New 1155 Crossfire Motherboard - Need help deciding..

[cowboydude99]

Hi all,
I am looking to crossfire my Sapphire 7970 3gb w/ Boost card... I'll need a new MB though.

I don't just want any cheap board. I have an MSI B75MA-E33 board and the LAN port already died (after like 2 months).

I'd like to get the Asus Sabertooth, but that is expensive, and not sure if I need something like that.

I don't plan to OC my CPU (i7 3770) and I probably won't OC my GPU(s). Dual 7970s should handle a lot right now!

This system is used for media center and gaming. What board would you recommend?

 

[cowboydude99]

Is the AsRock as good a brand as GigaByte or Asus? I've seen them around a while, but never bought one.

 

[cowboydude99]

Hi, here are some suggestions:

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-p8z77vleplus
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asrock-motherboard-z77extreme4

Thanks for the info. You seem like a good authority on this subject, so let me ask you this...

If two motherboards have the same specs, why are some so much more expensive? I get that they use different parts, but is there something in particular that would cause the one board to be 'better'?

 

[cowboydude99]

My cpu is a 3770, non-k... So I can't overclock anyway. The AsRock does seems to have a lot of features, but really all I need is 2 RAM slots, 2 GPU 16x/8x, 1x USB 3.0 and 1 Sata 6gbps port...
Everything else is just added bonus.

I know you can't manually OC a non-k CPU, but my current board (MSI) show my 3770 at like 3.8GHz... I'm guessing it uses some type of OC for standard CPU.

 

[cowboydude99]

Thanks- I think I'll go w/ the AsRock. Tom's Hardware approved!