Hi Folks - buying an i5-2500k at MC and need a motherboard, got it down to Gigabyte's GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 or the Asus P8P67 R3.1, and would appreciate any input on...
1. Reliability - I will not overclock, will not use onboard video (have a 3850 I will use), will not be using an SSD (for now). I am most interested in reliability. Mainly, ease of setup and long-term stability. Both boards seem to have issues with Newegg comments but both seem to have pretty good reputations.
2. Features - aside from what they all have I want the front USB3 header & Firewire for my old but still good digicamcorder - both have. I like the extra USB ports in the back panel on the ASUS, but doubt I will use more than 5 (keyboard, mouse, printer, external drive, ipad) - leaving whether it would be better to have backup video?
3. Bios - I like the new Asus bios but it seems a bit buggy in some comments - is this a widespread problem?
4. Memory - plan to buy 4g of cheap MC ram and pick up 16g of good ram at Black Thursday sales, either more finicky than the other with memory?
4. The Asus TPU/EPU features I find a bit confusing, are they useful at all?
I am going to be using my current WD-640 Black as my boot disk - I cloned to a WD-640 Blue and will use the Black to install windows wiping the current stuff, and the blue to bring all my data over.
Any comments much appreciated.
1. Reliability - I will not overclock, will not use onboard video (have a 3850 I will use), will not be using an SSD (for now). I am most interested in reliability. Mainly, ease of setup and long-term stability. Both boards seem to have issues with Newegg comments but both seem to have pretty good reputations.
2. Features - aside from what they all have I want the front USB3 header & Firewire for my old but still good digicamcorder - both have. I like the extra USB ports in the back panel on the ASUS, but doubt I will use more than 5 (keyboard, mouse, printer, external drive, ipad) - leaving whether it would be better to have backup video?
3. Bios - I like the new Asus bios but it seems a bit buggy in some comments - is this a widespread problem?
4. Memory - plan to buy 4g of cheap MC ram and pick up 16g of good ram at Black Thursday sales, either more finicky than the other with memory?
4. The Asus TPU/EPU features I find a bit confusing, are they useful at all?
I am going to be using my current WD-640 Black as my boot disk - I cloned to a WD-640 Blue and will use the Black to install windows wiping the current stuff, and the blue to bring all my data over.
Any comments much appreciated.