Gigabyte Z68AP-D3-B3 question

Fantastic, just the answer I was hoping for to be honest. How does it rate compared to the Asus (P8Z68V-LX), MSI (Z68S-G43) and ASRock (Pro3 Gen3) offerings at that price point as a single GPU gaming board for an i5 2500k computer?
 
Gigabyte it is then. Finally decided to take the plunge so shall order:

i5 2500k
Z68AP-D3-B3
8GB Corsair Vengence (blue)

Does that seem like a decent setup until I've got time to upgrade my graphics card, which will be woefully lacking?
 
All drives are SATA yep. How much would I be looking at for a decent aftermarket cooler? I have a Freezer 7 Pro (original edition unfortunately) on my current computer and it works very well indeed, although I've never used the reference cooler before.

Coming from an E6600, AB9 Pro and 2GB DDR2. Served me well enough these past few years (got the E6600 when it was first released) but since having my PC back (been away for 18 months so it's had no use) the time has finally come to upgrade. The HD4870 will have to last me until I can afford to upgrade it, but it'll do.
 
Ok, thanks again. What do you think of the Gelid Tranquillo? I've seen it mentioned in a couple of reviews as a decent competitor to the 212 Evo, but can only easily find reviews of it on an earlier i5.
 
Fair enough. I think that's likely the one I'll go with - mounting looks good and the reviews are positive. Nothing too exciting in the offers this week, apart from a 64GB Crucial M4 at £70. Oh so tempting, but no, I have more important things to get.
 
Think I'm going to go with the Corsair A50. I'm not planning a big overclock, so can't really justify spending extra. I had it setup on another store for £275 (£280 with shipping) with the retail CPU and XMS3 ram, but can do it OcUK for £300 if I go with the cooler and Ballistix Sport ram.

Is there anything wrong with Ballistix sport? I realise the timings are 9-9-9-27 rather than 9-9-9-24 but is there a real world difference?
 
I can see what you mean. How likely is interference with heatspreaders if I got Ballistix Elite instead? 8-8-8-24 timings and same price, just with big 'ol spreaders.

Edit: Ignore that - only 4GB. Wondered why it was cheap.
 
That's what I was thinking. My concern with the Kingston ram is that it apparently needs 1.65V to get 1600MHz/9-9-9-27, whereas the Crucial only needs 1.5V. Is that the case or am I reading wrong?
 
Hmm, think I'll probably go with the Crucial ram. I'd rather keep voltages as low as possible, keep the temps down and so on. If I get held back by ram in overclocking performance then I can always get something new after all. Looks aren't a big thing for me either - my case does have a window, but it faces a wall.

Edit: Ordered the following:

i5 2500k OEM - £150
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 - £85
8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport - £30
Corsair A50 - £20

Came to just under £300 including delivery, so right at the budget I'd set myself.
 
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Nor did I, but it seems to :). The likelihood of me needing it is slim, but it would be stupid not to have it at the moment really.

Can't wait until tomorrow now (assuming everything is in stock) - just hope my building skills haven't become rusty.
 
Typical OC efficiency - arrived at 12.30 today, less than 24 hours after I ordered. Got it all installed with the help of the complimentary Haribo sustenance and Windows is going on as we speak.

Did a quick bit of Mass Effect 2 on my XP install - temps sat around 42 degrees, idling around 28.

Edit: Apologies for the double post, thought I'd clicked edit :/
 
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I'm having a few problems getting it running. Whenever I try and install the ethernet driver it fails and gives me "Device driver software was not successfully installed".

I'm on Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, clean install. I've tried downloading the update from Gigabyte and would really appreciate some help. Thanks.
 
The LAN was enabled, but the onboard HW Boot LAN was off. Tried a reinstall and it doesn't seem to have worked.

I've run the diagnostic in BIOS and it detects that there's a link when I've got it connected to my Mac, so there must be a driver problem
 
I've tried the drivers from the CD, Gigabyte's site and Realtek themselves and none seem to work. I just did a reinstall and used the ones on Gigabyte's site (7.48.823.2011) so we'll see what happens.

Edit: Windows Network Diagnostics Publisher details

Issues found
The Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller adapter is experiencing driver- or hardware-related problemsThe Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller adapter is experiencing driver- or hardware-related problems Detected
The wired network adapter is experiencing problems Completed


Issues found Detection details

6 The Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller adapter is experiencing driver- or hardware-related problems Detected

Detection details

Diagnostics Information (Network Adapter)
Details about network adapter diagnosis:

Network adapter Local Area Connection driver information:

Description . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
Manufacturer . . . . . . . . . : Realtek
Provider . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek
Version . . . . . . . . . . . : 7.48.823.2011
Inf File Name . . . . . . . . . : C:\Windows\INF\oem8.inf
Inf File Date . . . . . . . . . : 17 October 2011 09:21:52
Section Name . . . . . . . . . : RTL8168E.ndi
Hardware ID . . . . . . . . . . : pci\ven_10ec&dev_8168&rev_06
Instance Status Flags . . . . . : 0x1802400
Device Manager Status Code . . : 10
IfType . . . . . . . . . . . . : 6
Physical Media Type . . . . . . : 14



Network Diagnostics Log
File Name: E824EA3E-8CFB-4357-B4C4-5D460B802ECC.Diagnose.0.etl

Other Networking Configuration and Logs
File Name: NetworkConfiguration.cab

Collection information
Computer Name:
Windows Version: 6.1
Architecture: amd64
Time: Thursday, March 15, 2012 7:53:53 PM

Publisher details

Windows Network Diagnostics
Detects problems with network connectivity.
Package Version: 1.0
Publisher: Microsoft Windows

Edit: I managed to fix it (at 2am) by switching everything off, unplugging the PSU and draining the capacitors. I'm guessing a Rom somewhere got confused and had troubles, but it seems to work fine. Even manages BF3 on mostly high settings at 1920x1200 with framerates averaging 34/35 on an HD4870.
 
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