Need X99 Mainboard & GPU for new hardware

[Adrenolin]

Hello,

I spend a lot of time in my home office. Work, programming/compiling, video/photo editing, research, gaming, mini home theater, music thumping pretty much always, etc. I currently use a 7 year old watercooled Alienware Aurora i7-970 with Win7 Ultimate that's been running pretty much 24/7 since new and its dreadfully slow these days even after many upgrades. Most of the hardware is easy however I'm having an awful time selecting a main board for the new system. I need a quality, solid and dependable board since I use this for work as well as personal use and I'd like to get 5-6 years from it without having to upgrade or replace stuff in it.. Aside from perhaps the GPU later.

First - Mainboards: Must fit in the Corsair 540 case. Must fit the Intel X540T1 10GbE nic, Samsung 950 PRO M.2 & possibly 2nd GPU in the future. Don't care about overclocking that much or gobs of Sata or USB ports or onboard WiFi. I'd prefer better onboard audio then an add-on card.

I've been looking at the MSI X99A SLI PLUS board which gets good hardware site reviews, good user feedback on sites like Amazon, Newegg however online forums tend to crap on their QC and bad MSi support. I know.. more people bitch about things than praise them...

So looking for suggestions.. would the MSI board be a good choice? Any point in going with the slightly more expensive Gaming or Krait versions of the board?

Secondly - GPU: I currently have a fairly new EVGA GTX 970 4GB FTW+. I use 2 DisplayPorts for my 2 Dell screens and the 1 HDMI to the Denon - Klipsch - Samsung 55" SmartTV setup. This leaves 1 DisplayPort and 1 DVI-I available. Later this year I'll be moving the Samsung SmartTV closer to my desk for gaming and adding a Ceiling projector for movies, TV, etc.

Looking for suggestions... If I find a decent projector with a DisplayPort will the GTX 970 be good enough to run all 4 displays at once? Should I be looking at a second GPU to split things up OR should I go with a dual SLI GPU setup?

Many thanks for any comments and suggestions!

Currently owned new or newish hardware awaiting a mainboard:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-5930K.
  Cooling: Corsair Hydro H110i GTX 280mm.
  Power: EVGA SuperNOVA P2 850W.
  Network Adapter: Intel Converged X540T1 (10 GbE) directly to a Netgear XS708E 10G Switch.
  SSD: Samsung 950 PRO M.2 512GB & Samsung 850 EVO 1 TB SSD.
  Hard Drive: None as I have a rather robust 60TB NAS for most of my storage.
  Case: Corsair Air 540 Silver ATX Mid Tower.
  GPU: EVGA GTX 970 4GB FTW+.
  Displays: 2x Dell U2515H 60Hz 25" & 1 Samsung 55" SmartTV. (planned addition of a ceiling projector added later this year as well)
  Mouse: Logitech G502.
  Keyboard: Cheap Dell - Looking for something a bit better.
  UPS: APC SUA1500 UPS.
  Audio: Logitech Z906 500W 5.1ch Speakers as desktop audio. Additionally have a Denon AVR-​S910W 7.2-​Channel Receiver with a complete Klipsch 7.​2 Referenc​e II (big speakers) surround system in the room setup with the 55" Samsung for movies. Later I want to run an overhead projector for this setup and the Samsung simply as a 3rd display.

 

[NEmpire95]

Msi makes pretty good motherboards, I have had several in the past and never had any problems. Alot of the gaming motherboards are good for things like overclocking (and loads of usb's and sata/sata-e ports like you said) if you will be doing alot of that. I have a Rampage V Extreme and love it but it costs double what the msi board does for mostly looks and a few more features. Asus makes really good motherboards (possibly the best) and they have alot of different x99 mobo's like the x99 deluxe, pro, and x99-a boards.

As for the 970, It can run all of those monitors/ tvs just fine as long as you aren't planning on gaming on all of them at once. You could always look at upgrading to a 980 Ti (probably better to upgrade the card then do an sli config) but with pascal around the corner I would wait to see what it brings and stick with the 970 for now.

Hope this helps.

 

[Adrenolin]

Msi makes pretty good motherboards, I have had several in the past and never had any problems. Alot of the gaming motherboards are good for things like overclocking (and loads of usb's and sata/sata-e ports like you said) if you will be doing alot of that. I have a Rampage V Extreme and love it but it costs double what the msi board does for mostly looks and a few more features. Asus makes really good motherboards (possibly the best) and they have alot of different x99 mobo's like the x99 deluxe, pro, and x99-a boards.

As for the 970, It can run all of those monitors/ tvs just fine as long as you aren't planning on gaming on all of them at once. You could always look at upgrading to a 980 Ti (probably better to upgrade the card then do an sli config) but with pascal around the corner I would wait to see what it brings and stick with the 970 for now.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply. I looked at the Rampage V Extreme and the feature set just doesn't add up for me to justify the cost difference as I honestly don't care what the board looks like.. within reason. I keep coming back to the MSI X99A SLI PLUS board. Looking more at the differences between it and the Gaming and Krait I see no reason for them. I'll take the Realtek ALC892 over the ALC1150, have no use for the network port or the Dr. Debug LED or any of the other differences.

I was planning to keep using the GTX 970 with the 2 displays and TV for now. I have no issues with it. Was just wondering about when I add the projector later this year.. likely in the fall and I'm redoing the home office this summer with all new paint, floor, lighting, audio wiring and furniture etc. I don't follow hardware anymore and just googled the new NVIDIA Pascal GPUs. Guess I'll look into that in the fall.

I went and ordered the MSI X99A SLI PLUS along with Corsair Vengeance LPX 4x8GB and some Noctua NT-H1 Thermal Compound last night and should be here tomorrow of Monday. Ordered from Amazon as a Prime member and prices were surprisingly the same as the Egg for this stuff.

Now to clear up a work area for next weeks build!