Looking for new Core I7 1366 mobo

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dotslasher

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Mar 29, 2007
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I'm looking for a new mobo for my new core i7 920 (the 930 doesn't seem to oc as well as the 920s atm).

First: I've looked at the gigabyte ga-x58a-ud5. But the board's layout is terrible and I still have a pci X-FI soundcard. Right now I have a 5870 Vapor-x but might step it up later and go for crossife. And thus running 2 dual slot cards on that board will result in the PCI slot being unusable. And it seems that all of gigabyte's x58 boards suffer from the same terrible layout.

Then I looked at the ASUS P6X58D-Premium but saw that SATA6G+USB3 borrow from the PCI-E link lanes. Now I'm not really sure what the impact could be on dual cards. There aren't any reviews that cover this.
Also on every asus mobo I had there were issues with the memory slots. And looking at the asus support forum this board is no different from the rest.

After a little browsing I discovered the Asus Rampage III Extreme, this board seems the perfect board on paper, it's not released yet though (early march). But it will costs so much €350-€430 ($470-$580)

So is there any board that will suit my needs for:

  1. SATA3
  2. USB3.0
  3. Crossfire without losing my PCI sound card
  4. Core I7 socket 1366
  5. Less than €300/$400
 
Your options are limited because Gigabyte seems to be one of the only forward-thinking manufacturers out there right now. Intel themselves don't have anything that natively supports either USB3.0 or SATA-III. USB3.0 is currently via a chip provided by NEC, and only gives you two USB ports. A lot of the motherboards, not just X58's seem to drop PCI-E pathways if USB3.0 or SATA-III are enabled, I don't remember which.

You might have to decide which is most important to you. If you're set on dual or triple x16, you're probably not going to get USB3.0 or SATA-III. You can get a SATA-III (SATA 6.0Gb/s) for $30 - $50 as a PCI-E x1 card. At the same time, if you really, really want USB3.0, you can get a PCI-E x1 card for two USB ports, the same thing you would get on a motherboard, for $38.
 
charlesshoults said:
Hey, I didn't make the thing, I'm just saying it's there.
Click to expand...

I understand, but don't recommend these boards. As far as I'm concerned, the current SATA 6Gbps boards are purely marketing. Get a good board with a decent layout that'll let you add in a PCIe 2.0 x4 minimum card later, and once there are decent controllers that actually provide the proper amount of bandwidth, add in a card.
 
Yeah, that's probably the best idea. Get a board that's capable and when controllers are more reasonable, add a x4 or higher card. I see one x4 controller card out there right now, but for $180, they can keep it.

A lot of the boards that are out there, you have to be careful of even if they do provide SATA-III onboard. For instance, looking at the block diagram for the X58A-UD5, the USB3.0 is controlled by an NEC chip and the two SATA-III ports are controlled by a Marvell 9128 chip. It seems to show that each of these chips is restricted to to PCI-E 2.0 x1, so you're speed still isn't that great.
 
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