What chipset is best for socket LGA1155?

[CaptainJack]

Hi:

I'm in the process of building a new computer and have decided on a 2nd generation Intel i7 cpu. Probably the i7-2600k (though I'm open to recommendations). I have to have this together by the end of September so I can't wait for the next best thing.

I just need to pick out a motherboard now but I'm confused by all the different chipsets that support LGA1155. I was hoping someone could explain the differences to me and make some recommendations. I'm currently looking at Asus motherboards.

I do a lot of digital editing...some photos, some videos, rendering, modeling, and apply a lot of filters and so on and would like 3 channel memory to avoid a memory bottleneck.

I may install my own video card, I may not, depending on how sufficient the onboard video is. Other than that I'll probably have two CD/DVD/Blue ray type drives, three our four hard drives, a PCI video toaster card installed, and I need about 6-7 USB ports and firewire.

I also need a good cooling systems as the work I do is power intensive.

 

[henydiah]

find in here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/p67-motherboard-roundup-lga-1155-sandy-bridge,2837.html
maybe Asus P8P67 / P8Z68

 

[wintermint]

I don't think Sandy Bridge supports triple channel.. You should get at least 16gb RAM, you will definitely benefit from more RAM :]

 

[danraies]

Sandy bridge definitely doesn't support triple channel.

The popular chipsets are P67 and Z68. The biggest differences are that Z68 supports onboard video which you seem interested in, and Z68 supports SSD caching. SSD caching is a way to speed up a standard HDD by using a spare SSD for cache; most people don't have a "spare" SSD, though. If you don't want either of those two things P67 will be fine. 1155 boards sometimes come with H61/H67 chipsets but this is not a good choice for the 2600K.

If you get Z68 for the onboard video, be careful because a few Z68 motherboards don't actually have onboard video. Usually the description will say something like "VGA Card Required" if this is the case, but just check the port cluster - if there are hdmi/vga/dvi ports in the cluster then it will have onboard video and if it doesn't have them then it won't.

 

[RetiredChief]

Z68 can also improve video encoding compared to P67. BUT requires a dedicated GPU (encoding is then offloaded to the internal IGP) and requires that the MB have a Output for the IGP (as danraies indicated some Z68 MB do not). also requires software that can utilize this feature.

6 Sata drives - Look closely at MB specs. Example the ASrock extreme does provide 6 SATA connections - INTEL Controller, 2 SATA II and Two Sata III Plus two SATA III using a marvel controller. In this case you could could put the two CD/DVD drives on the sata II ports, a SSD and a HDD on the Intel SATA III and two HDDs on the marvel sata III. Some of the Higher end MBs might be better, but as I mentioned pay atention to the details.

Notice I included an SSD, this is best on the Intel SATA III controller. On HDDs there is very little benifit using SATA III as the ONLY performance that is improved is the Burst speed. You could possibly use the two Sata III HDD on the Marvel controller in a Raid0 configuation to speed up sequencial read/writes as working with large files would benifit.