Suggest Me a Mobo - 670/7970

[icu222much]

I'm thinking of getting a new gaming rig this weekend and was looking into SLI/XFire 670/7970. After doing my research, it seems that both these cards have more or less the same performance and scale similarly. As a result, I've decided to buy which ever is the cheapest. So far I've picked out all of my components but am unsure which motherboard I should get. I'm looking for some suggestions for both SLI 670 and XFire 7970.

I plan to overclock my CPU (I've never OCed before) and perhaps even my GPUs. I'm planning to purchase my first GPU this weekend, and the second one later next year when the prices drop. I'll be using two 27" monitors, each at 1920x1080. I'll only have the game running on my primary monitor. I primarily play online FPS.

I also want to confirm if a 750W psu is sufficient (I'm pretty sure it is), and if there are any special features the psu needs to SLI/Xfire.

i5-3570K
CoolMaster Hyper 212 Evo
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
Intel 330 120GB
8GB DDR3 1066Mhz
Corsair TX750
Thor V2

I've been hearing alot of good things about the ASRock Z77 Extreme4 mobo. How is that?

[sf101]

You don't need cross fire or sli to play any online fps atm a solid oc'd card can get much mileage and save you alot of money over going dual.

The extreme 4 is good if your sticking with ambient solutions and just gaming.

I really love my asrock oc formula . it has great ram setup as well with the new bios update im running 24/7 2666 mhz mem timings on my patriot black momba 2133's on nick shi's mem profile.

Personally id go with a asus 7970 matrix as most people are yeilding 1300core 1800 mem minimum overclocks on them. my second choice would be a 7970 gigabyte oc card which i have and have great sustained air ocs on.

if you want 3d go nvidia though their packages are more widely used and known to work better.

the 3570k is a great choice

get a 2nd fan for the 212 evo and it will help you oc further. i have yet to see 4.7 un-achievable on that chip with decent cooling.

if your going to have a storage drive in your pc why not just use intel srt and a fast 60gb cash drive they work amazingly. i can hardly notice a differnce from the boot times on builds ive done to my personal 240gb corsair GT which in itself is a very fast ssd.

750w psu should be fine that tx750 is a great psu many say it will pull more watt than stated as it is.

cases are all preference based just make sure it has ample air flow.

good luck

[icu222much]

Originally Posted by sf101

The extreme 4 is good if your sticking with ambient solutions and just gaming. k

What do you mean by ambient solutions?

Right now I'm leaning towards the 7970. I'm planning to use this build for the next 4 to 5 years which is why I'm planning on SLI/Xfire.

[sf101]

Originally Posted by icu222much

What do you mean by ambient solutions?

Right now I'm leaning towards the 7970. I'm planning to use this build for the next 4 to 5 years which is why I'm planning on SLI/Xfire.

sub ambient means cooler than air .. typically for benching. usually if you dont know about it you wont ever care about it but on the other hand the oc formula has alot of cool profiles and adjustments that helped me on air aswell.

honestly dont bother crossfire . get a good 7970 oc it put the other 400-500 bucks in a jar and buy another card in 2 years. you will be further ahead than if you cross fired. and you can sell the other card for some return. esp if you buy something like the asus matrix 7970 they will have a return value.