New build -- motherboard opinions please

sol1109

Posts: 44   +2
Planning a new build and have my MB selection down to two choices right now. I am not a gamer but do like a system for video editing and one that will have enough power to serve as a hand-me-down for the kids in three or four years.

Anyone have an opinion on these motherboards:

ASUS Sabertooth X58
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R
 
Is there any particular reason you want to go with X58? You could build a Sandy Bridge system for the same money or less.
 
Nope...just more pins.
X58 is about a month away from being given a decent burial as far the enthusiast chipset is concerned (X79 releases then...and, NO. If you haven't heard about it you don't need it)

Unless you are planning on some heavy 3 or 4 way graphics card action, then Sandy Bridge is the way to go.
If you are building a system primarily for gaming then the 2500K should be at the top of your list.
If you are planning on multimedia, content creation and productivity apps in addition to (or instead of) gaming then look at the 2600K

Motherboard requirement is largely down to what kind of feature set you require.
Most Z68 and P67 boards offer near enough the same performance, so get a board that offers enough connectivity for your needs- since most high-priced boards tend to just offer excess third-party controllers (extra SATA slots, a second Gb LAN), a few overclocking niceties (more robust voltage regulation, a more involved UEFI/BIOS, onboard CMOS/Power/Reset/LED debug) and a lot of unnecessary bling ( heatpipes, complex heatsinks doing nothing).

ASRock P67 Extreme4/Gen3 is relatively full featured and not too OTT in pricing and may be compatible with Intels next generation of CPU's (Ivy Bridge).
ASRock Z68 Extreme4/Gen 3 ( the Z68 chipset version of the board above. Z68 supports onboard video out (HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI, D-Sub) - although not all Z68 board's have video out, or all four connections.
MSI Z68A-GD55 (G3 - also reasonably well featured and possibly Ivy Bridge compatible
Asus P8Z68-V Pro
 
I see the error in my ways. Started by using the socket selection filter on the Newegg site. Going to spend some time reading up on the Intel site about the Extreme Vs Standard i7 choices. I will keep your sugestions in mind, thanks dividebyzero.
 
Always try to buy the best equipment that your budget can will allow you to.

Intel deffo leads the way in the cpu market. 1366 socket came out before 1156/1155 sockets. More pins but not necessarily faster. I would get lots of memory, x64 operating system and for sure invest in a SSD. I use an i7 with a 120gb OCZ vertex 3. It flys! The best bit for me is the boot time. very very quick from initial post to ready to go with windows.

A simple equation to remember:-

SSD + Loads of DDR3 memory = Happy days!
 
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