Motheboard died, need to ugprade from 775 architecture. What's a good mobo/cpu?

[lobski2]

Since 2007, I've been using a P5B Deluxe with q9550. I think the motherboard died. I might as well go all out and upgrade to Haswell. But I haven't been following up with the current mobo/cpu trends, and I need help!

I am falling towards the 4770k for maximum overclockability, with a Z87 motherboard. I'm falling towards the ASUS z87 sabretooth as well. I'll probably get around 12gb of ram or something.

Could I please get some insight? Is the 4770k and z87 Sabretooth a good combo? I would like something relatively high end!

p.s. I hear the Haswell series has crap overclocking abilities, is this true? Is it better to get Sandy/Ivy Bridge and get a higher overclock than a Haswell?

Should I get the Sabretooth or the Maximus VI Hero?

Thanks for helping a newbie!


Oh, I'm from Canada, and I'll most likely order from NCIX.

 

[Topweasel]

Haswell and IB suffer from same general issue. Their dies are too small for for the heat they generate. The heat-spreader almost does more harm then good because they don't transfer enough heat fast enough to the heatsink. It's always been that way but again small dies make it worse. Even direct contact has the same problem but again much better materials for heat transfer in the HSF's are available.

That said IB was ~6% faster than SB per clock, HW ~6-8% faster then IB. In the end even if it can't clock as fast as some of the mid to high overclocks on SB a lot of that is made up in faster overall performance of the CPU. Plus by buying a 1155 instead of a 1150 you will put yourself at an upgrading dead end (that said no promise that Intel will stick with 1150 for very long). HW uses also uses a lot less power at idle and a pretty decent amount less at load. At this point very little reason to handcuff yourself to SB or IB.

As for mobo, if the Sabertooth is the one with the "armor" on it. Unless you are installing 3 heavy GPU's and one mammoth CPU HSF, I wouldn't recommend it. The armor would actually insulate heat from on a lot of the ic's and caps. The Hero as a ROG board is a better "overclockers"/"gamers" board anyways. That said unless you are doing multiple GPU's and super heavy overclocking, or there is a feature that you need for your system both series are waaay overpriced compared to very overclocker and feature rich z87 boards. Including the base Z87 Asus boards.

Lastly. The choices are 2 (2x1) 4(2x2 or 4x1) 8 (2x4 or 4x2) 16 (4x4 or 2x8) or 32 (4x8) GB of ram. Not 12. Guess you could do 2x4 and 2x2. But I wouldn't recommend it. Personally I would suggest 2x8GB for 16GB, leaving room for a future 16GB upgrade years from now.

 

[Velocity_Micro]

I completely agree with Topweasel. For your needs, a good base Z87 board, like the Asus Z87-A will suit you well if you are going for 1 or 2 GPUs, and IB2 will give bandwidth for 3x or lots of memory, but might not be worth it for your needs. Go with the 4770k and 2x8GB 1866 RAM and you should be set. After that, don't forget a to get a good SSD if you are still on HDD.

 

[Araxie]

its money an issue?. with the out of ivy bridge-E I would expect a price drop in the actual Sandy-E. so for overclock posibilities, i would go with a now oldie i7 2700k and a Z77Board, or go straight to a 2011 board with a 3930K.

 

[TheGoat Eater]

I would definitely choose the MSI MPOWER or the MPOWER MAXX if you are thinking of something like the Sabertooth. I loathe the Sabertooth as it is loaded up with so much crap and gimmicks that you are pretty much wasting money that could better be used elsewhere. I can say without a doubt that when it comes to price to performance that the MPOWER definitely wins. The Z77 was this way and the Z87 continues on with that path. I would definitely not spend a lot more for a RAM kit that just has lower timings and speed w/e . If you are going to get something in the OC range of boards then hopefully that does mean that you want to tune the rig. Finding a kit or kits that may not be labeled the greatest but when you tune them manually to achieve the best bandwidth, they really shine ( good ). Just remember that when you are tuning that speed of the RAM doesn't mean much if you have the crap bandwidth.