[Castiel]

Originally Posted by trueplaya4ever8

*ponders*

What boards will do at least 8x/8x SLI/Xfire on the cheap? Not looking to drop an arm and a leg for a motherboard.

Believe the UD4 does and is under 200 bucks

[batboy]

Originally Posted by trueplaya4ever8

*ponders*

What boards will do at least 8x/8x SLI/Xfire on the cheap? Not looking to drop an arm and a leg for a motherboard.

The ASRock P67 Extreme4 might fit your needs, it's only $159 at Newegg. Since other ASRock boards sometimes limit CPU voltage, I downloaded the manual and saw the max you can raise voltage is 0.500, which for most people is more than enough to get 4.6-4.8 gig out of the Sandy Bridge. But, for the extreme overclockers with better cooling solutions, this might not be enough voltage to make you happy.

[Castiel]

Originally Posted by batboy

The ASRock P67 Extreme4 might fit your needs, it's only $159 at Newegg. Since other ASRock boards sometimes limit CPU voltage, I downloaded the manual and saw the max you can raise voltage is 0.500, which for most people is more than enough to get 4.6-4.8 gig out of the Sandy Bridge. But, for the extreme overclockers with better cooling solutions, this might not be enough voltage to make you happy.

How do you know the price? It's not listed.

[Prime]

Originally Posted by David

The socket has lost a pin: now 1155 instead of 1156 IIRC.

Wow, one pin and its all obsolete. haha

[DaveHCYJ]

One thing I haven't seen any of the reviews I've read so far mention is the fact that the K series chips drop the VT-d feature. Source: http://www.overclockers.com/wp-conte...ith-prices.jpg

This probably won't matter to most people, but it will be a problem for others. I'm still kind of scratching my head wondering why they would drop that feature. I'm pretty sure every single current i7 has it and most of the higher end Core2's had it.

I'm really disapointed that I'll probably settle on a non K series part and have no overclocking options; that really hurts the price/performance potential of Sandybridge for me.

[Brolloks]

Originally Posted by Castiel

How do you know the price? It's not listed.

http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Produc...k=asrock%20p67

[fundip]

x58 still seems like a better performer

[Castiel]

Originally Posted by Brolloks

http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Produc...k=asrock%20p67

Sneaky Sneaky Newegg

Originally Posted by fundip

x58 still seems like a better performer

How do you figure?

[DaveHCYJ]

Originally Posted by fundip

x58 still seems like a better performer

From all the reviews the only thing x58 still wins at are things that can make full use of 6 cores/12 threads.

[hokiealumnus]

Originally Posted by fundip

x58 still seems like a better performer

Aye, please do tell how you came to that conclusion? Clock-for-clock in every bench in my review (minus PoV Ray & 7zip), X58 lost to Sandy Bridge. Just as one example, the Pifast result I got at 5GHz was a mere .01s slower than a 980X at 6GHz on the bot, and mine was with a completely un-tweaked, 24/7 use copy of Windows 7 x64.

If you commonly use applications that require 12 threads of computing power, the X58 platform with an Intel hex-core is the way to go. Likewise, if you find yourself dissatisfied with results under ~6GHz, or you simply find it boring to overclock with a multiplier and not much else, X58 may be better. For all other purposes, it seems Sandy Bridge is the way to go.

[Castiel]

Originally Posted by hokiealumnus

Aye, please do tell how you came to that conclusion? Clock-for-clock in every bench in my review (minus PoV Ray & 7zip), X58 lost to Sandy Bridge. Just as one example, the Pifast result I got at 5GHz was a mere .01s slower than a 980X at 6GHz on the bot, and mine was with a completely un-tweaked, 24/7 use copy of Windows 7 x64.

If you commonly use applications that require 12 threads of computing power, the X58 platform with an Intel hex-core is the way to go. Likewise, if you find yourself dissatisfied with results under ~6GHz, or you simply find it boring to overclock with a multiplier and not much else, X58 may be better. For all other purposes, it seems Sandy Bridge is the way to go.

I'd love to see some of your 5Ghz results

[hokiealumnus]

Originally Posted by Castiel

I'd love to see some of your 5Ghz results

They're right there in the review under "Pushing the Envelope".

[deathman20]

Did you run any gaming benchmarks on it?

Curious what the difference between some of the CPU's would be with and without the HT enabled since in my past experiences HT had a huge effect in gaming numbers.

[hokiealumnus]

Just the 3DMarks. Once I have an opportunity I'll run a couple.

[batboy]

From the reviews I've seen, Sandy Bridge kicks butt in gaming benchmarks. Even the i5 2500K version is excellent and does almost as well as bigger brother i7 2600K. The real difference is the i7 verson has HT enabled for a total of 8 threads, where as the i5 don't.

Here are my thoughts. If you already have a 1366 socket i7 like the 920, you certainly have a good system and don't really need to upgrade (although for most things it still is an upgrade). The high end hex core CPUs are the only thing really giving Sandy Bridge a run for the money, but at a much higher cost. For those like me that are stuck in the past and are still running a 775 socket, well the Sandy Bridge looks pretty awesome and would definitely be a worthy upgrade.

[deathman20]

Originally Posted by hokiealumnus

Just the 3DMarks. Once I have an opportunity I'll run a couple.

That would be sweet

Originally Posted by batboy

From the reviews I've seen, Sandy Bridge kicks butt in gaming benchmarks. Even the i5 2500K version is excellent and does almost as well as bigger brother i7 2600K. The real difference is the i7 verson has HT enabled for a total of 8 threads, where as the i5 don't.

Here are my thoughts. If you already have a 1366 socket i7 like the 920, you certainly have a good system and don't really need to upgrade (although for most things it still is an upgrade). The high end hex core CPUs are the only thing really giving Sandy Bridge a run for the money, but at a much higher cost. For those like me that are stuck in the past and are still running a 775 socket, well the Sandy Bridge looks pretty awesome and would definitely be a worthy upgrade.

Oh I know I have a sweet system, and can OC much further, just curious if its gotten better with the newer CPU's and HT. Would be nice if the OS actually had a little better brain and used the actual cores more than the HT ones if they where free.

[nightelph]

Sweet review, Hokie! I've been holding out for Sandy bridge and I'm not disappointed. This will be a stellar upgrade from my 4GHz s775 system.

[mikevs]

Bit disappointed in Intel for not releasing a six and eight core version. Hopefully it will be later this year before q4 of 2011 or I might have to go with AMD for an 32nm eight core solution.

[Castiel]

Originally Posted by mikevs

Bit disappointed in Intel for not releasing a six and eight core version. Hopefully it will be later this year before q4 of 2011 or I might have to go with AMD for an 32nm eight core solution.

Why? What do you need 6 and 8 cores for?

[Dooms101]

Cool write-up, I don't think that Intel board does the chip justice (I've seen reviews with the ASUS Maximus IV getting similar results though). Damn impressive to see a new CPU architecture oc that much over stock. It seems like this new way of ocing really takes the fun out of it. I am sticking with AMD for now, hopefully AM3+ will still have all the fun =)