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Corellon

Registered
Joined
Aug 2, 2006
Ok here's the dilemma,

I'm gathering the parts to get a I7 build off the ground finally but finding the right motherboard is driving me nuts, I can't find one with the configuration that I want.

What I need is:

2 - 16x PCI-E slots running at 16x (Going to go 5970 CF or GF100 SLI eventually)
1 - PCI Slot, Legacy for possible soundcard (since not many are PCI-E yet)
1 - 4x PCI-E Slot (Running 4x) For future expansion of USB3.0, SATA 6 or other controller
Also highly desiered is a 1x PCI-E slot as well.

My problem is that most boards put the PCI slots under the 16x which makes them useless with a double cooler, or use a 3rd 16 slot which drops the 2nd to 8x. I need a board that will allow 16/16/4 if it has 3 PCI-E Slots.

These are going to go into a HAF 932 with a Seasonic X-750 Powersupply.

Haven't decided on RAM yet as still looking @ what's capable of running 1600mhz in a 6 slot configuration (Going to start at 6GB now, but want to run at least 12 in the future). I've been told that to run 1600 in a 6 slot configuration needs 1800Mhz memory, any truth to that? or certain types that will run with all 6 populated?

Finally going to run water cooling this time around, just a simple loop for now of the CPU and the NB if the board supports it or isn't to much of a hassle to replace the HS on. GPU will come later after I'm a bit more comfortable with things and get my replacement video card down the line (Just a 4870 x2 at the moment)
 
I tried checking at NewEgg, but I can't find one that meets your criteria.

What if you were to get a board that already has some USB3 and SATA3 ports? Do you not like the way they are implemented at the moment?
 
That's the problem, Even of those with USB 3.0 (I don't much worry about the SATA 6 since I can't afford any of the SSD's that will saturate SATA 3) finding one that has both a PCI and PCI-E 1x slot accessable is hard, even if I decide on a soundcard beforehand so many of the boards put the PCI-1x slots beside the cooler leaving no room for a longer soundcard.... and at the same time put the PCI slots beside 16x....

So far of the ones I found are

Asus P6TD Deluxe - Would need a PCI soundcard, but have had alot of problems with Asus lately, My P5DH has given me nothing but problems.

MSI Eclipse Plus - Expensive and hard to find due to the NF200 chipset as well

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UDX (5 or 7) - Don't know if PCIE 1x-2 (the 2nd from the top) will support a audio card because of it's proximity to the NB cooler

XFX has nothing but problems from what I hear, and to many of the EVGA boards just go for max PCIE 16x slots.
 
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