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Need advice for i5 mobo...

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Aynjell

Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2008
I'll be buying an i5 rig next month. I need to find a decent mobo but I'm having a really hard time of it... seems like the perfect board never exists...

I want a pci-e 1x slot at the top for my sound card so the shield is between it and the only video card it'll be near, sli support so I can pick up another 260 when I get around to it, preferably blue or black dominant colors, and good overclocking ability. This has led me to only one board:

This combo here contains my chip and board I'm considering.

Worth noting, I'll have 8Gb of ballistix tracers. That memory is uber expensive, but I got a tri-channel kit sitting around begging to be used, and this Core i5 may just be the path I should take to use it. I can get the 4th matching stick for only 50$ through antarespro... and I'll have to order it there since it's not stocked anywhere else anymore unfortunately.

Combo for 350$, plus another 50$ for my 4th stick of ram and I'll have a pretty slick system for only 400$.

I can't complain about this except I read it got pretty low OC results. Granted for the money it ain't bad... but still.

Can anybody recomend a good alternative that's primarily blue and provides me with a slot up top for my sound card that ISNT blocked by a chipset cooler like all too many of the retarded designs out there?

Also, one other question, is 1156 compatible with heatsinks for i7 or lga 775? I can't find the answer on this. I have mounting kits for both for my GTZ.

I could wc sooner if I get this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188056

I'm concerned the chipset cooler will get in the way though. Can anybody confirm if I could get an X-Fi Titanium into that slot?
 
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what is wrong with
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188054
and you can pick up a i7 860 for $229 at microcenter.

If you'd read my original post, you'd know. :)

And unless that i7 860 is order-able online, you've done nothing but raised my hopes and then dash them.


The point of moving to i5 or i7 at that is to gain SLI for me, and 2 more cores. It's not worth it for the 2 cores alone, I can buy another chip for my current rig and save myself the cost of a mobo.

Thanks though, Evilsizer.
 
That's 1 site saying it's supported, newegg and this reviewer say it doesn't:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/804

umm that is linked directly to the product from the manufacturer. if you can't go by their pics and you choose to trust a review site. from the looks of it, is a P55 LE early board before it went into a final design stage on HWS. as even the pics on newegg show LGA775 mounts holes...

just me but i think your nit picking a bit to much.
 
umm that is linked directly to the product from the manufacturer. if you can't go by their pics and you choose to trust a review site. from the looks of it, is a P55 LE early board before it went into a final design stage on HWS. as even the pics on newegg show LGA775 mounts holes...

just me but i think your nit picking a bit to much.

No, I'm not nitpicking, you're not reading.

We're talking about SLI here. Seriously, if you don't read, don't write.
 
I don't see an SLI bracket pictured here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188054&cm_re=P55_LE-_-13-188-054-_-Product

And I don't see that evga shows one either. if it DID support SLI, it doesn't appear to come with the bracket. I'm going to call the support line and ask.


Called tech, it doesn't support SLI, they've submitted a request to have this corrected on the website. It's only common sense that the LE, bottom of the barrel, lowest on the totem pole product wouldn't have extra features like SLI.


Thanks guys, for all the helpfulness. :)

Still got the P55 FTW as my main pick at the moment.
 
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Did not notice that the P55 LE does not support SLI, dissapointing indeed,:confused: for an EVGA board this is not accpetable IMO, the X58 LE supports SLI and CF
 
Did not notice that the P55 LE does not support SLI, disappointing indeed,:confused: for an EVGA board this is not acceptable IMO, the X58 LE supports SLI and CF


There's still the chance I'm wrong but even EVGA on the phone says it don't. Everything leads to that website being in error.


:bang head

Oh well, I've started to buy parts in preparation of the new build, I won't be WCing for a time because I'll be focusing on getting the "Lan Box" stabilized. My main case the ATCS 840 will probably get modded during it's downtime.
 
I bought the same board on Friday and in fact there is no SLI bridge in the box nor any mention of SLI or crossfire on the box printed features:(
 
I'm hoping that by the end of october when I intend to order prices are a bit down and we get some hold down plates that work with all i5 boards. I'll give it that long. Worst case scenario: I'll have an evga board that could work just fine.
 
Well, after considering all the factors, I think it's more cost effective to go i7. I already have i7 mounting brackets for my GTZ, it came with them. I can get free i7 mounting brackets for my noctua too, if I really care to. I can also go up to 12GB of RAM on the boards I could see myself going with. I'm going to look around and see, but with the right i7 boards, i7 only costs 70$ more, and I'm sure if I shopped around I could come up with a great bundle.
 
Okay so I came back to the evga P55 SLI board, it still seems to be sufficient, only problem is there simply isn't any reviews for the hardware that I can find via google.

I'll wait for reviews to come out, but as long as the p55 sli board doesn't have any problems hitting 200+ I'll probably get it. What's the deal with running at 21x? Can you force turbo mode on these chips?
 
21x is the stock multiplier of the i7 860.
Core i7 860 -> 21*133 for 2.8 GHz
Core i7 920 -> 20*133 for 2.66 GHz

Also, turbo mode on the 1156 i7 860 with 2 cores active is +533 MHz (+4x), With 1 active core its +667 MHz (+5x).

Edit: These are for the 860 only. The other models are slightly different:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i5,2410-4.html

I'm not sure about forcing turbo mode though, I think some BIOS's allow you to, but if you exceed a certain load, it defauls back to standard multiplier, at least that is my understanding of it.
 
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Wewt, this build just acme together a bit, I got ahold of crucial and they're letting me trade my memory for one with red leds, mine are blue, currently. Also I'm getting a free upgrade to DDR3-1600, timings are looser but meh. :)

Still thinking I'll go i5 with the eVGA board and 4 sticks of this ballistix. Should be one hell of a box. :D
 
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