ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 or a diffrent suggestion?

[Indiglo5997]

Good Day,

I am in the process of building a waterbox plus (my first water cooled system) and i am starting to acquire all my parts i will need to start to put the project together. I have been holding out for a while with the motherboard, i had my sights set on the ASUS P6T deluxe v2 after doing much research and seeing that although plagued with a batch of boards that had ram slot issues an overall solid board with good performance and a decent lifespan.

With this said i bought other parts of the build and continued my research of mobo's and discovered that there is an equal following of Gigabyte fans out there too and the rave reviews that they give to there boards. After reading many reviews on there products and getting a feel of what the enthusiast's think which was alot positive things.

Which after a long winded story brings me to my question and that is - Would any of you guys suggest going with Gigabyte over ASUS? and is there a board that Gigabyte produces that is either cheaper or a little bit more then a P6T that is better?

I hear that ASUS boards can be quite temperamental at times when you first put a system together and fire it up for the first time where as i heard Gigabyte is for the most part simple and a snap. I am not an amatuer but i also am not in anyway a genuies when it comes to these things so all the help i can get would be great

thanks in advance

 

[EXCellR8]

Both GB and ASUS make great motherboards, it's just a matter of picking a board with features you want. What CPU are you looking to use? Are you looking to overclock or use a lot of RAM? Will you be using Windows 7? It will be a bit easier to recommend something if you answer some of those questions. I'd also like to know your budget and maybe what other hardware you plan to use or what you already have for the build.

 

[Indiglo5997]

Both GB and ASUS make great motherboards, it's just a matter of picking a board with features you want. What CPU are you looking to use? Are you looking to overclock or use a lot of RAM? Will you be using Windows 7? It will be a bit easier to recommend something if you answer some of those questions. I'd also like to know your budget and maybe what other hardware you plan to use or what you already have for the build.

I am going to go with an 920 i7, i am going to over clock it but nothing too crazy somewhere in the range of 3 to 3.2ghz maybe more once i get comfortable and get more experience under my belt but for the most part it will be around that.

As for the ram i want to run 12 gig it might start at about 6 - 8 gigs but when it is all said and done i want 12 and i will be running windows 7 pro - 64 bit.

What my plan for everything else is have a MLC SSD for the primary drive (OS only) and have either 1 TB or 2 500 gig drives as the secondary's.

I want to have an SLI setup so i will have a power supply to accommodate that and for the cards i was looking at the GeForce GTX something like 280's or 285's.

What i am ultimately shooting for here is a machine that has a decent upgrade-ability life that can handle any game i throw at it and for the most part a pretty overall powerful machine but get better if i wanted to throw newer/better components in it down the road.

As for the budget i would like to keep it low as possible just so i can get the system together up and running in a decent amount of time as the higher the cost/budget the longer the system will take to come together, that said i am more then happy to go up into the $3000 range, a bit more if needed.

 

[EXCellR8]

first off, 12GB of DDR3 is gonna cost a boatload, so i would stick with 6 for now unless you're bent on getting an unnecessary amount. secondly, it's not wise to use an SSD as an OS drive. i'm sure you know that SSD drives have no cooling and are flash based. having the SSD accessed all of the time will surely fry it eventually. also keep in mind that you will need a really powerful PSU to power all that hardware, especially dual GTX series cards. you will need to consider the power consumption and heat.

having said that, it seems that budget is not an issue so i would find a solid motherboard and ram first. this will allow you to enhance the system's overclock ability and serve as a strong foundation for later upgrades. i recommend an X58 board by ASUS or Gigabyte...

 

[klepto12]

might i suggest some parts
PSU-CORSAIR CMPSU-850HX 850W
ram-CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
MB-GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5
SSD-Corsair P128 (CMFSSD-128GBG2D) 2.5" 128GB SATA
and i might add if i were you i would wait and buy 2 ati 5850 cards to put in your rig versus gtx 280s or 285s since they cost around the same and the ati cards way outperform the nvidia cards.

 

[EXCellR8]

seriously, SSD is a waste of money! but go ahead, to each his own i guess...

if you're gonna blow a ton of money on a hard drive, at least get a wd velociraptor

 

[klepto12]

lol ssd's are far faster than HDD's and use far less power the WD VR drive suck compared to newer high density drives.

 

[Indiglo5997]

might i suggest some parts
PSU-CORSAIR CMPSU-850HX 850W
ram-CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
MB-GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5
SSD-Corsair P128 (CMFSSD-128GBG2D) 2.5" 128GB SATA
and i might add if i were you i would wait and buy 2 ati 5850 cards to put in your rig versus gtx 280s or 285s since they cost around the same and the ati cards way outperform the nvidia cards.

Good suggestions i was looking at all those parts except the SSD.

Do you have that mobo? That was my #1 choice as far as making deciding between ASUS or Gigabyte.

Has Gigabyte come out with any 1366 mobo's with SATA3 or USB3?

seriously, SSD is a waste of money! but go ahead, to each his own i guess...

if you're gonna blow a ton of money on a hard drive, at least get a wd velociraptor

I hear where you are coming from nothing is set in stone. The whole reason i posted this thread it to get everyone's input and talk to people that know more then i do and have experience with some of the equipment.

Do you have WD drives? I have always been a Seagate man and i heard horror story's about WD but i have been looking at the VelociRaptor

 

[EXCellR8]

SSD's are not far faster, and in some cases are slower than platter-based drivers. don't believe everything you read on the internet. i've used SSD disks before and it's much more practical to just go the old fashioned route. but hey, when the thing fries after 2 months from a 64-bit OS don't come posting in asking what's wrong.

there are only a handful of motherboards that support USB 3.0, and i'm not sure about SATA 3...

i mean no disrespect btw, but SSD for OS = horrible idea, and yes i have always used WD hard drives in my desktop.

 

[klepto12]

exceller8 i dont know what ssd you were using but i think a 15 second boot up versus like 55 on a standard HDD is far faster plus have you tried photoshop on an ssd ? there is a big difference using an SSD as the c drive is perfect because it speeds everything up and where do you get an ssd being dead in 2 months?

 

[klepto12]

imo the gigabyte mb's are the best made and stable boards on the market i would get it over an asus even though asus are good boards too. i currently have an asus because my gigabyte got hit by lightning.

 

[Indiglo5997]

exceller8 i dont know what ssd you were using but i think a 15 second boot up versus like 55 on a standard HDD is far faster plus have you tried photoshop on an ssd ? there is a big difference using an SSD as the c drive is perfect because it speeds everything up and where do you get an ssd being dead in 2 months?

I am with you after all the research i have done i got the take that SSD's had millions of write cycles before they go bad but to each his own and whatever everyone wants to run. I was just looking for input.

As for the Gigabyte board i was having a look at it and i agree it is looking nice i think i might end up going with that as my selection.

But one quick one about the hard drives,so if i don't go solid state what would be a solid RPM to go with to have a good speed hard drive?

Also does it make a difference in the overall picture if the "C:/primary" drive is say 10,000 RPM and the others are 7,200 RPM?

Would the second and third drives slow down the overall performance due to the system having to wait for the other if they were being written to or as long as the primary is fast it doesn't make much of a difference?

 

[klepto12]

I am with you after all the research i have done i got the take that SSD's had millions of write cycles before they go bad but to each his own and whatever everyone wants to run. I was just looking for input.

As for the Gigabyte board i was having a look at it and i agree it is looking nice i think i might end up going with that as my selection.

But one quick one about the hard drives,so if i don't go solid state what would be a solid RPM to go with to have a good speed hard drive?

Also does it make a difference in the overall picture if the "C:/primary" drive is say 10,000 RPM and the others are 7,200 RPM?

Would the second and third drives slow down the overall performance due to the system having to wait for the other if they were being written to or as long as the primary is fast it doesn't make much of a difference?

if you get a HDD id say go with a WD black 1tb drive there almost as fast as 10000 rpm WD VR and they cost alot less. you would not see a performance hit from having more than 1 HDD.