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2700k Pairing, Better for Less?

M

Maestro2U

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
76
I'm picking up the 2700k through retail edge. Having not built a new machine for myself in almost four years I'd like your well-reasoned opinions.

My first option is to also get the motherboard from retail edge, which is the Intel DP67BG for an additional $150.

In a year or two's time I will overclock on air. I want onboard audio, LAN, usb 3, and sata iii. All of those seem like pretty standard features on most current motherboards. SLI or CF are unimportant so far, but I'm willing to spent $10 extra for the flexibility. I'll probably go straight to 16GB RAM since memory prices are so low right now. I also just picked up the 160GB Intel 320 SSD on sale.

These things considered, and hoping to save money even on the $150 motherboard, would you still get the DP67BG or a cheaper, reliable alternative?
 
There are tons of boards for sale in the $100 price range which will meet your needs and more.
 
Depending on features, you can find several MSI or Gigabyte P67 boards for around $100 after rebate (I'd stay away from Asus' P67 offerings). If you go with a Z68 board, you can find still find budget boards around $100-125, but to get fully-featured boards you are looking at more towards $150 (from MSI, Gigabyte, or Asus).

Pretty much all of them are going to have the basics, about the only differences will be in CrossFire/SLI support, PCIe slot bandwidth (some cheaper boards are x16x4 instead of x8x8) and physical layout. And they will all probably overclock about the same.
 
Since your going with the 2700k and planning on overclocking I would spend more on the motherboard and get something like the ASUS P8Z68-V Pro/Gen3, or Asrock Extreme4 Gen3. You said your planning on keeping this setup for a year or two so I'd be looking at one of these Gen3 boards that supports PCI-E 3.0 for the upcoming graphics cards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131790

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157264

It's never worth it to go cheap on the motherboard when your planning on overclocking because that's not something the budget $100 boards are built for. If you want to save money get the 2600k instead of 2700k through retail edge.
 
That Gigabyte board is a solid choice. I would skip the P8Z68-V Pro and just get the vanilla -V, the Pro only adds the 2 extra Marvell SATA 6GB ports (which, generally speaking, suck) and Firewire. So unless you need those two things, save the extra money.
 
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