Motherboard advice

[pausch]

Hi all,

Is naybody able to give me a v quick overview of the differences between different motherboards and why I'd want to go for a more expensive one?

There seems to be a £50 difference between the ASUS P8Z68-V LX and the GEN-3.

What kind of difference should this make - is it worth it?

PS. I'm looking for a machine to run Football Manager 2012 with all of the leagues loaded and running as fast as possible; as well as occassional other games like Battlefield 3 and CoD:MW3 etc.

 

[tom_gr7]

I may be able to help here.

Here's a few links to each motherboard, wil lshow you the features of each one.

P8Z68-V LX - http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8Z68V_LX/
P8Z68-V/GEN3 - http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8Z68VGEN3/
P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 - http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8Z68V_PROGEN3/

What kinda budget do you have dude? Do you have a proposed spec? If so post it up and will have a look. With a motherboard choice you wanna decide if you want a single graphics card setup, that's a big factor to which one would best to get.

 

[pausch]

Thanks for the links - I'm afraid most of the technical details are straight over the top of my head!!!!

The current spec I'm looking at is below


Case

COOLERMASTER HAF 922 MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)

Intel® Core™i5-2500k Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard

ASUS® P8Z68-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)

8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card

1GB AMD RADEON™ HD6850 - 2 DVI,HDMI, DP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 3 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk

1TB SATA-II 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 32MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive

24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader

INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply

450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling

SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card

ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities

ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options

6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System

Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software

FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus

BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty

3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

 

[Phoenix]

For what you're wanting to do just get the cheapest motherboard on the list, there's about 3FPS difference between the cheapest and most expensive. The more expensive ones are better for overclocking and support multi-GPU setups. For the build you posted above, it looks fine but you should just get the i5-2500 because it's cheaper and performs exactly the same. The K suffix CPU's are for overclockers or people who want to use integrated graphics instead of a discrete graphics card.

 

[Tehmoe]

Personally I would go with the gen3 as it comes with pci 3.0 which will come in handle later on. No point in getting the Pro version as there usually over priced and offer you no increase. I would go for the P8Z68-V/GEN3 think its best for your needs and will have you future proof'd.

 

[MadMan]

you should consider an amd build with 4gb of ram so you can get at least a gtx 560ti or 2gb6950.