ASrock or MSI

Soldato
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Can't deicide which one of the boards below to get?

MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
MSI Z68A-GD80-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Asrock Fatal1ty Z68 Pro Gen3 intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Asrock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard

Any suggestions ?

Pros/cons of each
 
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You only want the Asrock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 if you plan on using 3 separate graphics cards in CrossFire or SLI.

The other boards will be fine for a single graphics card or 2 cards in SLI/CrossFire.

The MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68 is a good buy with the VAT back if purchased by 21 November.
 
Can't deicide which one of the boards below to get?

MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
MSI Z68A-GD80-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Asrock Fatal1ty Z68 Pro Gen3 intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Asrock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard

Any suggestions ?

Pros/cons of each

I've reviewed quite a handful of Z68's - what other components do you have and what do you use the rig for?
 
I've reviewed quite a handful of Z68's - what other components do you have and what do you use the rig for?

Gaming and video editing !


Product Name Qty Price Line Total
MSI GeForce GTX 570 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £251.99
(£209.99) £251.99
(£209.99)
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £239.99
(£199.99) £239.99
(£199.99)
Corsair Graphite 600T Midi Tower Case - Limited Edition White £139.99
(£116.66) £139.99
(£116.66)
Lepa B-Series 850W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply - with FREE LEPA Hard Drive Enclosure £94.98
(£79.15) £94.98
(£79.15)
G.Skill RipJawsZ 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9Q-16GBZL) £89.99
(£74.99) £89.99
(£74.99)
Corsair Hydro H80 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/LGA2011/AM2/AM3) £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
(£70.82)
LG BH10LS38 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive - Black (Retail) £79.98
(£66.65) £79.98
(£66.65)
OCZ Agility 3 60GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-60G) £78.98
(£65.82) £78.98
(£65.82)
 
I've also been pondering, looking for something that will take more than likely a 2500/2600k, 2x 6950s in Xfire (16/16) and 16Gb of RAM. USB 3 would be cool, would get the most outta my External HDD, that fast charge USB thing would be used a fair bit too. All this with a DEcent RAID controller for my current HDD's and SATA3 for obvious upgrade to SSD.

The ASRock Ex4G3 seems VERY popular but I've also seen people post a few crippling comments.

I'm becoming a bit more of a fan of the MSi gear like their TF3PE's have fantastic build quality. Where is the MSi RMA place?

I'll have a read of yer review :)
 
Not the Asrock if you want to run multi AMD cards and eyefinity, it dont work very well trust me the nf200 chip gives lag, i would think it will be fine with nvidia cards.. im selling my extreme7 now.. i have a MSI p67 GD55 now.. trouble free at last :)
 
Probably get the msi but

what's the difference between these two ?

MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
MSI Z68A-GD80-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
 
My vote goes here "Asrock Fatal1ty Z68 Pro Gen3 intel Z68" from personal experience and before this board I owned an ASUS P5Q Deluxe running a Q9650, great board and not had a single problem with it and I tried SLI 580's (used my friends 580 to test with my own) on it and worked amazingly well, not a single hiccup at any stage it just works as designed and fantastic quality board.

Asrock Fatal1ty Z68 Pro Gen3 intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-053-AK&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=

Check the reviews you will see what I mean, some on their site if you click on awards and move down and click the site.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen3



I avoided the Extreme 7 like the plague when I read it was using the Nvidia NF200 to try add more lanes and to me that was a problem that would rear its ugly head in the future and so far I am being proven right by many people having crossfire and SLI problems on that board. The Pro works as designed yes it does not have the NF200 chip on it and has reduced PCI lanes compared to the extreme 7, BUT the extreme 7 can not run 2 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots as the Pro can so the future states we will have PCI-E 3.0 graphics cards and this board is the right one to go for if you want to make sure future cards used in SLI or Crossfire will operate at PCI-E 3.0 speeds.

Check how quickly they fly out of stock on here all the time, I bet if you asked OCUK they will tell you they sold more of the Pros then the Extreme 7s and had not one returned for any reason. Did you not wonder why there are no threads regarding this board complaining about it anywhere ? I think that says it all, also no inverted mouse problems on this board in the BIOS/UEFI. I installed the board and updated the BIOS/UEFI to version 1.30 and installed windows and has been as good as gold.


This is my current setup here for you to look at and see how nice the board looks and how it fits into a case.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=20343245&postcount=5594


If the board had ASUS name on it, it would have cost atleast £300+. Great value top end Z68 board I think and totally stress free, it just works. The only reason to look at the Extreme 7 is if you want to add 3 graphics cards, no other reason. Also to add the Pro's V12 + 6 Power Phase Design is better then the Extreme 7s too. Just compare the specs on their site and you will see what I mean the Pro has more advantages then the Extreme 7 and it allows IDE drives and floppy connections if you still have an old IDE drive floating about.
 
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Gaming and video editing !


Product Name Qty Price Line Total
MSI GeForce GTX 570 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £251.99
(£209.99) £251.99
(£209.99)
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £239.99
(£199.99) £239.99
(£199.99)
Corsair Graphite 600T Midi Tower Case - Limited Edition White £139.99
(£116.66) £139.99
(£116.66)
Lepa B-Series 850W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply - with FREE LEPA Hard Drive Enclosure £94.98
(£79.15) £94.98
(£79.15)
G.Skill RipJawsZ 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9Q-16GBZL) £89.99
(£74.99) £89.99
(£74.99)
Corsair Hydro H80 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/LGA2011/AM2/AM3) £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
(£70.82)
LG BH10LS38 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive - Black (Retail) £79.98
(£66.65) £79.98
(£66.65)
OCZ Agility 3 60GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-60G) £78.98
(£65.82) £78.98
(£65.82)

All looks fine except the psu, corsair tx850m(£114) would be my choice. few other options are lepa g series 900w(£130), xfx black edition 850w(£122).


to pick up purgatorys point on triple graphics cards, what's the best psu for tri-xfire 6950/70s?

I'm wishing I never bought the extreme7, this is before I have the 'pleasure' of the bios issues(inverted mouse etc), xfire lag due to the nf2000 chip and what not. I would have those 'pleasures' if I could get the damn thing up and running but the bent pins in the CPU socket has ment I can't and I'm sure people are aware of the rma outcome(I've posted about it on enough threads already), not been sent to asrock yet as I'm trying to decide what to do(spend and £30-£40 to get it fixed if asrock agree or cut my losses(£245) and move on).
 
I'd highly recommend the Extreme4 Gen3 as per review in my sig - I've been using it ever since and had no probems with bugs that some seem to be reporting in this thread.

With the budget you have there are quite a lot of options available all of which would give you similar results in terms of performance and features. If it was me - I would go with Extreme4 Gen3 or the MSI GD65 G3, both are the same price!
 
Will the ram be ok ?

G.Skill RipJawsZ 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9Q-16GBZL) £89.99
(£74.99) £89.99
 
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