What motherboard should I go for?

Also need to make sure you get the Ultimate edition of windows seven - as the home version only supports a small amount but Ultimate will take 128gb (I think)....

Nigsy said:

Also need to make sure you get the Ultimate edition of windows seven - as the home version only supports a small amount but Ultimate will take 128gb (I think)....

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oh yeah, thanks for reminding me
I guess i'll go and buy 64 bit ultimate for this machine (as currently only have 32 bit pro and want to upgrade but never had a machine that could justify 64 bit )

I will be replying to the other two posts shortly, it's just I jumped to page three from subscriptions as I though that was the latest

linnemeyerhere said:

biggles1000
Unless you have the money now to begin purchasing I would decide on the stable constants in your build like the case, PSU and the other components that won't become old and out dated after 10 minutes of installing them. Reverse engineer your build and when you have all the money together then shop for the wiz bang mobo and processor deal of that day! Otherwise in my experience you'll just be wasting time as with 1-2 months passing the whole range of whats cool changes and that my friend is the joys of computers! But I've been wrong before and likely to be again.......lol oh and remember as I mentioned before this whole process is the real fun of the build.

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yeah, that is true :/
I enjoy trying to hunt down parts and make a list, but the fun parts do change soon.
for example, hopefully Sandy Bridge and all the problems it had will have gone by the time I have the money, but maybe intel will have changed the compatability making the rampage III extreme redundant :/
I'd much rather prefer building it, as yes its fun
It can be as low as half the price of a shop bought PC, has exactly what you want it to have (so long as the budget fits) and you have the pride of knowing 'I built this computer. All its successes and failures will have been my fault (fun and a pain).

Devilz said:

Good motherboard/ram combo is your best bet. I use to have asus p4p800-deluxe with celeron D processor and 2 GB ram and it lasted for 7 years. Only thing I upgraded with time was graphics card, and it used to run any game back in 2001-2008. Then I bought my current system, which I'm using since 2009 and i'm sure it will last another 4-5 years. In future, I might go with SSD's (when they become more affordable) to increase the bootup time/application loading. Rest is good.

As mentioned, no matter whatever you do, your computer will never ever use 8GB of ram, so why waste money on getting motherboard which can run 32/48 GB of ram which is useless. Look into motherboard which can run different CPU's, so if in future you think your rig is slowing down. You can throw latest cpu and your machine is fast again

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You had a Celeron D and 2GB of RAM as well?? That's what my first (recently died due to the mobo ) build had! To be honest, the Celeron D was pretty poor, even compared to the AMD Athlon 64 (3.06GHz and 2.0GHz respectively).
Yeah, I guess getting a widely-processor-compatible motherboard would be great... do any exist that support both Intel and AMD (apart from presumably test boards)?
Yeah, after everybody's examples and persuading, I guess even 24GB RAM would be too extreme, it's just I've never used a computer with even 4GB, let alone 8GB

thankyou both for the advice

biggles1000 said:

linnemeyerhere said:

biggles1000
Unless you have the money now to begin purchasing I would decide on the stable constants in your build like the case, PSU and the other components that won't become old and out dated after 10 minutes of installing them. Reverse engineer your build and when you have all the money together then shop for the wiz bang mobo and processor deal of that day! Otherwise in my experience you'll just be wasting time as with 1-2 months passing the whole range of whats cool changes and that my friend is the joys of computers! But I've been wrong before and likely to be again.......lol oh and remember as I mentioned before this whole process is the real fun of the build.

Click to expand...

yeah, that is true :/
I enjoy trying to hunt down parts and make a list, but the fun parts do change soon.
for example, hopefully Sandy Bridge and all the problems it had will have gone by the time I have the money, but maybe intel will have changed the compatability making the rampage III extreme redundant :/
I'd much rather prefer building it, as yes its fun
It can be as low as half the price of a shop bought PC, has exactly what you want it to have (so long as the budget fits) and you have the pride of knowing 'I built this computer. All its successes and failures will have been my fault (fun and a pain).

Devilz said:

Good motherboard/ram combo is your best bet. I use to have asus p4p800-deluxe with celeron D processor and 2 GB ram and it lasted for 7 years. Only thing I upgraded with time was graphics card, and it used to run any game back in 2001-2008. Then I bought my current system, which I'm using since 2009 and i'm sure it will last another 4-5 years. In future, I might go with SSD's (when they become more affordable) to increase the bootup time/application loading. Rest is good.

As mentioned, no matter whatever you do, your computer will never ever use 8GB of ram, so why waste money on getting motherboard which can run 32/48 GB of ram which is useless. Look into motherboard which can run different CPU's, so if in future you think your rig is slowing down. You can throw latest cpu and your machine is fast again

Click to expand...

You had a Celeron D and 2GB of RAM as well?? That's what my first (recently died due to the mobo ) build had! To be honest, the Celeron D was pretty poor, even compared to the AMD Athlon 64 (3.06GHz and 2.0GHz respectively).
Yeah, I guess getting a widely-processor-compatible motherboard would be great... do any exist that support both Intel and AMD (apart from presumably test boards)?
Yeah, after everybody's examples and persuading, I guess even 24GB RAM would be too extreme, it's just I've never used a computer with even 4GB, let alone 8GB

thankyou both for the advice

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I use to overclock celeron processor to 2.8GHz and I was quite pleased with the performance cause I mainly use PC for graphic designing and gaming. My current machine is first one with 64-bit computing.

I think there are few multi-platform motherboards, I've to dig my info forums to find few for you and as soon as I find some, I'll post them up here.

read here, this might help

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/upgrade-processor-quad-core,review-31976.html

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/component-upgrade-ssd,review-31983.html

Hello Biggles,
Sorry to hear about your rig dude and I feel your pain. I say this because I have been where you are now and I have spent a lot of money trying to achieve that ultimate rig you will eventually build. That said I am not trying to talk you out of what you’re planning because I know firsthand the excitement of building a new rig but I will tell you that you do not need all that ram. I have 12 gigs in my current rig and I will let you in on a little secret if you tell anyone else I will deny saying this. IT’s FOR FREKIN BRAGGING RIGHTS DUDE. I see absolutely no difference in performance between 8 & 12 gigs. In the five years since my first build it seems as though the new just keeps coming faster and faster. X58 dead replaced by P67 chipset Core i7 already moving to second gen hell biggs my rig is just a little over a year old. Save up your money and read read read than when your funds are in place you will know what to get and remember graphics cards, ram, and processors do nothing without a Motherboard to install them on. That is where I would start, finding a good platform to install them on. And Biggs forget about IDE because most of your top end boards have left it off anyway. Good luck Biggs I hope you get to start your new build soon. I have included a pic of my quest to build my perfect rig, my fourth and current build is the best yet. But am I done?

I'm sort of wondering why do you want to buy a Rampage Black Ed anyway or any motherboard remotely like it. It's borderline outdated as replacement chipsets are otw. It's an extreme motherboard aimed at LN2 Overclockers,Benchers and the like e.g Rampage III Black first touch - Overclockers Australia Forums. I'd save money and just buy a board that has all the stuff you need without a crapload of addon stuff you will, most likely never use.
You really don't need more than 6gb of Ram imo. I run 6Gb in this machine and never run out of Ram yet. So 6 to
8Gb's is plenty.
Graphic's cards are in and out yearly though that's not a necessity, just me and updating graphics cards constantly lol. The money you'd save by not buying an Extreme board like the Rampage could be used on a better graphics card and if your like me and spend a lot of time on a PC then it better look as good as possible roflmao.
Silverstone are making this YouTube - Silverstone Raven 3 RV03 case CES 2011 case..It's on my have to buy list in fact...3rd case in 12 months, but it should be nice case for keeping stuff cool etc.
anyways enjoy your build when you do it

Are you sure it's the Rampage III you're even wanting? Your first post hints at going a Sandy Bridge route, yet you're hell bent on getting an x58 motherboard?

Devilz; thanks for the links, they were long winded but ver informative articles, so thank you

kellymac35; that is a LOT of stuff for it! yeah, I guess I probably should move on from IDE now Do newer otical drives use SATA? Thanks for the sympathy and encouragement
I guess it really is just for bragging rights (unless you want to run ten VMs at once, which I doubt I will )
Should I wait for the next line of i7s? I guess they could be out by the time I have the money

simmo; wow, that's one nice looking case... looks kinda like a thin cylon or a better looking alienware case. I was wondering what case to go for, and I think that may be the one I go for
yeah, i think picking graphics cards is going to be a pain :/ I'll probably want just a three monitor configuration, but I much prefer nvidia over ati (yet ati seem to be best for multiple monitors). and yeah, as you said, graphics cards are ALWAYS changing, which does prove to be a pain. as far as I was aware, the 9600GT was the best, but from what it seems, that's already hugely outdated

Everlong; oops, is it??
I'm afraid I don't know much about processors, but I guess I just thought that all i7s would be compatible with it
to be honest, I should have guessed they weren't. for example, my dead mobo could apparently take a celerdon d, pentium d or pentium 4, but I think its limitations meant no pentium 4 extreme edition :/
When I went looking around on google, leading me to the evga forums, they were talking about different types of RAM not working etc.. Do any Asus motherboard's exist that are compatible with Sandy Bridge or should I just wait for the next generation of everything? Thakyou for pointing it out, would've ben rather a shock for me if I had had the money, bought it all and ' oh, it doesnt work :/ '

thanks for the help all

biggles1000 said:

Everlong; oops, is it??
I'm afraid I don't know much about processors, but I guess I just thought that all i7s would be compatible with it
to be honest, I should have guessed they weren't. for example, my dead mobo could apparently take a celerdon d, pentium d or pentium 4, but I think its limitations meant no pentium 4 extreme edition :/
When I went looking around on google, leading me to the evga forums, they were talking about different types of RAM not working etc.. Do any Asus motherboard's exist that are compatible with Sandy Bridge or should I just wait for the next generation of everything? Thakyou for pointing it out, would've ben rather a shock for me if I had had the money, bought it all and ' oh, it doesnt work :/ '

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Yea the Rampage III is socket 1366, Sandy Bridge uses 1155, unfortunatley. There is an ASUS Maximum IV Extreme here Scan.co.uk: Asus MAXIMUS IV EXTREME Rev.3.0 Intel P67 Express Socket 1155 Motherboard - MAXIMUS IV EXTREME <Rev.3.0>

thankyou very much for finding that as I was finidng it impossible to find any sandy bridge mobos
in it's specs, it says 32GB RAM maximum (though as everyone persuaded me, I would never need that much ) yet it only has 4 RAM slots. are asus planning ahead for 8GB sticks or do some already exist??

Devilz said:

No offense but why spend so much on something which will be obsolete in less than six months. Buy something decent and use rest of money to upgrade with time.

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This is really true. Every builder should have this on banner hung above the work space!

biggles1000 said:

thankyou very much for finding that as I was finidng it impossible to find any sandy bridge mobos
in it's specs, it says 32GB RAM maximum (though as everyone persuaded me, I would never need that much ) yet it only has 4 RAM slots. are asus planning ahead for 8GB sticks or do some already exist??

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Yea Sandy Bridge is only dual channel, hence 4 slots. x58 uses triple channel memory, so has 6 slots (3 pairs). And the Rampage III as a 48GB limit, which would need 6x8GB sticks to fill.

Back when x58 was first released the limit was 24GB on most motherboards and 4GB sticks weren't available yet.

8GB sticks for desktops will be made eventually.

does that mean that sandy bridge is worse than the previous i7s?
the westmere gulftown i7 looks on paper to have better specifications on every front

biggles1000 said:

does that mean that sandy bridge is worse than the previous i7s?
the westmere gulftown i7 looks on paper to have better specifications on every front

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Just have a look at reviews and benchmarks and see what you think.

most reviews i've seen seem to say westmere was better for multiple monitors, yet sandy bridge is better for gaming. will sandy bridge's dual channel limit negatively affect me if I find I do need more RAM?

http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-ssd-caching-feature-for-z68-chipset-explored/11953.html....check this out before you buy a motherboard..latest Intel chipset for SB...if you're going with SSD's this is worth considering...Already 1 board on market with Asus etc incoming.
If your going to run multi screen set ups then ATI is the card manuf that has the leading edge atm..everything I read would indicate they scale better in Xfire once the resolutions get hi as in mutiple monitors.
Yup that case I linked is the bees knees imo lol..glad u like it.
cheers

biggles1000 said:

most reviews i've seen seem to say westmere was better for multiple monitors, yet sandy bridge is better for gaming. will sandy bridge's dual channel limit negatively affect me if I find I do need more RAM?

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Well it's up to you really. High end i7 1366 ones will pull a head in some things as will Sandy Bridge. If you wanna go the 1366 route and pick up an i7 990x or something, then go a head. Will still be a solid performer for some time to come.

simmo; thanks for the heads up
Everlong; ah, thanks for the info. is sandy bridge a slight step back as it's the first in the second generation line?

I wouldn't say it's a step back, but I can see how it seems so. I dunno why they removed triple-channel memory from it.