What is the best 1156 socket motherboard?

[EastCoasthandle]

With so many 1156 socket motherboards out there I thought one would stand above the rest. However, that doesn't appear to be the case so far. With legends like:
-P4C800-E Deluxe
-IP35
-P5W DH Deluxe
-Maximus Formula
-etc
it was clear what to choose. However, now it's not so clear. Perhaps they all work just as good and this is a good thing. However, I can't seem to find one board being favored more so then another this time around. Below are a few note worthy motherboards:
ASUS Maximus III Formula
ASUS SABERTOOTH 55i LGA
EVGA P55 SLI 132-LF-E655-KR
GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2
MSI P55-GD80

There maybe others but this is the gist of it for now. Does anyone know which is the most affordable and reliable motheboard that's easy to use?

 

[cadaveca]

What about the upcoming boards too? The MSI "BIGBANG" boards may work better than most are expecting...or may tank...

Personally, I was looking at that ASUS "army" board...uh...Sabertooth? Will problably be the most "reliable", but I do not see many users with this board yet.

I mean really, that's a pretty broad question...reliable @ what? stock? overclocked cpu to 5ghz?

I think part of what's affecting the lack of difference between boards is the lack of a chipset on the board...that makes it more up to cpu when overclocking, as long as the board can provide clean, low-noise power, and decent current, there's very little to differentiate from maker to maker, other than colour scheeme and slot layout.

I've been expecting this though...I'm still waiting for VGAs to be put on motherboards, and cpus as the add-in card...and this is the direction we are heading, IMHO.

 

[1Kurgan1]

I was looking at LGA 1156 boards the other night, and it seems there are a lot of good options, but I'm still shocked when I seen $300+ motherboards... I mean really? It's a good thing many of the $150 boards seem to match the top end boards options.

 

[MRCL]

I got the EVGA P55 SLI, however it is not yet in operation. Based on reviews I went for this, but also because I wanted to get away from Asus for once. I believe PP has the EVGA P55 FTW if I'm not wrong.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

I guess reliable is a broad question. I take it that none of the i55 chipset motherboards are experiencing any note worthy issues. As for the Sabertooth I read they can be a little slow in the i/o area and doesn't come with a cmos clear button a some trouble overclocking compared to other i55 boards. source

 

[Athlon2K15]

the evga p55 e655 is a horrible board i had 3 of them and they all went to sh*t pretty quick

 

[sneekypeet]

Why all the full sized boards and a micro from GB?
I really like my P55 UD6 and I have the original with the "burnable sockets", all I can say is "they were doing it wrong". I have had no such issues. Paulie got the P55A (revised), may want to ask him on his experiences there.

I will say this, my GB is more responsive with an i7 860 over my original i5 750.

 

[cadaveca]

I guess reliable is a broad question. I take it that none of the i55 chipset motherboards are experiencing any note worthy issues. As for the Sabertooth I read they can be a little slow in the i/o area and doesn't come with a cmos clear button a some trouble overclocking compared to other i55 boards. source

Yeah, I saw that, but don't mind so much...I'm on AMD now, so obviously having the best possible isn't a priority for me.

But yeah, the board have so few issues as they are basically just dumb logic now...pci-e ports, mem ports, and drive controllers...you'd think these guys had figured out those things a long time ago...and it seems they have.

If it wasn't for 8x8 pci-e(or 16x4), I'd be running an 860 on Sabertooth, probably.

 

[sneekypeet]

8 X 8 is barely a loss. There is some but for anything other than a few % in benches, it makes little difference.

 

[lemode]

I have both an EVGA P55 FTW and ASUS Formula. I like them both but chose the EVGA FTW for my home PC and put the Formula in my work machine.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

I only listed those that were moderately priced. I must have missed that the Gigabyte is a micro board.

 

[SK-1]

8 X 8 is barely a loss. There is some but for anything other than a few % in benches, it makes little difference.

Got to admit, I was hesitant about the lack of lanes, but I'm hanging in with other 16x2 rigs.


BTW, nice rig sneeky lol

 

[cadaveca]

8 X 8 is barely a loss. There is some but for anything other than a few % in benches, it makes little difference.

My experience, running 2560x1600, and Crossfire, makes for avg 15% loss over 16x16 in actual gameplay. I don't know why, maybe inter-gpu communication passing 2560x1600 frames affects me, but I cannot do 8x8 and afford even a loss of 4-5 FPS @ that res. Any loss is too much on pci-e, but I can do without the extra cpu power.

But who knows, maybe the extra copu power would overcome that loss...

 

[Cold Storm]

To me, I'd grab the Gigabyte UD6A , EVGA FTW, or the ASUS P7P55D-E Pro board.

I have the EVGA FTW board, and my god I've never had a sweeter set up. Even with my Qx9650. You get Intel ssd, with EVGA, set it up. I can't get done in the bathroom fast enough to even get back before it's finished restarting.

I've thought about getting the ASUS P7P55D-E Pro to play around since people say that the board can do all it's ocing via "auto". Yeah, it's never as good, but You know that feeling in which you want to "try it... lol

 

[thebluebumblebee]

ANY 1366 board? Seriously, did you even consider s478 when s775 came out? Why put an artificial limit on your upgrade path?

 

[sneekypeet]

ANY 1366 board? Seriously, did you even consider s478 when s775 came out? Why put an artificial limit on your upgrade path?

I get the point you are trying to make, but why pee in his corn flakes?

I personally took the OP as more of an inquisitive question to gain info on their performance and possibly some screenies to help him make that choice.

@ cadaveca, I hadn't thought of the fact that at higher resolutions you would see considerably more drop in performance, I was basing my comment more toward my specs, sorry for the generalization

 

[cadaveca]

That's just my assumption, sneekypeet. I mean, it makes sense, at least to me, but what makes sense to me may be far from the truth...I'm unsure of what is causing the performance loss exactly, but I know this is generally what's different for my builds.

As well, I only tested this on ASUS P45 boards. Having the pci-e controller reside in the cpu may affect this differently, I am unsure, but that's not something I'm willing to spend money on to find out. I'm sure it would be fine for most users, but even then, with me going eyefinity very shortly, I need every frame I can get.

Also, add in the fact that 3870x2 was hardware limited due to PCI-E 1.1 PLX chip @ 48 lanes(as admitted by AMD), and theoretically, the overall bandwidth would be the same @ 8x8 2.0 as 16x16 1.0, I do beleive the number of links may make a bit of a difference as well. I mean, for 3870x2 to be limited by the equivalent of 8x8 2.0 has me feeling this way, says something, but only for Crossfire. I think 8x 2.0 link for a single card would be fine.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

sorry Eastcoasthandle

 

[sneekypeet]

I didnt mean you had to applogize, just give the thread a chance Give us a chance to flaunt first

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Thanks for the input guys!