Good LGA1366 Motherboard?

[ChuckleBrother]

Now just a straight up replacement


So I went to Digital-Overload this weekend and had a bit of an incident with my motherboard. It is now fried and I am extremely happy. Weird reaction but this means I finally have a reason to upgrade to i7:).


I have no idea at all what motherboard to go for here, so suggest away. Here are my requirements(in order of how much I care):

1) Stability, this is of the utmost importance to me, I want a good motherboard that won't crap out(if it makes an difference, I am going with OCZ reaper memory for this build)

2) Price, I do NOT want to spend $500 on a motherboard, I will at most be doing LIGHT overclocking, maybe to 3.2 tops. Midrange is perfect

3) PCB colour, yeah I care, I would prefer black

4) Features, I don't need much, I don't give two hoots about raid or dual lan ports nor do number of sata/usb ports matter


If you have a suggestion that meets this criteria please do speak up, I am so out of tune as to what constitutes a good motherboard nowadays.

[MpG]

You're sure about i7? While I can't speak personally, for the performance you're looking for, the Phenom II's seem like a viable alternative as well. With the X58 motherboards breaking $300 even for the midrange ones, and the i7 920 running anywhere between $300-400, this sort of thing might be worth looking at.

What about multi-GPU? What kind of expansion cards are you going to be using? Firewire? eSATA? If you're not looking for bleeding edge, things like motherboard slot configurations and onboard chips become more important. I haven't looked in-depth, but from some reviews, I've noticed that Asus often seems to be show better USB and Firewire performance.

I'm pretty sure even the worst of the X58 boards will push an i7 920 to 3.2GHz, although I'd still recommend an aftermarket heatsink.

[ChuckleBrother]

I want decent gaming performance, but for the moment until I have more cash I am sticking with my 8800 Ultra(to be upgraded when I have more money).

If Phenom II is good then I will go with that, I don't want ultimate performance I just want a good machine that won't be underpowered in 6 months. If I go multi-card I am likely going with an ATI solution.

[zlojack]

I think MpG is right... the Phenom II is a good option, though in terms of performance it won't give you a whole lot more than your Q6600.

My honest advice would be to just grab yourself a new cheap P45 mobo like a P5Q and not worry about upgrading. You could probably get your Q6600 to 3.2 or evn 3.6 with a solid P45 board. (The Gigabyte EP45-UD3P is a great board, but it won't fit your colour requirements)

I went down the i7 path and sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't have just stuck with the great rig I had...

I'd sure have a lot more $$ in my wallet!

[ChuckleBrother]

Probably best as I was pushing $1000 without a new videocard or psu!

So if I go down the replacement path, what would be a good motherboard to run in here?

[Realityshift]

NCIX.com - Buy AMD March Madness Phenom II X4 940 Black Quad Core Processor & ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe Motherboard - X4-940-790FX In Canada. Phenom II

NCIX.com - Buy Gigabyte EX58-UD3R ATX A1366 X58 DDR3 2PCI-E 2PCI SATA2 RAID Sound GLAN CrossFireX Motherboard - GA-EX58-UD3R In Canada. Decent mid ranged X58 motherboard that will allow for the overclocks your looking for and only $239

If you want lots of bang go with I7, Phenom II is great for amd but not anywhere near top of the performance charts right now, even their high end CPUs are getting knocked down by C2Qs and eaten alive by I7s. Do yourself a favor and just go with I7 and leave the underdog out of it this round, maybe next season AMD will take back the charts. That is unless this is a purely gaming build and you really want that extra cash to go towards a video card, and even then id say stick with your Q6600 =P the 940BE only competes with the Q9400 which is still slower then a Q6600. Intell has still won this round IMO.

[ChuckleBrother]

Originally Posted by zlojack

I think MpG is right... the Phenom II is a good option, though in terms of performance it won't give you a whole lot more than your Q6600.

My honest advice would be to just grab yourself a new cheap P45 mobo like a P5Q and not worry about upgrading. You could probably get your Q6600 to 3.2 or evn 3.6 with a solid P45 board. (The Gigabyte EP45-UD3P is a great board, but it won't fit your colour requirements)

I went down the i7 path and sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't have just stuck with the great rig I had...

I'd sure have a lot more $$ in my wallet!

I have decided on the Gigabyte EP45-UD3P, supports everything I want and comes in at a mighty fine price. I will probably stave off an upgrade until more affordable i7's hit the table.

Thanks guys!

[magictorch]

Sounds like a good idea getting that board. The i7 doesn't make a huge difference in gaming right now for a lot of setups. That is unless you go the multi "high end" card route. If you were using the i7 for multi-threaded apps it might be a different story.

[Squeetard]

You can now upgrade your vid card with the money you saved.

[zlojack]

The Q6600 is like the energizer bunny...