ASUS MBs

[woodchip]

Building a daughter a computor and I'm trying to decide which MB to get. Went to Tom's and read a year old review (as I figured I would save some money by buying a board not current) and I read good things about the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe. Back then it was in the 200.00 range. So I went to various sellers and I see it is still 230.00
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=6978

I then looked at a up to date review at Tom's and liked the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX. Went to Tiger Direct and see it is only 174.00
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... 4AodUlcfbw

Unless I'm missing something why would a newer board be less money than a year old one? Features? Why is a year old board still holding same price as a year ago? Enlighten me but please do it gently.

[CDN_Merlin]

I have the ASUS P8P67 LE and it's great. The only reason a new board would be cheaper is less option and different chipset.

The 990fx might only support 8 gigs of ram instead of the 16+ for the P8P. Look at the specs of each and find out what the different is. the P8P67 has the new EFI BIOS which is graphical and not the typical DOS based version.

[Krom]

I personally have the P8Z68-V and I've seen two other machines built on the same board, it is quite good and should cost around $180. If you are building a system using an Intel socket 1155, the Z68 chipset is the ONLY serious option because of stupid limitations or feature omissions from the P67 or H67 chipsets.

Perhaps the most glaring omission from P67 is the lack of display output support that comes with almost every 1155 CPU, requiring a discrete video card.

A complete rundown of the three chipsets is available here: http://www.pugetsystems.com/blog/2011/0 ... t-for-you/

[woodchip]

Trying to decide between:


ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Number of Memory Slots: 4×240pin
Memory Standard: DDR3 2200(O.C.) / 2133(O.C.) / 1866(O.C.) / 1600 / 1333 / 1066
PCI Express 2.0 x16: 1 @ x4
Onboard Video Chipset: None
Model #: P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
Item #: N82E16813131790
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

Was: $219.99
Now: $209.99
Free Shipping

Or:

ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Number of Memory Slots: 4×240pin
Memory Standard: DDR3 2200(O.C.) / 2133(O.C.) / 1866(O.C.) / 1600 / 1333 / 1066
PCI Express 2.0 x16: 1 (@ x4)
Onboard Video Chipset: None
Model #: P8Z68-V/GEN3
Item #: N82E16813131792
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

Was: $189.99
Now: $179.99
Free Shipping

First one has " PCIE3.0,LucidLogix Virtu" and the 2nd one doesn't. All I can find so far is lucid logic is good for gaming and I wonder if it is worth a added 30.00?

Also any thoughts on CPU's like stepping models for OC'ing along with coolers (passive or water)

[Krom]

Here is an article that describes what LucidLogix Virtu does: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4199/luci ... -platforms

But the short version is it lets you use your integrated GPU in a sandy bridge processor for displaying 2d/desktop stuff that it is best at, and then you can switch to a higher performance dedicated GPU for games where it is best at. While the sandy bridge integrated GPU is handling the display, the higher performance (and thus higher power) dedicated GPU can be shut off entirely. It is a power saving feature rather than a performance improving feature, indeed because it requires copying the frame buffer from the dedicated GPU over the PCI Express link back into the integrated GPUs frame buffer it actually reduces performance (granted, by a negligible 2-8% in most cases).

I'd generally say it isn't worth the $30 extra, although over the lifespan of a machine if you actually used it and ran the system 24/7 it probably could make up the $30 in power savings. However modern GPUs are getting to pretty low power idles on the desktop so its usefulness is questionable outside of really power limited laptops where every watt counts.

By far the most popular CPU currently around for that socket is the i5-2500k, they have very good potential and all the 'k' series chips are fully multiplier unlocked so overclocking them is simple. The i7-2xxx chips are identical to the i5 chips, with the exception of including hyperthreading (so they appear as 8 cores instead of 4). The advantage from hyperthreading in games is negligible or outright undetectable, although it does provide a solid advantage in some other more CPU intensive tasks, mostly media encoding or distributed computing number crunchers. Unless you can find a really good price on an i7-2600k or 2700k, I'd generally say the more affordable i5-2500k is the better deal (especially if you overclock, but still applies even at stock clocks).

[woodchip]

OK, next question. The Motherboard says it supports 32gb DDR3 SDRAM maximum RAM SLI (not sure what ram sli is). The question is will 32 gb ram be overkill with windows 7? As I write this I found this:

"Here are the upper RAM limits for the different editions of Windows 7:

Starter: 8GB
Home Basic: 8GB
Home Premium: 16GB
Professional: 192GB
Enterprise: 192GB
Ultimate: 192GB"

Nowhere on the win7 box does it say anything about ram limitations

Considering on my comp, under winxp I only have 4 gb of ram I have to think even 16 is going to be more than enough for any game made. Also ram manufacturer? I have corsair dominator in my comp. and it went bad about a year into the build (I'm now going on four years with this set up) tho corsair replaced it no questions asked or having to send bad mem. back. So any other ram manufacter's I should look at?

[Krom]

Over the last year or so I've installed 8 different crucial ballistix sport kits in various machines without a single dud in any of them. Which is a big difference from my experience with corsair XMS where I have had upwards of one third of all the kits I've ever purchased be defective or completely DOA (I had to RMA one kit THREE times before I got a good set).

As for how much RAM you need for games; the vast majority of games are 32 bit and are designed to run on a 32 bit Windows OS, this comes with an absolute memory limit that cannot be exceeded by any application regardless of how much RAM the system has. In a 32 bit OS such as Windows XP (or Windows 7 32 bit) each application has its own 4 GB of memory address space, however half of this address space will always be system reserved, so the application has a usable limit of 2 GB of RAM and will crash if it attempts to allocate any more than that. Which means no modern game will allocate more than 2 GB of RAM, ever.

On a 64 bit OS such as Windows 7 x64 things are a little different for a 32 bit application, each application still has its own 4 GB of memory address space, but because the OS is 64 bit and has access to a much larger address pool, it no longer reserves half of that 32 bit space for itself, so the application can use the entire 4 GB if it wants to. However few if any developers would let their program do that, because it would break 32 bit support and if they really needed to use more than 2 GB of RAM they would just compile their application as native 64 bit (64 bit applications can allocate all the way up to the OS memory limit if needed).

So to figure out how much RAM you need for gaming, you only need to figure out how much memory the OS/system needs with a little extra for buffering and add 2 GB for the game on top of that. Windows 7 x64 idles at 1200-1500 MB of RAM in use, which means 4 GB total system RAM is sufficient for any current gaming workload.

However since its cheap, I went ahead and stuck 8 GB in my own system and I rarely exceed 25% usage even during gaming.

[Sirius]

I tend to use quite a lot more memory, but that's largely because I have a habit of leaving 100-150 tabs running in Firefox... haven't run out of memory yet though (I have 12 GB).

[Thenior]

I tend to use quite a lot more memory, but that's largely because I have a habit of leaving 100-150 tabs running in Firefox... haven't run out of memory yet though (I have 12 GB).

I should think not... I run several tabs, AutoCAD, Outlook, Photoshop on 6GB's and only time I run out is if I'm doing a huge AutoCAD file or a huge Photoshop file.

[woodchip]

Stupid out of date manuals that come with motherboards

[woodchip]

One last question and that is cpu cooling. Anyone use this bad boy? It's a Phantek

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... &CatId=798

[Ferno]

too expensive for your needs.

get a hyper 212+ for half that and call it done. JTFR, it can hold it's own at 4.2ghz and.. probably more. So it's got more than enough capability for your needs.


but before we go any further, we need to know what the machine is intended for, so we can fine-tune the parts for the job.

[woodchip]

Sorry Ferno, already bought all the stuff. Build is for my daughter who runs her own internet business (while in college) and thus will have a number of sites open at the same time while playing her favorite MMO. So here is parts for build:

ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 (Krom, price dropped to 189.00 so got this instead of other
ASUS board you recommended )

Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB sata drive

Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 vid card

Intel i5-2500K cpu

Crucial 16 g mem

Zalmans Extreme cooler

PC Power & Cooling 750 watt power supply

Rocketfish case

I want to thank Krom for all the help he gave and input from the rest of you. Now comes the fun part of putting it all together.

[Krom]

No problem, you're welcome.

One note: Once you get that western digital hard drive, make sure its firmware is updated to the latest available version. There is an issue with the 1 TB drives that eventually leads to a head crash which is solved with the latest firmware.

[woodchip]

Thanks for the heads up Krom. I have the same HD in the comp. I'm using and it's going on 4 years old. Now to find out where the up-date is.


Edit add. Can't seem to find a firmware upgrade but I did find:

"I don’t have all the details, and I’ve not seen the case yet (he’ll be in on Monday), but I thought this was strange enough to put up a warning against running the Western Digital firmware update."

http://www.macmedics.com/blog/2008/11/2 ... -mac-mini/

[woodchip]

Small problem. got the comp. wired and when I hit the power button nothing happens. No fans, no lights etc. Tried the reset and power buttons on the MB and still nothing. Now I do not yet have the monitor/mouse/keyboard attached. I don't think that would make a difference but let me know if it does. I checked the PSU cord that plugs into wall socket and get 110 v out of it so power is good to PSU. I'm not sure which 2 wires from the PSU in a typical 4 prong attachment I should check for voltage...yel/blk, yel/red or blk/red.
And yes I tried the I/O switch on PSU. Neither position works. Any thoughts?

Edit: Nvm, found the problem. Asus Mb has a 24 pin and 8 pin pwr connector slots. The curious thin was the 24 pin plug on the power supply was split so there was a 20 pin and 4 pin plug. Having never seen this before, I didn't see at first how it could plug in and I assumed the 8 pin plug was all that was needed. El wrongo. I got the split plugs hooked in and lights and fans came on. So I assume I need to have the split 24 pin plugs hooked and the 8 pin plug also...or do I. Never saw before a MB needing 2 atx pwr hook-ups (EATXPWR 24 pin andEATX12v)

[flip]

I think that 8 pin feeds the cpu now, but that's just a guess.

[Krom]

The ATX connections on pretty much all modern motherboards are 24 pin, but PSUs usually have the 20+4 pins split but usually tied together just so they can maintain backwards compatibility with older 20 pin motherboard designs.

The other 8 pin block (sometimes its only 4) is additional power for the CPU. Higher end boards like that ASUS you have are designed for the worst case power demands of the bigger 95-130 watt processors, which would be too much power for the 24 pin block. And they also have to be able to keep up with overclocked processors which demand even more power, without that extra 8 pin block for power delivery an overclocked system would easily and quickly melt down the contacts on the main 24 pin block.

[Ferno]

Edit: Nvm, found the problem. Asus Mb has a 24 pin and 8 pin pwr connector slots. The curious thin was the 24 pin plug on the power supply was split so there was a 20 pin and 4 pin plug. Having never seen this before, I didn't see at first how it could plug in and I assumed the 8 pin plug was all that was needed. El wrongo. I got the split plugs hooked in and lights and fans came on. So I assume I need to have the split 24 pin plugs hooked and the 8 pin plug also...or do I. Never saw before a MB needing 2 atx pwr hook-ups (EATXPWR 24 pin andEATX12v)

good to see it's working and you've figured it out. just remember for next time; always read the manual that comes with the parts first, especially when you see some unfamiliar connections.

[woodchip]

Yeah, the 2 part 24 pin pwr plug is what threw me.

Anyway, new question. I'm hooking up my DVD drive and by reading some googled answers I'm a bit more confused. The ASUS board has 3 different sata drive connector type plug in's. (2) 6 gb/s plugs, (4) 3 gb/s plugs and (2) Marvell 6 gb/s plugs. Since the WD HDD came with a 6gb/s cable I assumed I should plug HDD into the 6 gb/s plug (not the Marvell one). As I read for answers I found that the HDD will not handle 6gb/s transfer rates as the plate will not spin fast enough, so I might as well use the 3 gb/s plug. True? And should I then also use the same 3 gb/s plugs for the DVD drive (sata). Any thoughts on this?

[Krom]

Plug the hard drive into the first 6 gbps port (its for the buffer speed, not the disk speed). Plug the DVD drive into the last 3 gbps port. Ignore the ports on the marvell controller unless you need to connect more than 6 drives to the system.

[woodchip]

New question. System is up and running. However, there is something called a TPU switch on the MB that does a quick and easy OC. Base spec of the CPUU says 3.3 ghz. With TPU enabled I should see around 4200 mhz down in the core speed block of CPU-Z software. All I see is 1648 mhz. What am I doing wrong or not seeing? Do I have to turn something on via software that come with MB?

[Krom]

Intel CPUs drop down to a 1600 MHz idle when they aren't doing anything, they don't run at full speed unless they have to and they even shut off some of the cores entirely via power gating if they can. It is a power and heat saving feature that is pretty effective.

To see what the CPU does at full speed you need to load an application that has a high CPU utilization. The built in benchmark in 7-zip ( http://www.7-zip.org ) is pretty good for that (tools ---> benchmark in the 7-zip file manager), it also lets you pick how many threads it will run so you can see if turbo core is kicking in or not.

[woodchip]

Thanks Krom. Using your proggy and TPU switch on, CPU-Z now says 4.327 ghz