Which MB? Is my PSU still okay?

adamsad1

Distinguished
Jun 5, 2011
3
0
18,510
'ello,

I'm upgrading my PC. I have an E8400 CPU, which no longer cuts it. Games like BF2 are bottlenecked so bad they are almost unplayable, and even GW2 doesn't run well. I plan on going with an i5-3750k. I currently have an HD 6970, and may add a second (I won't be running quad, however). I have two drives (a 250 GB SSD and 500 GB HDD), with plans on adding a second 500 GB HDD for Raid 1. I also have a Soundblaster Xtremegamer that I want to keep.

I don't plan on spending the money on water cooling, so my overclocking will be limited, however I plan on doing some.

My PSU is an Antec Truepower 850W. Will I have any problems with that PSU on current motherboards?

I value reliability, some future proofing, and a good price-to-performance ratio. Any recommendations? I've been looking at the ASUS P8Z77-V line, between the LK ($130) and PRO ($207) levels, or the Intel BODD77GA70K ($220), but I don't really understand the difference (aside from the number of 6 gb/s SATAs).
 

deadlockedworld

Distinguished
I'll second the PSU confirmation.

I'm not a motherboard expert, but I have an older ASUS P8*** motherboard bought in 2011 and have been pretty happy with it. The UEFI bios is fantastic, the auto overclocking stuff works pretty well, and so do the fan controllers. Bios updates are easy and dont crash the machine. However, the the iOS/Android bluetooth remote is crap and doesnt work.
 
when you buy mobos, you buy them depending on what you need on the mobos. as an odd rule of thumb price wise works like this, but check the mobo specifically for exact details:

for z77 mobos:

90-120~ basic z77 mobo, 6 phase overclocking 1 16x pci-e and 1 4x(with exception to matx msi g45m) so crossfire possible but 2nd card will be 4x(note this is NOT applicable with sli)

130-160 standard mobo, sli and crossfire certified in general, 8 phase overclocking. the general cost to performance ratio stop for overclockers and multi card setups. more sata 6gb's(for ssds)

170-220(?) some will start to have built in wifi, more pci-e slots more ports essentially. better built in sound

230+ essentially everything above, with more stuff.
 

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