Solved Can this system OC?

[JaidynM]

I've decided on a new build with a ASUS P8Z68-M Pro ($155), i7-2600k and Corsair AX850. I've never overclocked and plan to do it with this system. Will it be able to? Or should I upgrade to one of the following?

ASUS P8Z68-V-LE ($159)
ASUS P8Z68-V ($198)
ASUS P8Z68-V Pro ($223)

I'd rather not spend much more on the mobo then I already am but if I can't overclock much with it, I might as well. Would I be better off with a Gigabyte mobo as well?

Note that I won't be overclocking much. Just for 20min or so to boost my WEI and to take a couple of screenies. Nothing major.

 

[paulpicks21]

It look's fine to me Jaidyn, I had a quick look on the web and the board appears to be ok for some overclocking.

It's very easy to overclock the new generation intel's, do a little reading on it and you can't go far wrong with it.

Any reason you want a Matx board? Small case?

Cheers

Paul.

 

[simmo]

Asus boards O/C pretty well for the most part..however most of the guys I know run Gigabyte boards. It's a personal choice imo..
I've been happy with my Asus board but will probably switch back to gigabyte next build when Intel release the X79? or whatever boards sometime later this year.
I guess it depends on how high you wish to push your O/C tho the 2500/2600 series CPU's seem to be able to hit 5ghz easily on stock cooling/voltages...very CPU dependent as different CPU's will "unlock" differently but 5ghz seems to be pretty standard.
cheers.

 

[Lordbob75]

The mobo you have picked out is the same model as mine, though with the newer chipset. Should OC just fine as long as you know what you are doing.

~Lordbob

 

[JaidynM]

It look's fine to me Jaidyn, I had a quick look on the web and the board appears to be ok for some overclocking.

It's very easy to overclock the new generation intel's, do a little reading on it and you can't go far wrong with it.

Any reason you want a Matx board? Small case?

Cheers

Paul.

A full tower actually. I just wasn't sure whether to go with the M Pro or the V-LE. Perhaps I should just go for the normal V? The M Pro seems to be the only one that is mATX with the others being the standard size. Though is there any real performance difference between mATX and ATX? I'm not very experienced when it comes to motherboards so any help would be appreciated.

Asus boards O/C pretty well for the most part..however most of the guys I know run Gigabyte boards. It's a personal choice imo..
I've been happy with my Asus board but will probably switch back to gigabyte next build when Intel release the X79? or whatever boards sometime later this year.
I guess it depends on how high you wish to push your O/C tho the 2500/2600 series CPU's seem to be able to hit 5ghz easily on stock cooling/voltages...very CPU dependent as different CPU's will "unlock" differently but 5ghz seems to be pretty standard.
cheers.

I'm just more of an ASUS guy, but as you said, it is a personal opinion.

The mobo you have picked out is the same model as mine, though with the newer chipset. Should OC just fine as long as you know what you are doing.

~Lordbob

I was going to go with the P67 as the Z68 doesn't have many more features apart from SSD Caching. I don't even use an SSD so it doesn't give me much of a performance boost. Anyway, Australia has a fairly limited supply of computer components so unfortunately, I'll be going with the Z68.

 

[LiquidSnak]

I've been running ASUS for a long time, and decided to branch out on this last board to MSI, since they've been putting out some good product, and the price was right (less than 50 bucks) for the features I wanted.

There is no performance difference, but when things are cramped, cooling suffers for sure.

 

[JaidynM]

Fair enough. The full build is here, if you want to see. Seeing as the Z68 seems to be good for nothing, I've decided to chip in a bit more and go for the P67 Sabertooth. I won't be building for a while yet so if the new Intel Chipset comes out soon, I could get that. The X79 perhaps? Thank you all.

 

[LiquidSnak]

Why exactly do you think the 68 chipset is good for nothing?

 

[DeaconFrost]

The Z68 is pretty much the recommended chipset for anyone going Intel right now, unless you already have a P67. The reason behind that is your increase in performance isn't enough to justify the cost.

 

[JaidynM]

Why exactly do you think the 68 chipset is good for nothing?

The Z68 is pretty much the recommended chipset for anyone going Intel right now, unless you already have a P67. The reason behind that is your increase in performance isn't enough to justify the cost.

If my memory serves me correctly, the Z68 has only SSD Caching and something to do with video over the P67. As I don't have an SSD I find it unnecessary to buy a Z68.

If it is better, which of the following motherboards would serve me more efficiently?
ASUS P8Z68-V Pro
ASUS Maximus IV Gene Z
ASUS Sabertooth P67

The Maximus seems to be mATX unfortunately...

Please correct me if I'm wrong; I'm only speaking from what I know. After all, I'm here to learn.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Based on a recent review of the Z68 chipset in Maximum PC, if you are building a new system now, go with Z68. If you already have a P67 system, like me, then there's little to no reason to spend the money or the time upgrading to Z68. If I was building a new system now, I'd go Z68 without question, as it is a newer chipset than P67.

Your comments suggest there is a problem with it and it should be avoided, which isn't true. There's no reason to skip Z68 now, unless you already have a P67 board.

 

[Wishmaster]

Why exactly do you think the 68 chipset is good for nothing?

The Z68 is pretty much the recommended chipset for anyone going Intel right now, unless you already have a P67. The reason behind that is your increase in performance isn't enough to justify the cost.

If my memory serves me correctly, the Z68 has only SSD Caching and something to do with video over the P67. As I don't have an SSD I find it unnecessary to buy a Z68.

If it is better, which of the following motherboards would serve me more efficiently?
ASUS P8Z68-V Pro
ASUS Maximus IV Gene Z
ASUS Sabertooth P67

The Maximus seems to be mATX unfortunately...

Please correct me if I'm wrong; I'm only speaking from what I know. After all, I'm here to learn.

I very well may be misunderstanding you here but ..
You do not always need a SSD to take advantage of SSD caching.

It uses a small SSD to speed up a mechanical Hard Drive. Sort of like the Hybrid Hard Drives Seagate has.


But, you do not always need a SSD to take advantage of this.
Some motherboads have small integrated SSDs.
I believe it was a Gigabyte Z68 I seen over at NewEgg that had a 20GB integrated.

From my understanding you can only do it for one drive though.

So you could use it for the main drive only if using a single or multiple mechanical drive.
OR, put the OS on a SSD (since it really wouldnt benefit a SSD) and use the integrated SSD for one of the mechanical drives.


Please correct me if Im wrong here, but this was my understanding of it.


--EDIT Heres one of them I was refering to...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128505

 

[JaidynM]

Based on a recent review of the Z68 chipset in Maximum PC, if you are building a new system now, go with Z68. If you already have a P67 system, like me, then there's little to no reason to spend the money or the time upgrading to Z68. If I was building a new system now, I'd go Z68 without question, as it is a newer chipset than P67.

Your comments suggest there is a problem with it and it should be avoided, which isn't true. There's no reason to skip Z68 now, unless you already have a P67 board.

Fair point. The Z68 is is then.

Why exactly do you think the 68 chipset is good for nothing?

The Z68 is pretty much the recommended chipset for anyone going Intel right now, unless you already have a P67. The reason behind that is your increase in performance isn't enough to justify the cost.

If my memory serves me correctly, the Z68 has only SSD Caching and something to do with video over the P67. As I don't have an SSD I find it unnecessary to buy a Z68.

If it is better, which of the following motherboards would serve me more efficiently?
ASUS P8Z68-V Pro
ASUS Maximus IV Gene Z
ASUS Sabertooth P67

The Maximus seems to be mATX unfortunately...

Please correct me if I'm wrong; I'm only speaking from what I know. After all, I'm here to learn.

I very well may be misunderstanding you here but ..
You do not always need a SSD to take advantage of SSD caching.

It uses a small SSD to speed up a mechanical Hard Drive. Sort of like the Hybrid Hard Drives Seagate has.


But, you do not always need a SSD to take advantage of this.
Some motherboads have small integrated SSDs.
I believe it was a Gigabyte Z68 I seen over at NewEgg that had a 20GB integrated.

From my understanding you can only do it for one drive though.

So you could use it for the main drive only if using a single or multiple mechanical drive.
OR, put the OS on a SSD (since it really wouldnt benefit a SSD) and use the integrated SSD for one of the mechanical drives.


Please correct me if Im wrong here, but this was my understanding of it.


--EDIT Heres one of them I was refering to...
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3-iSSD LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

No, no. You probably are correct. I only found snippets of this information on forums such as Whirlpool. Obviously, I was at a misunderstanding.

If the Z68 is better then, which of the following mobos from PCCG or MSY would be better.
ASUS P8Z68-V Pro
ASUS Maximus IV Gene Z

Take note that the Maximus is mATX.

 

[LiquidSnak]

I would recommend either the P8Z68-V Pro, or this :

MSY Online

 

[JaidynM]

Never used an AsRock before so I was hoping to have gone with an ASUS. In your experiences, which brand would be 'better'?

 

[Wishmaster]

Brand wise, I would stick with ASUS, Gigabyte, although there are other good choices.
Such as maybe even eVGA (though these are higher priced usually) or MSI.

I've never dealt with AsROCK before either, so I can not fairly comment on them.
But have had experience with Biostar, a couple of them.
Now, I wouldnt reccomend a Biostar for a highend system you want to overclock, but for a basic system you want to run at default speeds, they do quite well.
They just do not have very good features for OCing, although they are capable. That is, at least the couple Ive had the experience working with.


Still, ASUS or Gigabyte would be my top 2 recommendations.

 

[DeaconFrost]

I'm a Gigabyte or Intel guy, but if I had to venture outside those two, it would be Asus, no question.

As for the mATX board, generally you wouldn't have any issues or performance loss, so don't be afraid of them. The only thing you need to really consider is if going to 2 memory slots instead of 4 will impact you down the road with future upgrades. Most people would rather go full ATX so you can keep your current memory and just pop two more sticks of it in later on.

 

[JaidynM]

I'm a Gigabyte or Intel guy, but if I had to venture outside those two, it would be Asus, no question.

As for the mATX board, generally you wouldn't have any issues or performance loss, so don't be afraid of them. The only thing you need to really consider is if going to 2 memory slots instead of 4 will impact you down the road with future upgrades. Most people would rather go full ATX so you can keep your current memory and just pop two more sticks of it in later on.

Yes, that's what I was worried about. If I wanted to Quad SLI, could an mATX board fit it? Most likely not. Down the track, I might also do a RAM upgrade. So, I might go with the P8Z68 Pro.

Brand wise, I would stick with ASUS, Gigabyte, although there are other good choices.
Such as maybe even eVGA (though these are higher priced usually) or MSI.

I've never dealt with AsROCK before either, so I can not fairly comment on them.
But have had experience with Biostar, a couple of them.
Now, I wouldnt reccomend a Biostar for a highend system you want to overclock, but for a basic system you want to run at default speeds, they do quite well.
They just do not have very good features for OCing, although they are capable. That is, at least the couple Ive had the experience working with.


Still, ASUS or Gigabyte would be my top 2 recommendations.

ASUS it is then.

 

[LiquidSnak]

AsROCK is ASUS' sister company. They make solid stuff too, but for a bit less cash. They simply use slightly cheaper materials, but their high end stuff is still great.

 

[JaidynM]

AsROCK is ASUS' sister company. They make solid stuff too, but for a bit less cash. They simply use slightly cheaper materials, but their high end stuff is still great.

I suppose the P8Z68 would be better then.

Thanks you all; thread solved.