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i5 board w/ SATA3

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Zuriel

Registered
Joined
Oct 15, 2010
So simply put I have $500 coming to me and its basically free money I did very little to earn it. I want to upgrade my current system and give my old setup to a long time friend who lost his PC when he got robbed.

*edit*
Note that everything not listed I all ready have psu/hdd etc. I just have a DDR2 setup so board upgrade = all new components :p

Currently I am looking at this.
Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231180

i5 750
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115215

Cooling
Spire TherMax Eclipse II

The question is what is a good motherboard for SATA 3? When the SF-2000 / G3 comes out I plan to buy my first SSD then. Currently this peaks my attention here.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131620

or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128425

My question is if I need to add a x4 card can I with the black PCI x16 slot? If so will it limit the GPU from x16 to x8 or x4 slowing performance? My next GPU will be a 460 or a 6850.


I have never needed to SLI and from what I hear its better just to get the best single GPU you can. Currently I run a GTX 260 192 core and it still maxes my games @ 1680x1050 22'' monitor.
1 question I did have on SLI/Crossfire. It says x16 in single and x8 x8 when using two cards, does 8x8 effect performance vs say a x16 x16 board? Also is the current SATA3 boards actually able to hit 500mb or is it like "dx11" cards that are really not powerful enough to play DX11 like the first generation was? If it is I would need a x4 slot for a adapter to get over the limits of the south bridge correct?

Thank you very much :)
 
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I think the SATA 3 is a good choice especialy when considering a new sandforce SSD in march. (although I would try to find a cheap used one for the next 4 months to tide you over).

Native SATA 3 or USB 3.0 isn't available on any chipsets yet (Including the new P67) I haven't heard anything about X68 or a ICH11R coming out this year. Everything connects to the chipset using PCI-e lanes...whethere it's the PCI-e slots, the marvel controller, or the ICH10R controller.

I wouldn't worry about getting an odd on card for the SSD's unless you want to try and run 4+ SSD's in RAID 0, in which case I'd recommend a X58 board since it has more pci-e lanes. If you do run a 4x card in one of the other slots I'm not sure if your main slot will drop to 8x and 8x or if it will stay 16x and 4x (But I think it's 8 and 8....so your 4x card would be wasting 4 pci-e lanes).

I've seen a few reviews comparing SLI and crossfire with P55 boards (8x and 8x) vs X58 (both full 16x) and it was almost negligable (however that was a year ago, newer cards will use more bandwidth and possibly exploit the limitations of 8x).

I'm fairly certain SATA 3 will be extremely important when sandforce drives are released. the Interface should handle 600MB/s, and SSD's will start nipping at that limit soon (if not already).

To sum up what board to get, any board with SATA 3 (which will likely have USB 3.0 as well) and one that's not expensive. Save the cash for a boot SSD!

I recommend using onboard SATA 3 and not getting a controller or anything crazy unless you're prepared to start shelling out $ and if you do that you should move to a X58.
 
Yeah I plan to see what BF gives. I wont go over $1 a GB for the current SSD as Intel is releasing the G3 Feb. Which unless rumors are wrong should provide a fast SSD at a affordable price tag. If its true 25nm is 50% more cost effective to make then in theory it a 160GB should cost $230 or so. The next gen of the G3 might be true SATA3 drives as well.

My biggest issue is it seems that ALL boards seem to provide sata 3 based off the PCIe bandwidth. So if I have a x16 GPU slot and enable it will turn it into a x8. I know its minor but its still a drawback and 5% loss of performance.
 
Roger that and I appreciate your help. This is a rather confusing issue as most "offical" forums give me a smoke screen to avoid pointing out the obvious flaw.
 
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