Best motherboard for my setup?

HexagonalBolts · 29 Nov 2011 at 10:48

Hello!

Please suggest a motherboard and give me your reasoning:

I'm getting a i5 2500k and thus need a new motherboard (and RAM). I will be using it for gaming, I will be overclocking the CPU, it must have SPDIF and preferably high audio quality. Budget is £80 to £150.

The problem is that I struggle to distinguish between different motherboards, I find it very hard to know why I should go for an £150 one over an £80 one so please help me out there.

Here's the rest of my setup:

MSI 6950 2GB OC
1TB HDD
CM690 (might buy something else)
Corsair HX Series 520W Modular PSU (Three years old - is this powerful enough?)
Windows 7 x64
Blu-ray drive & DVD drive
1920x1080 27" LG

I'm tempted to get a Corsair H60 for the cooling and I need to buy 8GB of RAM, I'm open to suggestions on that too.

(I had a thread in general hardware asking some general questions but it has boiled down to the motherboard now and nobody seems to replying there so I hope that justifies this new thread in this section.)

mickyflinn · 29 Nov 2011 at 12:21

Alls depends on what extras you want on a mobo like sli and crossfire , wifi ,etc so what do u want ?

HexagonalBolts · 29 Nov 2011 at 15:02

mickyflinn said:
Alls depends on what extras you want on a mobo like sli and crossfire , wifi ,etc so what do u want ?

I don't need wifi, wouldn't say no to Crossfire but I can't see myself using it any time soon, I do plan on overclocking, I would like USB 3.0... anything I've missed?

spankingtexan · 30 Nov 2011 at 08:38

It would seem the Asrock extreme4 gen3 is the one everyone recommends. Think it's a tad over £150 though.

HexagonalBolts · 30 Nov 2011 at 12:58

spankingtexan said:
It would seem the Asrock extreme4 gen3 is the one everyone recommends. Think it's a tad over £150 though.

Thanks spankingtexan, is there any reason for that? I gave it a quick google but both these reviews seemed to recommend other boards, noticeably gigabyte, over it:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2011/09/09/asrock-z68-extreme4-gen3-review/7

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/09/asrock_z68_extreme4_gen3_motherboard_review/6

Karateyid · 30 Nov 2011 at 13:04

Got an ASrock Extrreme 4 Gen 3.. good board... Allows you to 'upgrade' to PCI 3 if/when you upgrade to the IVYBRIDGE cpu next year... USB 3 on it...

If your looking to crossfire then I think you will need to upgrade your PSU aswell..

HexagonalBolts · 30 Nov 2011 at 13:48

Karateyid said:
Got an ASrock Extrreme 4 Gen 3.. good board... Allows you to 'upgrade' to PCI 3 if/when you upgrade to the IVYBRIDGE cpu next year... USB 3 on it...

If your looking to crossfire then I think you will need to upgrade your PSU aswell..

I'm not looking for crossfire anytime soon. Will not many other motherboards support IVYBRIDGE? To be honest, if I buy an i5 2500k and give it a good overclock then I can't see myself having another upgrade for another few years, god knows how many years my faithful q6600 has lasted me, it can still chomp through most games now.

Also, can anyone point to any solid reviews or threads on the ASrock with a bit of information? I can't seem to find anything that doesn't recommend other boards over it...

HexagonalBolts · 2 Dec 2011 at 10:18

Bump, also - what about the ASrock pro 3...?

Davefran · 3 Dec 2011 at 13:23

This is the review that convinced me to get one, been extreamely impressed with it so far. No issues what so ever and looks fantastic

Z68 Extreme4 Gen3

IvanDobskey · 5 Dec 2011 at 11:30

How about the gen 3 asus board? Its about the same price as the asrock i think.

Davefran · 5 Dec 2011 at 12:29

IvanDobskey said:
How about the gen 3 asus board? Its about the same price as the asrock i think.

They seem to be having quite a lot of teething problems, hopefully these will be sorted out eventually(boot looping and usb disconnecting)
Although there may be a cure for the boot looping on some boards through a bios setting.

Elevon · 5 Dec 2011 at 16:36

Davefran said:
They seem to be having quite a lot of teething problems, hopefully these will be sorted out eventually(boot looping and usb disconnecting)
Although there may be a cure for the boot looping on some boards through a bios setting.

The guy had memory issue(faulty ram) with USB disconnecting,as to double boot go into bios "boot menu "then "Option Rom messages" and select" keep current" that fixes double boot issue and stops Bios displaying third party rom messages on boot up hence double boot.

My Asus Z68 V/Gen3 is rock solid with no issues,probably one of the easiest motherboards to setup that I've owned.

For the record I use a lot of USB devices with my board and no issues.

Davefran · 5 Dec 2011 at 21:10

Elevon said:
My Asus Z68 V/Gen3 is rock solid with no issues,probably one of the easiest motherboards to setup that I've owned.

I can say exactly the same about the Asrock Extreme4 Gen3, no problems at all, superb layout and performance.
To tell the truth, if you read through a lot of these threads, there are a lot of issues caused by "Picnic's" rather than it actually being down to the hardware.