I have an i7 in my hand and a couple choices on boards...

H

humblepie

Limp Gawd
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Aug 27, 2004
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I have right now in my hands an EVGA x58 SLI le board. The semi gimped one in terms of crossfire/sli support and less overclocking potential from what I read after I got the board. Luckily, I haven't opened it yet so I can return it if need be.

That being said, should I return it? I am looking to push my chip as far as I can go without busting my bank account. I do have other options I've been looking into though. Oh I will state this, I would like to keep an extra PCIe slot open even with a Crossfire setup so I can use my wireless N card.

Here are the options I've looked into.
Asus Rampage Extreme II
Asus P6T Deluxe V2
DFI UT LP
MSI Pro
MSI Platnium

Now from what I hear, the Asus boards and DFI board are decent overclockers. My current board is an Asus Rampage Formula that has worked well for me so far. I have owned several DFI boards in the past and even MSI boards with zero problems. I have had several bad problems with past Gigabyte boards so I have avowed to never buy one of their products again. Besides, their X58 boards looks like a 4 year old barfed his fruit loops all over it. FUGLY!

I am leaning to the REII board as I am hearing good things about it, but I would like some others to chime in. Can anyone tell me all the OCing potentials of the listed boards such as what phase PWMs they all have and other more technical specs that you have to dig for to find answers.

Also, does anyone know some or all of the boards out there that are known to be stable at 230+ BCLK? I know of only the EVGA Classified but I am not sure about dropping that much money into a motherboard yet.
 
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if u want to tweek and push u cpu asus and msi would i Sugjust.
evga might be just as good but evga is nvidea chipset .
 
yah, backwoods sounds like he's from the backwoods.

Anyhow, anyone have some better insight to my dilemma?
 
i have the rampage II extreme. i love it but really its probably not worth the extra money over the deluxe v2
 
Yah, but out of those boards I listed, the price for me is exactly the same. So out of those boards that I can pick from... which would you choose?
 
humblepie said:
Yah, but out of those boards I listed, the price for me is exactly the same. So out of those boards that I can pick from... which would you choose?
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If the prices of all those boards are the same for you, then the Rampage II Extreme is the clear choice. It's the highest-end board out of all of them, and it's basically designed for overclocking.
 
Zero82z said:
If the prices of all those boards are the same for you, then the Rampage II Extreme is the clear choice. It's the highest-end board out of all of them, and it's basically designed for overclocking.
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Highest -end can typically mean highest "price" without actually being better. There are tons of examples of where a better product is out that is made cheaper. It is just harder to identify which parts are better when there is so many different products out there.

So, if the REII is the "higher end" and fulfills my needs, is one of the others also readily able to do so or perhaps better? If not, I guess I'm getting the REII.
 
All i7 boards will perform about the same. Most OC's are limited by the CPU at this point anyway with i7. I'd look at the features of the boards and the prices. Personally, I'd get the DFI or the P6T because I don't see the need to pay up for the REII and I dislike MSI from past experiences ;). I'd go with Asus or eVGA at this point.
 
humblepie said:
Highest -end can typically mean highest "price" without actually being better.
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Well, it is better. It has Tri-SLI support, better cooling, onboard buttons to control some overclocking features, and voltage readout points on the board compared to the P6T Deluxe. Whether or not that justifies an extra cost is debatable, but if all the boards will cost you the same amount of money, you may as well go with the Rampage.
 
I like the idea of the probe points R2E but I don't see the need for that or the classified unless you are benching with LN2, tbh. I'm hearing good things about the Gene if you would consider a microATX board. I would avoid the MSI boards based on what I was hearing early on, bios support may be better now. I have been hearing ggod things about DFI, Gigabyte, and Asus's offerings as well. I guess that it all comes down to the features that you need. What are your plans for ram, cooling, and clocks?
 
there is no nvidia/ati chipset for the X58...it can use both brands in SLI/crossfire.
the asus boards are great. gigabyte is also great. msi has stepped up their game lately and their x58 boards have been getting good reviews. DFI's x58 board seems to be doing well. EVGA's is doing fine, too. i'm an asus man, so i'd go with asus.
 
If you want the best overclocking, nothing beats the evga classified e760. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...88048&Tpk=e760 There's currently a $30 rebate with it that makes it only $10 more than the retail rampage 2 extreme. Expensive but, you get what you pay for. My friend has an r2e that we hit a qpi wall at 221 bclock on long before maximizing temperatures or voltages but my classified easily does 234 bclock on air before I start touching tj max on full load. Anandtech has gotten the classified to 254 bclock (on liquid nitrogen mind you but still). If you want the absolute best OC then classified is the way to go, but you'd need atleast good water cooling ore rediculous air (4 massive deltas, megahelems, antec 1200) to see the difference between it and the rampage 2 extreme in the end. In the end I guess it depends if your 920 can go above 222bclock because, after that, you hit a qpi wall and are limited by the board itself. I was fortunate to get a sturdy week 49 D0 that goes well with stupid air cooling and so I took the plunge from r2e to classified for those extra bclocks.
 
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