Another sandy build need advice

[rangerone766]

going to be retiring/selling off the old rig. and beginning anew with sandy. i just need help with mb selection.

microcenter has a pretty decent deal of $50 off a mb with purchase of a 2600k. so the board and cpu will be from microcenter and it will be a 2600k. but for boards i'm a bit stumped, i have a short list of three boards and i'm really liking the MSI.

boards are-
MSI Z68A-GD65 (G3)
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4

i need it to be ivy bridge capable, and the pcie 3.0 sli/xfire is fairly irrelevant to me. but i would like at least 1 of the pcie slots to be 3.0

i've had ASUS in the past and liked it well enough, but i really like my giga p45 board. i know giga was king on the p45 series. but i'm unsure on the z68 series of boards.

i've never owned anything by MSI, but they do make good video cards. so, i think i would like to own an MSI board. and MSI has a 5 year warranty on the board.
by the way, microcenter sells an extended warranty for $29 for 2 years coverage. if the board dies, bring it in. if that board is out of stock, they issue a gift card for the original purchase price to be spent on anything in the store. i am pretty sure i will purchase that option, as it's a bit easier than RMA.

are there any compelling reasons to pick one board over the other? or are they all great boards and it just comes down to aesthetics?

 

[repsol23]

I just built a new rig a few days ago with a 2500k and the msi z68a g80 board. I had never used msi before but am quite happy with the board itself. I have already gotten an overclock of 4.8 ghz with 1.310 volts. I have yet to really mess with any settings other than voltage as there was no need to but I am sure with time I will!! From what I have read all the boards you listed are good but just wanted to put in my $.02.

 

[qubit]

Check out my Sandy upgrade thread. I bought that Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 mobo and it's fabulous. I wouldn't go Gigabyte yet, because they don't have UEFI for anything other than SB-E. It's a shame that, because my S775-based PC has a Gigabyte mobo and it's been superb.

 

[entropy13]

I would recommend you get the MSI.

 

[repsol23]

I also switched from an old gigabyte setup. I had an e8600 @ 4.3 and a gigabyte x48t (ddr3 version). I loved that setup but just was itching to try out the 2500k. We got a bonus at my job for xmas and I used that as a excuse to upgrade! Will more than likely be putting that up for sale so I can upgrade my video card next!!

 

[rangerone766]

i just read some reviews and the msi boards are looking good. i still have a few days till i buy it to decide.

going to need to get a new water block aswell. i have a pretty high end water setup, so i should be able to push some volts. i'm hoping for 5ghz 24/7

 

[repsol23]

I can't say my water setup is quite high end. I have been using the same old swiftech 3.120 rads for about 3 years now as well as the swiftech pump, but I did find a used heat killer block for 40 shipped. The guy even overnighted the block so that I could have it on Dec. 24!! The one good thing I can say about my setup is that I actually chill my entire loop with an old window unit that I recycled. I have it in the crawlspace of our home so I can't hear it running. I tend to have water temps from -5c to 10c depending on our local dew point. I ran occt linpack last night for 2 hours and my cpu ranged in temp from 30 - 36c across the cores. During my skyrim session last night I never got above 15c and when idling I was between 2-7c on all my cores. I have yet to try to hit 5ghz because I don't want to have to pump in too many volts and possibly degrade my 2500k!

 

[entropy13]

The only boards from ASUS that I would put ahead the GD65 and GD80 are the RoG boards.

 

[rangerone766]

I can't say my water setup is quite high end. I have been using the same old swiftech 3.120 rads for about 3 years now as well as the swiftech pump, but I did find a used heat killer block for 40 shipped. The guy even overnighted the block so that I could have it on Dec. 24!! The one good thing I can say about my setup is that I actually chill my entire loop with an old window unit that I recycled. I have it in the crawlspace of our home so I can't hear it running. I tend to have water temps from -5c to 10c depending on our local dew point. I ran occt linpack last night for 2 hours and my cpu ranged in temp from 30 - 36c across the cores. During my skyrim session last night I never got above 15c and when idling I was between 2-7c on all my cores. I have yet to try to hit 5ghz because I don't want to have to pump in too many volts and possibly degrade my 2500k!

we are fairly equal on setups except the a/c part lol. my q9550 @4.2ghz takes 1.472volts to be stable. which is higher than what most people say is the degrade point. it's been running like that for 2 years with only periodic reboots for updates.

i have a pa120.3 and a swiftech d5 pump, and if that is not enough i have a second loop with another d5 and swiftech 120.2 that i run the vid card on, i could always add in the second pump and rad. then just run a single loop for cpu/vid card.

 

[rangerone766]

The only boards from ASUS that I would put ahead the GD65 and GD80 are the RoG boards.

the GD65 has less power phases than the P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3. but they may be a bit higher quality in the MSI.

i saw a few review sites pulling 5-5.2 benchies in the reviews. and in my experience, i can usually get a bit more than the review sites.

its late so i'm going to crash out for the night. but feel free to add in everyones thoughts on the boards listed. i will check back in the morning.

 

[repsol23]

I have really beat up my old pump. It came in an old corsair kit that had a rad, pump, and tubing that I bought off craigslist years ago. The only thing I did was put an aftermarket top on the pump. I have been using it with 2x 3.120 rads (in cooler box under home),1x 120 rad attached to my case (helps me regulate my temps to stay above dew point), a cpu block, and koolance 5870 block. I also use about 10 - 11 feet of tubing (at least) and the distance from top of the loop to bottom is about 6 - 7 feet! The pump is running at 12 volts and has been a champ for me!! At some point I plan on getting a two pump setup but I have been quite pleased with what I have to now.

 

[repsol23]

So I tried to push my chip to 5 ghz today and ran into a strange issue with the msi z68a board. It seems that the board doesnt like anything above a x48 multiplier. I can boot into windows and aida64 shows the x50 multiplier but as soon as I put a load it drops down to x48. I have searched the net and not really found a solution to this but it definitely seems to be occurring with the msi motherboards. Just wanted to give you a heads up on this since you stated you were hoping for 5 ghz!

 

[rangerone766]

So I tried to push my chip to 5 ghz today and ran into a strange issue with the msi z68a board. It seems that the board doesnt like anything above a x48 multiplier. I can boot into windows and aida64 shows the x50 multiplier but as soon as I put a load it drops down to x48. I have searched the net and not really found a solution to this but it definitely seems to be occurring with the msi motherboards. Just wanted to give you a heads up on this since you stated you were hoping for 5 ghz!

i've read about this issue on a few forums, seems to be a BIOS issue. have you updated to the newest release? i believe the newest BIOS fixes this.

microcenter has a generous return policy, so i'm going to try my luck with the msi board. if i dont like it i can return it. i'm not real happy with the ram selection MC carries, so that will be ordered online. aswell as a new water block.

it will be a few weeks until i get everything in order and built, but i will post updates on the build.

 

[repsol23]

According to my bios, I should be running the latest beta bios. I have also read that an earlier bios version should fix it.

 

[rangerone766]

According to my bios, I should be running the latest beta bios. I have also read that an earlier bios version should fix it.

i have no solution to that at the moment.

but what i do have, is a shiny new msi z68-gd65 board and 2600k. just got home from microcenter with it. i still need to order some ram. just not sure on what ddr3 to get yet.

 

[repsol23]

I just got some fairly cheap corsair vengeance 8 gb kit from the egg. As for the board my bios is 18.5b1. I dont plan on flashing bios anytime soon since I am pretty content with 4.8 for now.

Good luck with the new build let me know how it goes!

 

[rangerone766]

picked up these mushkin rams off the egg last night- Mushkin Enhanced Redline 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR...
should get them in the mail in a few days. now all i need is a new water block.