Gabriel said:
Hi all, my friend is going to build a gaming pc and he and myself need some
good recommendations for the motherboard his money limit is about AU $500 to
$600 for the motherboard or more if its very good he would like this beast
to last for a long time what we need help on a great motherboard is:
Motherboard needs:
fast DDR3 ram with upto 32GB capable
RAM limit is defined by the processor. The memory controller
is in the processor. This one, for example, is 32GB max. A
previous generation, similar in other respects, is limited to 16GB.
http://ark.intel.com/products/65523/Intel-Core-i7-3770K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz
plenty of Sata ports he will have many 1TB hdd's but he wants to use a raid
card that he already has
Southbridges generally have six ports max.
The RAID card will likely be a problem, unless it's PCI Express.
And even if it is PCI Express, take note of the lane count it needs.
For example, that might be a reason to move to LGA2011, to
get plenty of PCI Express bandwidth for add-in
plenty of USB ver3 and some ver2
The best Southbridge has four USB3 native, and add-on chips can give more ports
of the USB3 variety. The Southbridge itself has 10 or more USB2 ports, so
that is likely plenty for anyone.
something to take the latest CPU I think intell i7 with 6 cores or more and
hyperthredding
Start with the Intel pricelist.
http://www.intc.com/priceList.cfm
Next stop, would be to find some Cinebench results, to compare the benchmark
of a six core processor, against a four core processor. (Cinebench is a "perfect
scaling" benchmark, and if a six core processor isn't 50% faster than
a four core processor, you know the processor has an internal bottleneck.)
At one time, I used to "promote" the six core, for rich people. Now, I suggest
checking benchmarks instead, because at least for some activities, it may not
be that much faster. If you're rich, you probably don't care.
Using Passmark is better than nothing. Ratio of 1.35 instead of 1.50x.
It means the $999 processor, is benching at roughly "5.4 cores". For
about 3x the price.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net
Intel Core i7-3970X @ 3.50GHz (6 core, 12 thread) 12,967
Intel Core i7-3770K @ 3.50GHz (4 Cores, 8 Threads) 9,630
For $4600, you can get a server processor with 10 cores.
on board sound and or sugestions for a sound card, he would like if possable
to connect his pc to his home amp
Looking at the Newegg list, it's a mess. The problem is, some motherboards
no longer have PCI slots (thank Intel for removing PCI interface from
the Southbridge). It leaves a pile of expensive PCI Express cards
instead.
For the height of foolishness, you could combine one of these...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102003
with an adapter... (note - cheaper price for this adapter on Amazon)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158165&Tpk=PEX1PCI1
That's for low-profile PCI cards only. The PCI card should ship with
a low-profile faceplate, for that thing to work right. The Creative
card shows a high profile faceplate, so we've got a problem there.
(A "bending and sawing" type problem
)
one gigabit ethernet port or two if the mobo has it this way
3 or 4 PCIE 16x 3D card bus's for SLI or cross fire he would like to put
upto 4 graphic cards but at first 2 in, then when he can another two
something with a fast front side bus
So that guarantees LGA2011 platform right there. And likely,
a PCI Express sound card, as you might not find a PCI slot
on a high end motherboard.
A motherboard he likes the look of is a Gigabyte Z77X-UP7
Um, no.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128569&Tpk=Z77X-UP7
That's an LGA1155 motherboard, with a total of x16 lanes on the processor
for video cards. That bandwidth has to be split (somehow) over the multiple
video card slots. The slots will be starved, if you actually filled the
motherboard with video cards.
It's too bad there wasn't some educational material, that would make
these things easier to communicate. I really hate the quality of
some of the Intel block diagrams. So... dishonest...
For Gigabyte boards, download the manual and look at the block diagram. (Page 8)
http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-z77x-up7_e.pdf
I can't really say I understand that block diagram fully. (I needed the Xbitlabs
article to verify what I was reading.) In any case,
that's carrying sharing a bit too far. LGA2011 has more actual lanes
to start with, so when they do an LGA2011 with a ton of video slots,
you've got more bandwidth to work with. Still, I've seen at least one
stupid LGA2011 implementation, forcing us to *always* analyze the
bandwidth. I know why they did what they did, but it was still stupid.
According to this, the large black slot only works, when it's populated
by itself. (It's clever, but only in a limited way.) (I also used the Newegg
photo of the motherboard, and counted bifurcation chips to confirm the Xbitlabs
story.) Once you start populating the large orange slots, all of that goes
through the PEX8748. Then, your x16 splits up to four ways, giving x4 to each
video card (of your four card setup). At 985MB per PCI Express Rev.3 lane,
that is close to 4GB/sec per slot. And, that's assuming the memory subsystem
on LGA1155, can actually, practically, support 16GB/sec transfers.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/gigabyte-ga-z77x-up7_2.html
CPU --- x16 ---mux ---- PEX8748 --- four orange slots, split x16 in flexible ways
| no more than x16 real, total bandwidth is
x16 black available. No matter how many "fake" lane
(only by itself) counts they draw in the diagram.
(cannot share)
That motherboard is $400 USD! And it's 12" x 10.39", or larger than ATX
at 12" x 9.6". For $400, you could get an LGA2011 motherboard instead.
(But likely with less accessories in the box.)
I need help for a great cpu and heatsink and fan aswell to go with the mobo
something very fast, im sorry fans only for this build as he only wants
standard clock for cpu, graphics and ram so he wont overclock anything but
if its safe and worth it later in time he might
other things help needed is:
Fast DDR3 ram for gaming 32GB Kingston?
When you move to LGA2011, the processor has quad channel memory.
The main benefit of this, is the motherboard supports eight DIMMs,
and as you can see here, up to 64GB total is supported. You don't
have to get 3970X, there are lower end processors with better
pricing (3930K or 3820).
http://ark.intel.com/products/70845...Extreme-Edition-15M-Cache-3_50-GHz?q=i7-3970X
If you want 32GB total, I'd fill every second slot with an 8GB DIMM.
Look for memory on Newegg, and sort by reputation. That way,
if a product has a lot of DOAs, you might spot the trend.
a good SSD HDD about the 128GB to 256GB for the OS win 8
3D cards for SLI or cross fire about 2 gig he will run about 2 screens for
this pc
He has a pc case and power supply I dont have the info on them with me I
will post asap
If he's planning on all those video cards, that power supply had
better be a "boat anchor".
I think thats everything if you have something I might of missed please let
me know. Thank you, GK.
I haven't really shopped for you, but laid out some planning at least.
If he'd tame his requirement to just two video cards, and used a more
ordinary and cheaper LGA1155 motherboard, I might be all in favor of
the LGA1155 choice. But if the "dream" is to have bandwidth galore for some
kind of "video card snackfest", then start with a richer platform (LGA2011).
If the LGA2011 price is too high, change the requirements
To a
more timid gamer platform.
If the plan was only two cards in SLI or Crossfire, then an LGA1155
motherboard at a more reasonable price (say, $150), with two video
card slots, might suffice. Think of the savings...
Paul
