Help! Gigbyte vs asrock help!

[Leet0nee]

I have an option at hand and I have an important question.

I building a completely new rig with the Sapphire HD7950 and I am afraid if I buy the GIGABYTE GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 LGA 1155 it may get in the way or just straight up not fit.

I was going to buy the AsRock Extreme 3 Gen 3 with the 7950 but I can get a bundle with the gigabyte and get a OCZ SSD that I would otherwise not have.

If I get the gigabyte I get

+ Better monitor
+ SSD
- Not as good RAM ( Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX (Model:KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX) )

If I get the AsRock
- Less of a good monitor ( smaller and has speakers which I dont want )
- No SSD ( which I want to install my OS onto )
+ I get better ram I think G SKILL SNIPER SERIES( http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231460 )

BUT my main concern is if the card will fit. As this is my first big purchase for computers AND in general for online, ( close to 2000$ ) I REALLY don't want to finally recieve all my parts and find out it dont fit just to have an SSD that I don't REALLY need.

Anyone with these boards can help me !!!>>>

Thanks in advanced

 

[Charlie98]

Here's my Giga board, locked and loaded... with out GPU. Plenty of room, even with my 212+...

...and a different angle...

So far I like my GB board, it's easy to overclock and, aside for a little closeness on the #4 RAM slot with the CUP cooler fan, plenty of room.

 

[Leet0nee]

Thanks charlie! Do you got a GPU you could stick in there so I can get an Idea of what I'll be facing?

 

[dma0991]

You must understand that the board that Charlie98 uses are those of which I do not recommend using if you're planning for an overclock in the future. While possible to do a mild overclock, you'll stress the motherboard beyond its capabilities. There are reasons why overclockers would tend to go for more premium ATX sized boards to accommodate the necessary components to drive the chip.

I'd recommend that you go with the ASRock Z68 Extreme3 GEN3 instead. As for the RAM, it doesn't make much of a difference if you go with GSKill or Kingston. Get the cheapest that you could and anything beyond DDR3-1600 is not going to give you a whole lot of performance boost(< 5%).

 

[RavenSEAL]

Gygabyte is an awesome brand, I'm 4/4 with their stuff so far. Would not recommend any other brand at this point besides ASUS.

 

[Charlie98]

You must understand that the board that Charlie98 uses are those of which I do not recommend using if you're planning for an overclock in the future. While possible to do a mild overclock, you'll stress the motherboard beyond its capabilities. There are reasons why overclockers would tend to go for more premium ATX sized boards to accommodate the necessary components to drive the chip.

There may be some truth to that... I've only been able to get my 2500k to 4.10GHz without encountering problems. It is a very versatile board and easy to work with in the BIOS, I would suspect any Giga board would be the same or better. If you are going to really clock the CPU, I would probably move to a UD3 or better in a Gigabyte board. The board and OC work very well for me, and I'm very pleased with it. YMMV...

Sorry, a GPU is on the 'to-do' list... but I am 99.9% confident that there is plenty of room for a GPU.

 

[dma0991]

There may be some truth to that... I've only been able to get my 2500k to 4.10GHz without encountering problems. It is a very versatile board and easy to work with in the BIOS, I would suspect any Giga board would be the same or better. If you are going to really clock the CPU, I would probably move to a UD3 or better in a Gigabyte board. The board and OC work very well for me, and I'm very pleased with it. YMMV...

Yes, that is the message that I'm trying to tell. Any board from any recommended manufacturer will do just fine as long as you understand the limitations of the board that you have paid. Those high end boards are expensive because there are those who are willing to pay a premium for that few hundred more MHz.

If OP had placed a UD3 or a UD4, then it is a hard choice between the ASRock and Gigabyte.

 

[Leet0nee]

To be honest DMA, the only reason I went with this board instead of AsRock Extreme 3 Gen 3 was because I could bundle up the i5-2500k, MOBO, RAM and get a 60gb ssd which I want to install my OS onto.

With the asrock my budget couldnt fit in a ssd but if I bundle and get that board I can. If I do overclock I am only looking to go about what Charlie is at, around 4.0ghz maybe. If I want to go higher its not to hard to dish out 200$ for another mobo and cpu heatsink at a later date. Right now I just want everything to run Stock and FIT lol

 

[Despoiler]

I have an option at hand and I have an important question.

I building a completely new rig with the Sapphire HD7950 and I am afraid if I buy the GIGABYTE GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 LGA 1155 it may get in the way or just straight up not fit.

I was going to buy the AsRock Extreme 3 Gen 3 with the 7950 but I can get a bundle with the gigabyte and get a OCZ SSD that I would otherwise not have.

If I get the gigabyte I get

+ Better monitor
+ SSD
- Not as good RAM ( Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX (Model:KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX) )

If I get the AsRock
- Less of a good monitor ( smaller and has speakers which I dont want )
- No SSD ( which I want to install my OS onto )
+ I get better ram I think G SKILL SNIPER SERIES( http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231460 )

BUT my main concern is if the card will fit. As this is my first big purchase for computers AND in general for online, ( close to 2000$ ) I REALLY don't want to finally recieve all my parts and find out it dont fit just to have an SSD that I don't REALLY need.

Anyone with these boards can help me !!!>>>

Thanks in advanced

The difference between DDR3 1600 and 1866 is negligible on Sandy Bridge cpus. Get the Gigabyte bundle.

 

[Charlie98]

With the Giga combo you listed, the RAM is just as good as the Sniper 1600... it just doesn't have the fancy heatsink. I actually have the Sniper 1600, to do it over again I would have just gotten something low profile.

A 4.0GHz overclock is easy with the D2H board, you will have to manually set the vCore voltage. I would NOT use the Gigabyte OC utilities except for the 3.8GHz in SmartBoost; that doesn't cause any stability problems and gives you a little boost with no effort.

I would also look at a minimum of a 212+ (or like) CPU cooler, even with the 3.8GHz OC. $25 well spent.

 

[dma0991]

To be honest DMA, the only reason I went with this board instead of AsRock Extreme 3 Gen 3 was because I could bundle up the i5-2500k, MOBO, RAM and get a 60gb ssd which I want to install my OS onto.

With the asrock my budget couldnt fit in a ssd but if I bundle and get that board I can. If I do overclock I am only looking to go about what Charlie is at, around 4.0ghz maybe. If I want to go higher its not to hard to dish out 200$ for another mobo and cpu heatsink at a later date. Right now I just want everything to run Stock and FIT lol

That's fine. I am not fond of doing stuff twice and more towards getting things right the first time as I find doing this stuff in 2 stages usually would adds up to more spending. If you're fine with paying for an upgrade later then go with it. Just make sure that you buy a decent heatsink like the CM Hyper212 Evo before attempting to do any overclock.