Questions Regarding LGA 1156 Motherboards

[Neillithan]

Hi, I've been doing some research on the LGA 1156 motherboards. I've decided that I'm going to get an i7 860 along with 8GB of DDR3 1600 CL9 ram.

Problem is, the sheer number of motherboards is daunting. Looking at newegg, I have narrowed the list down to 24 possible candidates. I have no desire to SLI or Crossfire, so the extra pci-e video card slots don't matter. This is partially due to them running the video cards in x16/x8 or x8/x8. There would be a penalty for running SLI. I would prefer x16/x16 but I can't get that unless I go with an LGA 1366 motherboard.

I prefer a motherboard that has at least 6 SATA, lots of USB. Onboard video doesn't matter, but it would be convenient in the event my video card decides to die.

Should I choose a motherboard that supports SATA 6gbps and USB 3.0 or should I just wait? From what I've read, there's a flaw with motherboards that support them. I don't really plan on plugging any external harddrives or solid state drives into my computer... so I can't imagine why I'd need those 2 things... maybe there's something I'm not considering?

Are there any particular i5 motherboards that have a lot of power and are proven to be reliable and stable?

This is what I've narrowed the list down to. (It's a long URL)

Judging from that list, what would you guys recommend? If you have any other suggestions not in that list, by all means, fire away.

Thanks,
-Neil

 

[wickedout]

Hi there. aboard! You came to a great site.

One thing I can tell you is you're right. Their are so many 1156 mobos out there to pick from. It took me a month figure out what one I wanted.

Here you will be given great advice from many. Read up and have fun!

 

[Seanie's Show]

I see you have alot of Micro ATX boards on that list, is that really the way you want to go, I mean even if your GFX card did die you can quiet easily pick up something very cheap to temp replace it now-a-days.

Questions you need to ask is things like would you be overclocking with it ? if so you need to look at power regulation and bios options, I dont think micro ATX is gonna bring the kind of options your gonna want to get a good stable overclock, let alone the power circuitry.

Personally I would go with EVGA or Gigabyte but thats only through personal experiences, had a couple of ASUS boards in the past, I didnt really like the build quality and one (P5Q-E) even used to corrupt its own bios every 5 mins and had to keep re-flashing, but thats only from personal experiences, ive never been a big fan of MSI so I cant really comment on it, since back then ive always either gone for Gigabyte for reliability, DFI for overclocking options etc.

You have alot of Gigabyte boards on this list, weigh up the differences and extra features between them, see what you need in a board and what you dont, what might come in handy later on like SATA3 USB3 etc and what you think you will never use.

 

[MattNo5ss]

Questions you need to ask is things like would you be overclocking with it ? if so you need to look at power regulation and bios options, I dont think micro ATX is gonna bring the kind of options your gonna want to get a good stable overclock, let alone the power circuitry.

Actually, P55/H55 mATX boards OC pretty well, much better than the LGA775 mATX boards.

I have no desire to SLI or Crossfire, so the extra pci-e video card slots don't matter. This is partially due to them running the video cards in x16/x8 or x8/x8. There would be a penalty for running SLI. I would prefer x16/x16 but I can't get that unless I go with an LGA 1366 motherboard.

The difference between 8x/8x and 16x/16x is less than 5% anyway. MSI has two P55 boards that do 16x/16x, the Big Bang Fuzion and Big Bang Trinergy. Their Fuzion board has Lucid Hydra, which means you can mix and match GPUs, ATI or nVidia or a mixture of the two even different model GPUs for a "SLI/Xfire" type setup and get good scaling.

I prefer a motherboard that has at least 6 SATA, lots of USB. Onboard video doesn't matter, but it would be convenient in the event my video card decides to die.

No P55 boards have on-board video. You would have to go H55 and i3 5xx or i5 6xx.

Should I choose a motherboard that supports SATA 6gbps and USB 3.0 or should I just wait? From what I've read, there's a flaw with motherboards that support them. I don't really plan on plugging any external harddrives or solid state drives into my computer... so I can't imagine why I'd need those 2 things... maybe there's something I'm not considering?

Motherboards don't natively support USB3/SATAIII yet, they usually use some PCI lanes or something. Maybe when Intel releases a P65/X68 chipset there will be native support.

I don't see a need for it, but if you can get it for the same price as another board you're considering, then why not?

Are there any particular i5 motherboards that have a lot of power and are proven to be reliable and stable?

Any price cap or form factor restrictions?

 

[Neillithan]

I see you have alot of Micro ATX boards on that list, is that really the way you want to go, I mean even if your GFX card did die you can quiet easily pick up something very cheap to temp replace it now-a-days.

Strange. I narrowed the list down by ATX form factor. There should be zero micro ATX motherboards in that list.

Questions you need to ask is things like would you be overclocking with it ? if so you need to look at power regulation and bios options, I dont think micro ATX is gonna bring the kind of options your gonna want to get a good stable overclock, let alone the power circuitry.

Again, no micro motherboards in that list. You must be mistaken. I would like to have some elbow room for overclocking. If you can try that link again, do any of those motherboards have power regulation bios options?

Personally I would go with EVGA or Gigabyte but thats only through personal experiences, had a couple of ASUS boards in the past, I didnt really like the build quality and one (P5Q-E) even used to corrupt its own bios every 5 mins and had to keep re-flashing, but thats only from personal experiences, ive never been a big fan of MSI so I cant really comment on it, since back then ive always either gone for Gigabyte for reliability, DFI for overclocking options etc.

Yeah, I had a friend who bragged about DFI, but I never quite understood it. It looks like a regular motherboard to me.

You have alot of Gigabyte boards on this list, weigh up the differences and extra features between them, see what you need in a board and what you dont, what might come in handy later on like SATA3 USB3 etc and what you think you will never use.

Yeah, I'm convinced I will *not* be needing USB3 or SATA6gbps. It's pretty early to tell.

Any price cap or form factor restrictions?

Yeah, I'm not trying to spend more than $200 on a motherboard. If I have to spend that much money, I might save up and go LGA 1366 and give myself expansion room for 12 gigs of ram. Problem is, I have a limited supply of money right now and the 1156 falls perfectly in my budget.

I'm interested to know more about this Big Bang Fuzion motherboard.

Thanks,
-Neil

 

[Seanie's Show]

When I click on your link, the first 7 boards it shows me are mATX boards.

With regards to DFI, its not how the board looks but whats under the hood, the bios options used to go on forever, tweakable forever, not so much anymore though as alot of board manufacturers are catching up with DFI and making their bioses much more tweakable too.

With regards to SATA/USB 3, once again thats upto you again, you need to decide if you need those things, but just a word of warning, SATA3 drives are already available, and ive heard USB3 devices on the grapevine, do you really want to have to upgrade again 6 months down the line cos a newer faster SATA3 hard drive is available that takes your fancy.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-336-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1279 - REGULAR

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-006-CR&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1427 - SSD

 

[MattNo5ss]

Yeah, I'm not trying to spend more than $200 on a motherboard. If I have to spend that much money, I might save up and go LGA 1366 and give myself expansion room for 12 gigs of ram. Problem is, I have a limited supply of money right now and the 1156 falls perfectly in my budget.

I'm interested to know more about this Big Bang Fuzion motherboard.

No mATX boards on the list...

Well, the Fuzion is like $360...

Some on your list are over $200, are you willing to buy those?

For under $200 dollars these would probably be your best bets:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...707618 5007&bop=And&ShowDeactivatedMark=False

 

[wingman99]

I have good luck with GIGABYTE they overclock well

If you need a good cheap board.
GIGABYTE GA-P55-USB3 LGA 1156 Intel P55 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128425

funny same post as above.

 

[Rattle]

I love my giga p55 with much love

it allows me to use energy saving features and have a 4.0 chip at 1.25v and idles at 1800mhz at 1.072v perfectly stable.

really a wet dream for a 24/7 overclocker/gamer.

 

[MattNo5ss]

I've actually been looking for a 1156 board since my UD3P bit the dust. I'm pretty set on the GA-P55A-UD7 for $280 as of now.

 

[Neillithan]

I have good luck with GIGABYTE they overclock well

If you need a good cheap board.
GIGABYTE GA-P55-USB3 LGA 1156 Intel P55 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128425

funny same post as above.

That's a nice motherboard. I'll have to consider that one.

Question, would I have any trouble running the ram at 1600 on that motherboard?

In regard to SATA 6gbps... I'm assuming that's not backwards compatible? Meaning, a harddrive that uses SATA6 will not work on SATA3? That would suck pretty hard.

 

[MattNo5ss]

That's a nice motherboard. I'll have to consider that one.

Question, would I have any trouble running the ram at 1600 on that motherboard?

In regard to SATA 6gbps... I'm assuming that's not backwards compatible? Meaning, a harddrive that uses SATA6 will not work on SATA3? That would suck pretty hard.

That motherboard can do anything lower than what it's rated for, which is DDR3-2200, anything higher isn't guaranteed.

As for SATAIII, the only drive I know of that actually needs SATAIII is the Crucial C300 SSD. So, all other HDDs/SDDs like the new WD Caviar Black (64MB cache), just use SATAIII as a marketing ploy. The SATA interfaces are backwards and forward compatible, but the GA-P55-USB3 doesn't have SATAIII, it just has USB3.0.

 

[EarthDog]

**SLI/Crossfire @ 8x/8x loses 1-2% with a HD5870. Anything less than that and it wont hold you back at all.

** Do you overclock? If not, just get the cheapest board you can find that has the ports you need and call it a day.

Good luck!