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Computer help forum: Need Help on HD and Motherboard Choice.

by: Engineroar March 3, 2012 9:46 AM PST

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Need Help on HD and Motherboard Choice.

by Engineroar - 3/3/12 9:46 AM

Hey everyone.

I am SORT of building my own PC.. well.. not really.
I am choosing what components I want in the gaming PC I am having built.

Welp I am down to two things left.
The two HD's I am going to use, and the motherboard choice.

I have decided NOT to go with a SSD Drive, case closed lol.
Here are my choices on what to use on my two HD's.
One I will keep the OS on and MAYBE a few things, the other all the rest.

500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD (Single Hard Drive

1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 32MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
2TB (2TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD

Single Drive, OR
2TB x 2 (2TB Capacity) Raid 1 High Performance with Data Security
---------------------------------------------------------------
I was going to chose TWO of the
2TB (2TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDDs...and do as I said before with them.

Any reason NOT to do this and go with one 1TB and the other a 2 TB...or a different choice?

Also as for the motherboard.
I am getting an Intel® Core™ i7-3930K Six-Core 3.20 GHz 12MB Intel Smart Cache LGA2011

The board that comes standard with this PC is a 4 slot, so I want to upgrade to an 8 slot so i can upgrade the RAM in the future.
However... I know NOTHING more about boards so I have no idea which to choose.

So.. I am going to list the board that comes with it, and the 8 slot boards they have... with price differences included at the end.
I am coming close to the end of my budget, so the most expensive one is not the one I want, unless I NEED to chose that one and sacrifice something else.

Here is the 4 slot board it comes with:
(3-Way SLI Support) Gigabyte X79-UD3 Intel X79 Chipset Quad Channel DDR3 ATX Mainboard w/ UEFI DualBIOS, Dolby Home Theater 7.1 Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III RAID, 4 Gen3 PCIe X16, 2 PCIe X1 & 1 PC

Here are the 8 slot boards i have to choose from along with the price differences at the end:

(SLI/CrossFireX) Asus P9X79 Intel X79 Chipset Quad Channel DDR3 ATX w/ UEFI BIOS, 7.1 HD Audio, Intel GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III RAID, 3 Gen3 PCIe X16, 2 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI [+60]

(3-Way SLI Support) Asus P9X79 Pro Intel X79 Chipset Quad Channel DDR3 ATX w/ UEFI BIOS, BT GO, SSD Caching, 7.1 HD Audio, Intel GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III RAID, 4 Gen3 PCIe x16 & 2 PCIe x1 [+117]

(3-Way SLI Support) Asus P9X79 Deluxe Intel X79 Chipset Quad Channel DDR3 ATX w/ UEFI BIOS, BT GO, SSD Caching, 7.1 HD Audio, 1x Intel & 1x Realtek GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III RAID, 4 Gen3 PCIe X16 & 2 PCIe X1 [+190]

(SLI Support) Asus Sabertooth X79 Intel X79 Chipset Quad Channel DDR3 ATX w/ TUF Armor, UEFI BIOS, SSD Caching, 7.1 HD Audio, Intel GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III RAID, 3 Gen3 PCIe X16, 2 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI [+129]

(4-Way SLI Support) Asus Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 Chipset Quad Channel DDR3 ATX w/ ROG Connect, UEFI BIOS, BT GO, OC Key, Subzero Sense & 7.1 HD Audio, Intel GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III RAID, 5 Gen3 PCIe X16 & 1 PCIe X1 [+250]

(3-Way SLI Support) Gigabyte X79-UD5 Intel X79 Chipset Quad Channel DDR3 ATX Mainboard w/ UEFI DualBIOS, Dolby Home Theater 7.1 Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III RAID, 3 Gen3 PCIe X16, 2 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI [+44]

(SLI Support) Intel DX79TO Intel X79 Chipset Quad Channel DDR3 ATX w/ 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, SATA-III RAID, 2 Gen3 PCIe X16, 3 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI [-5]

(SLI Support) Intel DX79SI Intel X79 Chipset Quad Channel DDR3 ATX w/ BT/WiFi Module, 7.1 HD Audio, Dual GbLAN, SATA-III RAID, 3 Gen3 PCIe X16, 2 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI [+73]

So there are the choices.
Now... I am building a high end Gaming PC... and I do want a quality board... but again I am coming to the end of my budget.
So again I dont have to have the most expensive one... unless I should sacrifice one of the 2TB HDD's and choose a 1TB instead for one of the drives.

Remember the gaming is the most important part of the PC so I want the build accordingly.

Opinions and reasons on opinions are GREATLY needed. Thanks so much!


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Edit to the thread

by Engineroar - 3/3/12 9:55 AM

In Reply to: Need Help on HD and Motherboard Choice. by Engineroar

Ok... I have something to edit...
Ignore the part about the most expensive board.

I can in fact get the most expensive one quite easily it turns out...
so please just tell me what you think the BEST motherboard of these are, and the reasons why.
Thank you!


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No help?

by Engineroar - 3/3/12 3:47 PM

In Reply to: Edit to the thread by Engineroar

No help from anyone? really?


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This is a volunteer board.

by R. Proffitt Moderator - 3/3/12 3:57 PM

In Reply to: No help? by Engineroar

And a discussion board so replies come when folk wander by and think they can add something. Be sure to keep your posts attractive and more folk will pile in.

I wonder if your top post is overload? That is, if you had left it to just the CPU of choice, maybe someone could have figured that they could share their choices.

Here, I tend to copy what Tom's Hardware benchmarks on. Then I can expect similar results.

HOWEVER if you read Tom's article where they benchmarked and changed the boards only the results were always withing a few percent points of each other. The lesson was that the motherboard rarely matters. Only the features you want matter.
Bob


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I would suggest that ...

by Edward ODaniel - 3/3/12 8:24 PM

In Reply to: Need Help on HD and Motherboard Choice. by Engineroar

since their base MB is a Gigabyte that they are probably comfortable with Gigabyte boards from a standpoint of reliability so as log as their Gigabyte upgrade MB suits all your requirements that would be a good route to go.

I have had good luck with ASUS boards so would probably personally pick the Asus P9X79 Pro or the Asus P9X79 depending on the graphics I planned on using as all else is pretty equal and the Asus Rampage IV Extreme is a bit of overkill from what I see.

Without your offering specifics on the graphics you intend to be using and without your requirement for additional RAM slots I would really most likely just suggest staying with that base board.


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