X58 On A Budget: Seven Sub-$200 Core i7 Boards

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]liquidsnake718[/nom]I hope Gigabyte updates the Ud3r to 3 channels of RAM. If they do come out with a usb3.0 next year, even one slot, im buying it immediatly even at $300. By then everything some be Win7 standard and SP1 should be out along with 300GTX's and cheap SSDs. BD will be standard as well!!!! Cant wait[/citation]

UD3R already does 3-channel with 3-DIMMs. If you wanted to use 6-DIMMs...sorry.

 

[hendo]

Why doesn't TOMS ever review MBs from EVGA or XFX? Are they too far in bed with the other manufacturers?

 

[hendo]

I retract my question. Didn't look in the $300+ category. lol. sorry.

 

[Guest]

Is $200 based on the MSRP? The LanParty T3H6 is under $200 at newegg.. I've got one and it's not too bad, though the SATA ports don't play nice with tight HTPC cases..

 

[treefrog07]

Good review. Only comment regards the front panel audio: You, and it seems everybody else, doesn't want it on the lower left corner of the board. It is not likely to be moved to the right-mid or right-top.

I actually like it on the lower left because I can run the connector cable behind the motherboard tray, through the power cable slots under the mobo tray and straight to the pins - I get great cable mgmt, and don't have to lay the cable across the mobo or slide it between the PCI slots.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]treefrog07[/nom]Good review. Only comment regards the front panel audio: You, and it seems everybody else, doesn't want it on the lower left corner of the board. It is not likely to be moved to the right-mid or right-top. I actually like it on the lower left because I can run the connector cable behind the motherboard tray, through the power cable slots under the mobo tray and straight to the pins - I get great cable mgmt, and don't have to lay the cable across the mobo or slide it between the PCI slots.[/citation]

That's great for you, but nearly 1/2 of the cases I test don't have cables long enough to do that. At least 1/4 of them don't even have cables long enough to run over the top of the board to that location. Gigabyte has been putting the connector in front of the rear-panel audio jacks for quite a while, and though this does make it more visable, it also makes it easier to connect. There's really no excuse for doing things the less-functional way in order to make them look better.

 

[Mikey_81]

Just to update my last post, I screwed up on the second mobo and didn't have it hooked up right. Probably send a perfectly good mobo back to NewEgg. Anyway, the third mobo is working just fine since I got it.

Mikey