Picking out a Mobo

Z

Zarack

n00b
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Jun 10, 2010
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Hey guys,

I need a mobo to go along with a i7-875k Lynnfield I want to purchase. I've been out of the market for a long time, and don't have the greatest knowledge of computer hardware so I was wondering what motherboard would be best for that CPU. I'm planning on running with one 5850.

I'd like to keep the mobo under $250. It would have to be ridiculously special to go over that much. I would give uber props for a mobo around $200. I want to use it for gaming/3D-rendering/heavy usage.

Ideally, I want it to be fast, stable, and make OC'ing a breeze. It has to be LGA1156, and have dual-channel RAM. The new GIGABYTE P55A-UD6 seems to offer all of that, but the reviews from users on newegg are terrible. If I could retain some of those features but in a cheaper board, I'd be ecstatic.

Let me know if you guys need any more info.
 
I recommend this mobo instead:
$140 - Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 Intel P55 ATX Motherboard

What PSU were you planning on using? Also, make sure that whatever RAM you get has a MAX voltage of 1.65V as that's the max recommended voltage for Intel Core i CPUs.
 
This question is very similar to the one that you posted in the Intel Motherboards forum. And the Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 that Danny suggested is not one of the two motherboards you mentioned in that thread. You mentioned a different Gigabyte mobo in that thread: That one does not have a SATA 6 Gbps controller. The one suggested by Danny has both onboard SATA 6 Gbps and USB 3.0 controllers while costing $30 more than the model without a SATA 6 Gbps controller. (And believe me, that is $30 well spent especially if you choose to use an SSD rather than an HDD for your system drive.)

And you did say that you might consider a dual-GPU setup in the future (based on what you stated in that other thread). The truth is that the Socket 1156/P55 platform cannot properly handle a dual-GPU setup with both SATA 6 Gbps and USB 3.0 controllers enabled: In Turbo mode, the controllers will eat up half of the main PCI-e x16 slot's lanes, reducing the bandwidth of that slot to x8 - while in non-Turbo mode the controllers will eat up bandwidth of the secondary PCI-e controller (in the P55 PCH), also reducing the maximum number of PCI-e "1.x" lanes (in the case of the P55 PCH, these lanes are PCI-e 2.0 restricted to PCI-e 1.x bandwidth). In the non-Turbo mode and if a secondary GPU is installed in the secondary graphics slot, there will be no room left over for the onboard NIC or the PCI-e x1 slots. This would have forced you to purchase a PCI-Legacy NIC card if you want to connect to the Internet.
 
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