Spec me an mATX case and motherboard?

[eddiew]

Hey guys,

I'm feeling old and my mortgage deposit flees laughingly ahead of me, so obviously the only solution is new PC parts. Specifically, I need a case and motherboard to sustain a 2500K or 2600K with a moderate overclock and not too much noise. And I'm bored of my moderately large Akasa Zen, would like to shave some inches off if possible.

Motherboard needs...
- 1x PCI-E: SLI/x-fire not required, but won't moan if it's available
- 1x PCI, as I'm rather in love with my old X-Fi soundcard
- Ready for Ivy Bridge next year. Let's not waste the only time Intel are being nice with sockets!
- Any chipset that'll overclock the CPU

Optimally the case would be as small as an mATX case can be and:
- 2x 5.25" bays (blu-ray and front plate for X-Fi)
- 1x 3.5" floppy bay would be a bonus for a fan controller, but not vital
- not have vents on the top, as I have a habit of sitting my A4 Wacom tablet on it. (I'd negotiate a new location if this were a major cooling issue )
- having quiet cooling options (big, slow fans?)
- being able to fit an MSI Twin Frozr 6870 (in the region of 10.5-11 inches I think)


*edit* Also might need a cooler! I have a Zalman 9700A at the mo, which I think fits on 1155 but may well not. And might not fit in an mATX case...


Thanks for thoughts!

 

[eddiew]

Maximus IV Gene-Z for the motherboard.

Is a fantastic board overall, but lacks a plain PCI slot... Which means I'd be discarding a £100 soundcard

 

[eddiew]

To be fair, it has an X-Fi built in.

Hadn't noticed... but I neglected to mention that I use both onboard and add-in soundcards simultaneously

1 (the best) to feed the speakers and be default windows output
1 to use with voice chat programs, giving me comms straight down one ear while not losing the wider room shaking rumbles

 

[eddiew]

I'd suggest the following.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-481-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-017-FD&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1556

Lol, is that 6 hard drive bays in an mATX? Epic forethought, I always end up with more than I anticipate

Lian-li PC-AO4B
Silverstone Temjin TJ08B-E (would personally lean towards this)
...
Asus P8Z68-M PRO.

I'm intrigued by the layout of the Silverstone - flipped motherboard but PSU still at the top? Lian Li looks nice, but all the buttons and slots are on the top, I'll have to find somewhere else to rack my Wacom :<

Fair enough mate. It is the best mATX Sandy Bridge board going, mind. There's the option of selling for a PCI Express sound card, or to look at something else.

You're right of course - I might have a look at some reviews of that vs the Asus that MasterPlan1 and Legion suggested above, see what sort of differences there are outside the slottage

 

[eddiew]

Overclocking SB is a doddle up to 4.6ghz, after that most chips hit the wall at 4.7ghz with very few going beyond it. (at sensible voltages)
4.5-4.6ghz runs nice and cool with a very modest bump in voltage allowing you to use a quiet cooler, the voltage required for more than this ups the heat output considerably.

Well even @4.5 it'll be a huge leap up from my Phenom II x4 @3.4 I think - probably save me some watts too

I just noticed the Asus P8P67-M Pro - specifically that it puts the PCI slot right down at the bottom, well away from the graphics card (rather than right under it as with the Z68). If I went for this, would I be giving up anything by way of overclocking potential? (I'm aware I lose out of the SSD caching trick, but I can't be arsed with that anyway.)


...and as a secondary question, is there an easy way to identify which motherboards are Ivy Bridge ready?

 

[eddiew]

Fair enough mate. It is the best mATX Sandy Bridge board going, mind. There's the option of selling for a PCI Express sound card, or to look at something else.

Or I could stop being a nublet and think "Oh hey, if it has an X-Fi built in, then I could just buy the cheapest possible PCI-E soundcard to be my headset output!"

I believe I shall go away and read up on that - if it's a proper X-Fi with that nice Creative Crystaliser thing then it's definitely a winner

*edit*

Alas. Tis a Realtek chip with a Creative software wrapper on the top. Was worth a look though ^^

 

[eddiew]

I use the P8P67-M PRO myself in a gaming HTPC build I did in April.
Keeps my i5 2500k @ 4.6ghz with no issues.

Other than ssd caching and Lucid virtu nonsense, there's absolutely no performance difference between P67 and Z68.
If the board better suits your needs there's no downside to it.

Mmm, sounds like a good little beastie actually. I shall give it due consideration, cheers for the recommendation