X79 MoBo selection help :o

Alright I'm trying to decide which X79 motherboard to purchase. Basiclly this is my requirements.

MUST be ATX form factor (case is purchased already otherwise I think I would have gone with EVGA classified XL-ATX board)

1. RAM this is numero uno would like 64gb MAX (4x8gb largest I'll purchase (2 sets) anything larger price point is ridiculous)

2. QUAD SLI would be nice but TRI SLI is a MUST

3. USA tech/repair support (this is just if the board is busted when purchased seems all companies have issues with Quality Control)

4. Product Support ( I see ASUS and Asrock have released 03/?/2012 bios updates but Gigabyte has not haven't checked MSI yet)

Company haters please stay away we all have our good/bad luck with companies (I myself can't stand WD over Seagate but thats really just cause any WD device I get seems to die on me 4x faster then a Seagate device I've purchased or had prior to getting said WD device, thou I do have a WD black in laptop and it's not bad so far)

thanks

One thing I can warn you about that I wasn't aware of: When you buy the RAM, make SURE that you buy a set of 8x8Gb, rather than 2 4x8Gb sets. I have gone been pulling my hair out over the last month troubleshooting BSODs and crashes on my X79 board until I finally learned that:

1) X79 is VERY picky about RAM in general
2) The RAM kits (e.g. 4x4GB, 4x8GB, etc) are programmed WITHIN EACH KIT to be compatible with a given board. In other words, if your mobo manual says that it supports a 4x8Gb kit for 32 Gb total, that means that it ONLY supports ONE 4x8Gb kit, NOT two of them for a total of 64 Gb. If you mix kits from different batches, the mfg. will typically NOT guarantee them to work, and they will also not run in XMP mode, you will have to manually program the timings to try to get them to work.

Sorry I'm so adamant , just trying to save you some trouble in case you were unaware

Reference post here. Note that I'm not hating on G.skill, it's just that this in general is not a very well-known fact.

As far as boards go, you're really limiting yourself by only using an ATX form factor. Asus does make this board for Tri-sli, however, and it supports 64 Gb RAM.

I'm a big fan of ASUS (and you didn't give a budget, so I'm assuming with 3-way SLI, there isn't one ). I would check out the R4E here. Support for quad sli, and 64Gb RAM. IF you are able to swing E-ATX...

If you go w/ an ASUS board, make sure and upgrade the BIOS to at least 0906, as this is the first one that supports the i7-3820 (not sure which proc you are using).

I'm using a Gigabyte X79-UD3 that supports tri and quad SLI. The RAM is 4 x 4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600 and dual SLI with GTX 460s. Running an i7 3930K nicely at 4.5 GHz.

DaveB said:

I'm using a Gigabyte X79-UD3 that supports tri and quad SLI. The RAM is 4 x 4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600 and dual SLI with GTX 460s. Running an i7 3930K nicely at 4.5 GHz.

Click to expand...

Only 32Gb RAM though...

Actually I just stumbled across that ASUS P9X79 series the WS (workstation edition would support my quad and 8 slot ram needs) but Im concerned asus has dumped/forgotten this line already no bios update since 2011 yet its X79 chipset like the other boards which they have bios updates for feb/march

As far as RAM goes is that not related to XMP profile settings?? I will not be overclocking RAM I think that might be the issue. I should be able to use 2x quad channel kits if not that's just plain stupid I can understand to overclock the need to make sure sync/timing matches up, so there I can understand using a 8xGB kit for that.

Guess I'll be a sucker and test and return if it does not work

<update> Ugh just reading the specs It looks worded as if I will infact need 8xDIMM kit thats junk I just wanted to grab 32gb now and 32gb later crap

Same as my problem:

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=704040

check out my thread and the boards I posted maybe you will find something you like.

jinx0r said:

Actually I just stumbled across that ASUS P9X79 series the WS (workstation edition would support my quad and 8 slot ram needs) but Im concerned asus has dumped/forgotten this line already no bios update since 2011 yet its X79 chipset like the other boards which they have bios updates for feb/march

As far as RAM goes is that not related to XMP profile settings?? I will not be overclocking RAM I think that might be the issue. I should be able to use 2x quad channel kits if not that's just plain stupid I can understand to overclock the need to make sure sync/timing matches up, so there I can understand using a 8xGB kit for that.

Guess I'll be a sucker and test and return if it does not work

<update> Ugh just reading the specs It looks worded as if I will infact need 8xDIMM kit thats junk I just wanted to grab 32gb now and 32gb later crap

Click to expand...

On the RAM, as I said, (at least for G.Skill), they DO NOT support the use of mixed kits of RAM in the same mobo. I agree it is entirely stupid. It may work, but if it does it is only happenstance. There are a lot of people getting crashes and BSODs because of this problem, and it is not well documented. I am not speaking only about overclocking either. The X79 supports 1600 MHz RAM, and I only bought 1600 MHz RAM, and was trying to get it to work at stock speeds.

You can't use XMP with mixed sets, since each set is programmed individually, therefore the settings in one set may conflict with the XMP settings in the other set, and will cause instability issues. Believe me, I've been playing with timings etc for about a month, and until I got the 8x4GB DIMM set, I was going crazy troubleshooting.

Save yourself the time, and either buy 4x8GB sticks or 8x8GB sticks if you think you'll ever need 64GB.

if I had only read this string earlier.

same with Corsair, mix kits, just doesn't work, and might give u BSOD.

bluezero5 said:

if I had only read this string earlier.

same with Corsair, mix kits, just doesn't work, and might give u BSOD.

Click to expand...

Yup. It will go for all manufacturers I'm sure.

It has to do with the way in which they program the timings for each set to work together in XMP mode.