Convinced to go with i7 860 now which motherboard?

[projectsherv]

Ok so I just got the i7 860 chip due to micro center rep convincing me not to get 920 saying the 860 is better for OCing. He sold me the Asus P7P55D mobo and I am looking on new egg and there seems to be multiple diff versions. On microcenters website theres like 5 diff versions all saying P7P55D and 5 different prices. Whats the diff? Is this board worth it? I would be willing to spend a few more bucks on a better board because I originally was getting the P6T which is more than all the 1156 boards. I will be doing lots of gaming some apps and multimedia dvd burning etc. Starting with 1 bfg gtx 285 oc but upgrading to 2 very soon. 6gb mushkin ram. 23-24" monitor with highest res settings on games. I was also considering getting the Maximus III Formula. (Definitely planning on overlocking) Any input is appreciated. Btw, I do know these boards are extremely new but I'm hoping I can get some educated input as I am just getting back into all this after a long while. Need to finalize purchase asap. Thanks for all input in advance.

 

[psycho sykes]

Well i don't know much about 1156 mobos but i'll seek a feature comparison.
Also as a side "advice" it's preferable NOT to get a 1156 mobo with the SATA 6GBit/s capability due to PCI-e 2.0 issues and the used Marvell controller.

See this: http://event.asus.com/mb/P7P55D/

Regards.

 

[gkay09]

@projectsherv if you are planning for multiple card setup, the i7 920 is still the better option...
The LGA 1366 boards offer full x16 bandwidth for 2 PCIe slots during SLI/ Crossfire configuration compared to x8x8 on P55 boards(Yours is actually a medium-low end board)...
Though for current cards, the difference is minimal, but reports suggest that the HD 5xxx series from ATI will saturate the x8x8 and would give better performance with x16x16...

And as for overclocking, for real world performance, higher clock speed doesnt always give better performance...Here at Toms, they have seen that anything above 3.8GHz is not much useful apart from improving benchmarks...And an i7 920 D0 stepping can easily achieve that speed without any issues...

And I would still suggest GTX 275 over GTX 285...

 

[psycho sykes]

^ +1

 

[Twoboxer]

Agree with gkay, but would like to look at the 860 from the other side:

The new gen vid cards are supposed to be up to 2x faster than this gen . . . the odds are less you will need or even want xfire/sli. Your 860 will handle that, and the money saved on cpu, mobo, smaller psu can help pay for a better single vid card.

If you are buying right now, not waiting for new gen, then go 275 - it will be plenty for 1920 res.

 

[MRFS]

ASUS P7P55D Premium:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=769


That "SATA/6G" solution still has a bottleneck at 500 MB/second,
but that's much better than a ceiling of SATA/3G, particularly when
SATA/6G SSDs emerge, probably in 6-9 months.

There are reports of an ASUS add-on RAID controller with same support:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=19975


The Seagate Savvio 15K.2 and Intel RS2BL080 RAID controller
now support SAS/6G:

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/servers/savvio/savvio_15k.2/

http://www.intel.com/Products/Server/RAID-controllers/RS2BL080/RS2BL080-overview.htm



MRFS

 

[MRFS]

> http://event.asus.com/mb/P7P55D/

Thanks for that link: the animated graphics are terrific.


However, if you browse to Unique Features | SATA/6Gbps,
ASUS claims their implementation "fully supports SATA/6Gbps",
but that's not exactly true.

The weak link is a PCIe x1 Gen2 channel, which tops out
at 500 MB/second (x1 @ 250 x 2).

See block diagrams at the end of this link:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=769

I would recommend Intel's RS2BL080 or RS2BL040
RAID controllers, which are re-branded LSI MegaRAID products:

http://www.intel.com/Products/Server/RAID-controllers/RS2BL080/RS2BL080-overview.htm


MRFS

 

[psycho sykes]

First sorry for delay.

True the thing about PCI-e 2.0 lanes re-routing but i was talking about even more things:
The system won't be able to use x8 x8 configuration, It won't be eligible for nVidia's the power of 3 and thus no SLI!!
Also I'd rather wait for Intel to release a new chipset for 1366 and 1156 that natively supports SATA 6G and USB 3.0 instead of those "Prototype" controllers, Beside an updated X58 and P55 will (if we're lucky) offer much more bandwidth to feed the new USB 3.0 alone it's 10x+ faster than USB 2.0 so 10x+ increase in required lanes AND the new SATA 6G which will require them to release a chipset with like x60 PCI-e 2.0 lanes, And using like x20 of them so that's x40 x4 more than the current X58, While I don't think they will make a replacement for P55 due to the implementation of the PCI-e 2.0 controller to the die and doesn't have enough power to feed more than 2 USB 3.0 and like 3 SATS 6G of course doesn't look too promising, So they MIGHT release revised versions of the 1156 i5/i7 processors to saturate those requirements.

Regards.

Medo