that we use on the GD53 upwards and hence the overclocking capability of the G45 is not as high as the GD5X boards.

For your average user who isnt looking to OC dramatically the G45 is great value but I'd always plump for the full Military Class II GD53 or above myself.
 
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