New build for an office mate

[great_big_abyss]

Okay, I'm not the one building this, but I've been giving advice to a co-worker.

This is going to be a medium-duty gaming and general purpose machine. Parts will be bought either online from Canadian e-tailers, or from local retailers:

Parts already acquired:

Corsair Carbide 500R
EVGA GTX550Ti
23" 1080 LED monitor

He is set (but not committed) on the following:

i5-2500
Intel 256MB SSD.
Other peripherals are unimportant at this time.

My question is: What motherboard is a good one to recommend? Keep in mind a few things:
-- he will NOT be over-clocking (therefore the stock cooler will remain)
-- he mentioned that he would like the option to buy a 2nd GTX550Ti (they're cheap enough) and do a
2-way SLi.
-- 4x 6Gb/s SATA ports. For some reason I was under the impression that LGA1155 only comes with
2x 6Gb/s Sata. Or am I mistaken?
-- 2x USB 3.0 mid-board for to enable the USB 3.0 on his case

I initially recommended a P8P67 Pro. Is there a motherboard that has the aforementioned capabilities for less money? The features of the P8P67 (onboard HD sound and bluetooth) are desirable, but not mandatory.

Any suggestions?

[r3v07ut10n]

i think you MB is a good choice to recommend. there are not many MB cheaper with 4 sata III ports.
What are you recommending for PSU?

[great_big_abyss]

I haven't thought of the PSU yet. I know it will have to be large enough to run 2 vid cards, but it's not like the 550's are powerhungry beasts either. I was thinking that a 700Watt would be more than enough.


Edit:

I was thinking that This One would be a good board.

And that a This would make for a good powersupply.

Edit #2: What's the difference between a P67 and a Z68 board?

[Razamatraz]

P67 does not let you use the onchip graphics...Z68 came out later and does, plus has support for SSD caching and graphics switching (allowing you to idle the GPUs and use the onboard when less power is needed.) If going with a large SSD anyways (like you suggest) the Z68 is probably not worthwhile.


Both the Board and PSU you picked are solid.


Razz

[r3v07ut10n]

^ hmm i thought so sure that was a Z68.. as that is what i was talking about.

[Dzzope]

P8P67 is a P67 board.
Make sure you go for the PRO (sli certified) if going for a p67 board.

If he's not going to overclock then he may be as well to get a H61 / H67 board.. will save him a few bucks.
H67 to get SLI certified..

They aren't going to have as many features as the P67's but then something like a Asus P8H67-M EVO is basically the same features (although no front panel usb3, could extend from back of case to internal - front panel connectors though)


Have to ask about the 4 sata3 connectors? Why?
There is very little that will see the use of sata3 over sata2 (apart from a good SSD)

That seems like a very large (and expensive, Intel are very expensive) SSD for a mid range gaming build.. My I suggest you drop to 128GB and bumping the GPU to a 560Ti (assuming you can return / sell the 550 and get your money back)

The 550Ti will give much worse results in modern games compared to a 560Ti especially at 1920x1080 and 2 of them will be only slightly (10% in best situation for sli) better than a single 560Ti.
This will give him more room for upgrades in the future (by adding another 560Ti for SLI, which is more powerful and cheaper than a 580) and a 560 should be enough for him to max out the settings of almost all but the most demanding of current games.


Have you considered an AMD build? a 965BE is very good for the price of the chip+board. Only reason I suggest this is because you said it's "medium-duty" and are looking to put in a 550Ti.
An AMD will be plenty in this case and could save him $100 - $150 ? depending on the board and chip he goes for.

[great_big_abyss]

Originally Posted by Dzzope

Have to ask about the 4 sata3 connectors? Why?
There is very little that will see the use of sata3 over sata2 (apart from a good SSD)

I know, right? Tried telling him that. For some reason he seems to think that SSD's will completely supplant harddrives as storage mediums within the next 4-5 years. Where he's getting that information, I don't know.

Originally Posted by Dzzope

That seems like a very large (and expensive, Intel are very expensive) SSD for a mid range gaming build..

I think he is actually going for a 128GB. I couldn't really remember last night. But that's not that important. I also recommended Crucial to him, but when it's not your build...

Originally Posted by Dzzope

and bumping the GPU to a 560Ti (assuming you can return / sell the 550 and get your money back)

The 550Ti will give much worse results in modern games compared to a 560Ti especially at 1920x1080 and 2 of them will be only slightly (10% in best situation for sli) better than a single 560Ti.
This will give him more room for upgrades in the future (by adding another 560Ti for SLI, which is more powerful and cheaper than a 580) and a 560 should be enough for him to max out the settings of almost all but the most demanding of current games.

Aha, once again, good luck to me on that front. It's not like he wants to plan BF3 on ultra or anything like that. From the sounds of it, his aspirations are more like, GTA IV. Anyways, thanks for the suggestions. I'll look into the H67 board.

[CyHawk]

I have the P8Z68-V Pro Gen3 board and I highly recommend it. My only complaint about the board is the sata ports face the front of the case. I think that is what asus is doing with all of their boards now.

Newegg.ca - ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS