Hi all,
I'm in the midst of putting together an upgrade to an i7 920 and I've basically narrowed down the motherboard choice to the Gigabyte EX-58 Extreme or the EVGA X58 Classified (the 760 model w/o the nForce chip.) My reasoning for choosing from the above is layout, the number of SATA ports available, the number of rear USB ports available, and that both boards lack the nForce 200 chip. I'm leaning towards the Classified, especially given Dan D's recommendation. However, I'm still finding it difficult to make a final decision. I'm aware that all X58 are about the same as far as performance and OC headroom is concerned.
The Gigabyte looks appealing as it's a bit cheaper, and the included waterblock is nice too (even though I imagine it's more or less useless from a performance standpoint -- and if it's aluminum it's a no go.) The EVGA looks appealing as it has, in my opinion, a better PCI/PCI-E layout (being able to run two double-width video cards plus a PCI sound card is nice.) Also, I do like EVGA's customer support and the well established OC community at the EVGA forums. I've had several EVGA 680i boards in the past -- and while the boards themselves were ultimately failures, the support and community built around them were amazing. On XtremeSystems, a common viewpoint is that the Classified is just in another class of motherboards -- I do agree it's sexy, but what does that really mean?
Basically, I'm wondering what people here think about these boards. Is one better than the other in terms of features available? Is one board's BIOS more mature than the other? How about the PWM system? Is the digital PWM on the EVGA really better than the 12 or 16 phase conventional model on the Gigabyte? Basically I'm sweating the small stuff here, and with recommendations thus far I'd get the EVGA if I'm buying today. However, I would love to hear as much as possible from as many people as possible before I make a decision.
Thanks.
I'm in the midst of putting together an upgrade to an i7 920 and I've basically narrowed down the motherboard choice to the Gigabyte EX-58 Extreme or the EVGA X58 Classified (the 760 model w/o the nForce chip.) My reasoning for choosing from the above is layout, the number of SATA ports available, the number of rear USB ports available, and that both boards lack the nForce 200 chip. I'm leaning towards the Classified, especially given Dan D's recommendation. However, I'm still finding it difficult to make a final decision. I'm aware that all X58 are about the same as far as performance and OC headroom is concerned.
The Gigabyte looks appealing as it's a bit cheaper, and the included waterblock is nice too (even though I imagine it's more or less useless from a performance standpoint -- and if it's aluminum it's a no go.) The EVGA looks appealing as it has, in my opinion, a better PCI/PCI-E layout (being able to run two double-width video cards plus a PCI sound card is nice.) Also, I do like EVGA's customer support and the well established OC community at the EVGA forums. I've had several EVGA 680i boards in the past -- and while the boards themselves were ultimately failures, the support and community built around them were amazing. On XtremeSystems, a common viewpoint is that the Classified is just in another class of motherboards -- I do agree it's sexy, but what does that really mean?
Basically, I'm wondering what people here think about these boards. Is one better than the other in terms of features available? Is one board's BIOS more mature than the other? How about the PWM system? Is the digital PWM on the EVGA really better than the 12 or 16 phase conventional model on the Gigabyte? Basically I'm sweating the small stuff here, and with recommendations thus far I'd get the EVGA if I'm buying today. However, I would love to hear as much as possible from as many people as possible before I make a decision.
Thanks.