LGA 1155 Motherboard

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destram25

destram25

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May 18, 2009
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Im upgrading my rig w/ the core i5 2500k and i was wondering which motherboard i should buy?
I plan on overclocking this cpu

Im interested in the ASrock Extreme4 p67, but im confused on which to buy. out of these 2 which is the latest/best?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157229

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157265

:sweat: whats the difference??? :pfff:

And are they xfire/sli ready?

Anyone recommend I buy a different board? Can I get a better motherboard for about the same price??
 
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I would suggest not going with an ASRock board...

Asus, Gigabyte (and more recently) MSI are going to be a much better quality board, that are going to be more stable, and last longer.

The big difference between the 2 ASRocks is that the GEN3 board offers 2 PCIe x16 lanes, instead of 1 @16x So for SLI it is better (although not necessary.)
 
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I does appear that both boards are SLI/Crossfire ready. After checking out both boards the ASRock P67 Extreme4 GEN3 has 2 PCI-e 16x slots while the ASRock P67 Extreme4 has 3 PCI-e 16x slots. So if you need the extra slot that is why you go with the ASRock P67 Extreme4.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team
 
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so why does one say b3 and the other says gen 3?
 
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They both have 3 PCIe slots, and they both run in 8x/8x when in SLI/Crossfire, the 3rd slot is 4x.

But the GEN3 has support for PCI3.0!! It is the newer model of the two and definitely the one to go for.
It looks better as a bonus :)


There is no difference between OC with the P67 or Z68, they are both unlocked, unlike the H67. The Z68 has additional features such as Integrated Graphics, SSD-caching & Intel Virtu.
 
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Actually in that particular model, the Z68 has V8+4 power phase design so it would be better for overclocking.

Oh and to your original question, no you probably wont find a better one for the same price. ASRock are relatively cheap considering their features. But I've heard good things about them.

I've read reviews of the Z68 extreme4 hitting 5Ghz no problem.
Depending on what your using it for it may be worth going to that model for the additional features and better power.
 
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It would be nice if that were all so true, but it's not. Every MOBO OC's differently and there's a good correlation to LOW vCore to HIGH Phase. Just look at the averages for vCore I posted above. High vCore = High Temps ; High Temps = Higher instability and Lower obtainable and stable OC. High Temps = Thermal Limit, note your Tmax for your CPU.

It is extremely difficult to obtain a 5GHz OC on the current 2500K/2600K CPUs.

Again, the PCIe 3.0 for GPU PCIe lanes means ZERO with both and Ivy Bridge CPU AND PCIe 3.0 GPU. Per the example above, the GTX 590 saturates the x8 PCIe 2.0 barely and won't touch the x16 PCIe 2.0. SO IF you can afford to 2-WAY SLI 'quad' the GTX 590 and when it comes in PCIe 3.0 flavor AND you eBay your 2500K/2600K CPU then yep the PCIe 3.0 'GEN 3' will indeed help.

However, I am much more interested in PCIe 3.0 compliant 'clean' chipsets to offset the 'shared' bandwidth of other devices that today need it more. PCIe 3.0 compliant 'clean' is several months away especially since INTEL screwed-up on the LGA 2011/SB-E :fou: hint - wink - wink - Chris
 
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I am running an asrock P67 extreme4 Mobo B3.

I have an i5 2500k sandybridge chip.

I have acheived max sustainable (prime tested) OC of 4.8 GHZ

I run a 24/7 4.5Ghz oc with my cooling done by Antec H20 [out of the box water solution]

I run 2x AMD 6850's in cross fire

I HAve never had a problem wit this board.. I was a noob OC'er.. but followed the tips on this forum to get nice overclocks and the board never held me back.

your biggest problem getting to higher oc's will be how you take care of heat dissipation as the stock i5 cooler will NOT handle the extra heat that OC'ing produces.

Member 4ryan6 used an Asrock extreme4 Mobo [ same as mine as the newer Gen3 board and Z68 boards were not out at the time] to get overclocks exceeding 5.0Ghz; although he used custom watercooling to take care of the heat issues that arise from running the 2500k processor at such speeds.

So my advice from experience is go with the Asrock extreme4 as it does the job with no problems.

Regards
Lex
 
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Here's the problem, again, higher vCore = Higher Temps = More $ to cool.

So if you're willing to spend +$50~+$100 to cool the CPU then sure the ASRock, but otherwise spend the few bucks more for a good MOBO.

It's a balancing act, and 'I get budgets' -- I'm trying seemingly an uphill battle to convince you to spend a little extra for a better quality MOBO. I 'wish' they were all the same, it would make it really easy to decide.

ASUS P8Z68-V PRO - http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8Z68V_PRO/#specifications
16 Phase (12-phase for CPU, 4-phase for iGPU)

ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3) - http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=P67%20Extreme4
8 + 2 Power Phase Design

Keep in mind ASUS owns ASRock, the ASRock's are a stripped-down versions of ASUS.

I'm long past caring about 'Best Answer' I've got about 580+ so it makes ZERO difference to me which you buy. IF I didn't have the vCore data then I'd be guessing -- that's not the case.

IMO - Search CPU-z Validation data for whatever MOBO's your considering, note the OC in GHz and the vCore.
 
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Im not sure I understand what you are trying to argue. That every MB is different so there is no gaurantee 8+4 phase power design will be better than 8+2??? Thats a bit fresh, I think you just like to argue. GENERALLY they will have cleaner power and be able to OC better.

Here is my source Re: reaching 5Ghz(nice review on the board as well)
http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/asrock_z68_extreme4_gen3_review,5.html

You can also find many examples in various forums of users with this Board reaching 5Ghz, and the MB does not hold them back.

ATM PCIe3.0 means nothing because there are no PCIe3.0 boards or Ivy Bridge, but at least it is compatible with them both for when they do come out. How is there a downside?!?
Either way, both boards run PCIe(16x) or SLI/Crossfire(8x/8x) so there is no difference, just added support for later.

Get the GEN3.
 
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The Phase to the CPU is what's important; you might want to look at the spreadsheets and in particular the 2nd where the vCore is listed -> http://www.overclock.net/intel-motherboards/916189-official-intel-p67-z68-motherboard-comparison.html

While 1.45v is barely acceptable {it's HOT}, the ASUS P8P67 Pro can do it with 1.32v~1.34v which is significantly better, cooler and would be more stable.

Again, the biggest improvement for the PCIe 3.0 vs PCIe 2.x will be the bandwidth gains on the chipset side vs the GPU's for a long period of time. Example if you took the best and most expensive GPUs in SLI and simply made both PCIe 2 and 3 versions of the same GPU the FPS gain would be 0~2FPS. The reason the GPU's simply are not saturating the x8 lanes of the PCIe 2.0, forget PCIe 2.0 x16, and it's laughable with the PCIe 3.0 x16.

By the time the PCIe 2.0 x16 same as PCIe 3.0 x8 are saturated from ANY GPU there will be a new generation of Intel CPU's -- past the Ivy Bridge -- if we're lucky the Haswell series.

So the PCIe rev 3.0 for (GPU) is not going to be helping you/me or anyone for years to come. Sure the GPU's will be faster but just not saturating the PCIe lanes. Excellent article on saturation -> http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_480_PCI-Express_Scaling/1.html and another x8/x8 vs x16/x16 -> http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/p67-gaming-3-way-sli-three-card-crossfire,2910.html

No - "I think you just like to argue" I really hate arguing -- but I dislike misinformation. I understand your 'logic vs reality' assumptions.
 
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I was talking about the z68 v p67 in the extreme4 model as per my OP when I was comparing OC so maybe I misunderstood your post. They are nearly identical so you would assume the z68 with 8+4 would be better??

Correct me if I'm wrong but the spreadsheet only shows 1 result for the Extreme4 Z68 model, pretty hard to go off that, chances are it's the chip.
The other Extreme4 results are for the P67 which has 8+2, not 8+4, kind of supporting my arguement in the first place.

I have not really looked into the P8P67 Pro boards but they may entirely different. There are over 10 results for that board in the spreadsheet, and only 2 hit 5Ghz around that temp, both with 2600k's.
I would require further research to make better judgement.

Thanks for the info regarding saturation etc, some interesting reading.

I didnt mean to come across rude to start with I think we just misunderstood each other.
 
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I'm 'trying' to recommend a different MOBO because of vCore and OC'ing.... 😉

The 8+2 vs 8+4 the differences are to the iGPU, and since the OP is looking at discrete GPU(s) the iGPU phases are more less meaningless.

I'm NOT basing what I know on (1) set of spreadsheets. As I said it makes ZIP impact to me what the OP chooses - I 'get' $. I also 'get' value for what you need. If the OP only wanted 4.0GHz~4.2GHz then sure get the ASRock. I've recommend the Extreme4 series plenty of times, but I have to be honest with what I know and have seen.

We're cool! :)
 
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Actually, 4 of 13 hit 5+ at under 1.35v! I missed two of them 😛

That's awesome!

That board is a more expensive than the Extreme4 here in Oz, the P67 Asus is more expensive than the Z68 ASrock.

I guess you get what you pay for in the end :)

I have heard real good things about ASRock though, I have an Extreme4 Gen3 & 2500k on the way, hopefully be here tomorrow :)
 
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So your certain the +2 difference is irrelevant to the CPU?

I thought it still had some impact but I'll look into it further.

This is good, learning new stuff. Although we have totally hijacked the OP's thread lol. At least he has something to think about.

Nice Futurama Avatar too "This Saturday will now be known as Fryyyday" Lol
 
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Yep irrelevant. The example 8+2+2 on a Z68 typically means 8 Phases to CPU, 2 Phases to RAM and 2 Phases to iGPU. Most good Z68's are, if equipped, 4 Phases to iGPU -- many Gigabyte Z68's have no iGPU i.e. not support Virtu.

It would be nice to cherry-pick but you need to play the odds and average vCore to GHz. Also, no (2) SB CPU's are alike either so OC instructions including vCore may work flawlessly on one and fail miserably on another.

Good Luck! :)
 
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