With Microcenter's sweet deal on the Core i5 in addition to a $60 instant savings on a motherboard, I'm making the jump tomorrow. I'm purchasing a Gigabyte board because they're more Hackintosh friendly (or hackintoshers are more friendly to Gigabyte). Any thoughts on a recommended board?
Needs list:
Frankly, not much. I don't really over clock much and I haven't run multi-GPU setups very often. My gaming setups have been pretty spartan. One x16 slot and maybe an x1 slot for a sound card.
-Digital video out (DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI), at least one
-2-3 system fan headers
-Ivy Bridge support (if possible)
-Decent quality
Wants list:
-The most PCIe expansion possible, but more for "just in case" situations.
-FireWire
This system is going to be a mackintosh/gaming PC. On Windows, it won't be doing much beyond Skyrim, Civ V, newer games for the next 3-4 years. On the Mac, it will probably be a ProTools machine, maybe do some Final Cut Pro if I get back into video editing.
Other system specs, all pulled from a current machine:
Radeon 6850
2x4 DDR3-1333 - should I spend some money on Black Friday to get some DDR3-1866?
120GB Agility 3 x2 (each a boot volume for Mac/Win)
500GB and 1TB hard drives
Options at Cincinnati Microcenter:
Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 - $110 ATX, nice and cheap, though it may be cheap in the wrong ways
Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 - $115 mATX, also cheap
Gigabyte GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 - $140 mATX
Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 - $155 ATX, may be the one
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 - $160 ATX, Black PCB
Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4 - $200 ATX, too expensive, but I'd consider it for a really good reason
Needs list:
Frankly, not much. I don't really over clock much and I haven't run multi-GPU setups very often. My gaming setups have been pretty spartan. One x16 slot and maybe an x1 slot for a sound card.
-Digital video out (DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI), at least one
-2-3 system fan headers
-Ivy Bridge support (if possible)
-Decent quality
Wants list:
-The most PCIe expansion possible, but more for "just in case" situations.
-FireWire
This system is going to be a mackintosh/gaming PC. On Windows, it won't be doing much beyond Skyrim, Civ V, newer games for the next 3-4 years. On the Mac, it will probably be a ProTools machine, maybe do some Final Cut Pro if I get back into video editing.
Other system specs, all pulled from a current machine:
Radeon 6850
2x4 DDR3-1333 - should I spend some money on Black Friday to get some DDR3-1866?
120GB Agility 3 x2 (each a boot volume for Mac/Win)
500GB and 1TB hard drives
Options at Cincinnati Microcenter:
Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 - $110 ATX, nice and cheap, though it may be cheap in the wrong ways
Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 - $115 mATX, also cheap
Gigabyte GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 - $140 mATX
Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 - $155 ATX, may be the one
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 - $160 ATX, Black PCB
Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4 - $200 ATX, too expensive, but I'd consider it for a really good reason
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