I need opinion! z68 or z77 for i5 2500k?

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jyang16

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Apr 8, 2012
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Hi,

I am currently thinking about upgrading my 5 year old desktop with q6600 with HD4850
I was just going to upgrade my GPU but I think I will upgrade my CPU, MOBO, and ram first.
(Will be getting HD7850 in about a month).

For CPU,
I was going to wait for ivy bridge but I think I am just going to pick up 2500k which is on sale right now.

So about the motherboard, I am currently looking at these two:

ASRock Z68 Extreme 3 Gen 3

or

ASRock Z77 Extreme 6

I MIGHT upgrade to Ivy Bridge i7 next year so but regarding this fact should I just pick up z77 right now to be more future proof or am I just wasting $50?
Or should I pick up ASRock z68 extreme 3 with 60GB SSD? (I am on tight budget).

Help please!
Thank you
 
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Z68 is compatible with IB. The only main difference is the PCI 3.0, which most GPUs don't even use. I would go with the extreme3 and an SSD... more performance overall.

By the way, this probably should have gone in the motherboards section, not New Builds.
 
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Ivy Bridge is due out April 29th.

http://pcper.com/news/Processors/Intel-Ivy-Bridge-Processors-Launch-March-23-2012 <----- Here's a price run down of the Ivy Bridge cpu's in $USD

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=138_711_1183 <----- Z77 boards already for sale in Australia. In the past few years the Aussies have been getting the goodies a month ahead of the US and Canada including Sandy Bridge and the 1155 boards. The Aussies have already pulled some of the 1155 Cougar Point boards (H61/H67/P67/Z68) from their site. In fact a lot of those boards are no longer for sale on that site compared to last month.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5166/ivy-bridge-overview <----- Line-up of Ivy Bridge desktop cpu's to date.

Z77/Z75 motherboards (Panther Point chipset w/native USB 3.0) and PCI-E 3.0

http://www.asrock.com/microsite/PCIe3/overview.html <----- Quick and brief rundown of Ivy Bridge, PCI-E 3.0 cards and the new gen boards.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/index.asp?s=1155 <---- Asrocks Z77 and Z75 boards to date. They all get released with Ivy Bridge.

http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/Intel_Z77 <---- Asus Z77 board lineup to date.

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/list.aspx?s=42&jid=2&p=2&v=24 <----- Gigabyte Z77 board lineup to date.

http://us.msi.com/product/mb/#/?sk=Socket%201155%20(Intel%20i3/i5/i7) <----- MSI Z77 board lineup to date.


http://www.anandtech.com/show/5626/ivy-bridge-preview-core-i7-3770k/9 <---- Ivy Bridge cpu review with benchmarks

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Not necessarily - an SSD is only as good as the hardware it's surrounded with. I'd personally be inclined to go with the Z77 as it will unlock PCI Gen 3 for faster performance with the new GPUs - that is one area where you don't want to water it down with a motherboard that can't support it.
 
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New GPUs that haven't come out yet. OP didn't say anything about how soon he/she was going to upgrade their GPU. I do agree that Z77 is better, and if you can afford it, get it, but... I think of it kind of like the USB 3.0 scenario. Almost nothing uses USB 3.0, but it's there for future use. Except you don't change GPUs as often as flash drives.
 
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obsama... I'd upgrade to a Z77 in your case anyway. Also, I'd upgrade your monitor to a nokia and your RAM to a potato 😉 (your sig)

Yeah, that summarizes it. Why_Me really helped with the price breakdowns, so I'd really recommend going with the Extreme4 Z77 board... for a few more years, I don't think it's a bad investment.
 
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What do you mean? There's plenty of GPUs out now that use PCI Gen 3 - even the 7970 and 680 do, but only if the motherboard and CPU take advantage of it.
 
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Ehhhhh... correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure PCI 3.0 is "useless" for now as even the best current GPU's do NOT saturate PCI 2.0 speeds? read this on TH's somewhere will find the link if anyone disagrees.

PCI 3.0 = USELESS for now...

 
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I wouldn't say it's "useless". I can remember when PCI-E 1.6 was the thing before PCI-E 2.0 and everyone said PCI-E 2.0 was years ahead of it's time and not needed. It was a year or less after that when vid cards came out that utilized PCI-E 2.0. So in other words, there is no reason to purchase a PCI-E 2.0 build when the future is obviously PCI-E 3.0....especially when someone is spending $$$$ on a new build. New tech is where it's at or going to be soon enough.
 
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They don't saturate PCIe 2.0 on Sandy Bridge. On IB and LGA 2011, they do.
 
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Hold on. That was what I was saying... "New GPUs that haven't come out yet. OP didn't say anything about how soon he/she was going to upgrade their GPU. I do agree that Z77 is better, and if you can afford it, get it, but... I think of it kind of like the USB 3.0 scenario. Almost nothing uses USB 3.0, but it's there for future use. Except you don't change GPUs as often as flash drives."
 
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Z77 is built for power needs of Ivy Bridge which are less demanding than Sandy Bridge. If you are SB overclocking in Z77 you could run into a problem. If you want to overclock SB go with Z68.

If you want to overclock Ivy Bridge go with either one of Z68 or Z77.

Source: anandtech.com article on Z77 motherboards. (Look under paragraph labelled "Power Consumption and Power Delivery")

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5728/intel-z77-panther-point-chipset-and-motherboard-preview-asrock-asus-gigabyte-msi-ecs-and-biostar
 
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I have been going through this for a couple of weeks now on a i5 2500k build and I decided on the AsRock Extreme4 Z77. More future-proof and if I wanna upgrade down the road (i7 or future PCI 3.0 cards), I won't have to buy a new mobo.

What did you decide on and how did it work out?
 
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