I'm going to build a new rig soon and I'm quite confused with all the motherboards out there after making some comparison because they all seemed to be the same to me. Most likely I will get a LGA 1156 socket and as for budget, I still haven't decide it yet as I would like to know the differences of those different ranges of motherboard. I will be using this computer mostly for assignments and gaming (FSX being the most extreme). I don't do OC also but from what I see in Asus website, the motherboards with LGA 1156 all come with OC features and capabilities. I just want to make sure that I'm not paying some extra money for the features I don't really use.

Any advice given will be truly appreciated.

Thanks

OC'ing is a double edge sword, many makers offer tools to do this with they're boards, but most places will void the warranty if something goes wrong, so in your situation forget about any OC'ing comments on boards, that will make things easier for you.

The main thing with buying a board, is to ensure what you want to use on that board will actually be able to fit and run, the CPU and ram are the major factors here, although if it's a big enough jump in tech then the video can come into it as well, so the 1st thing you need to do is list what you want to use with the new board, the fact you mention LGA 1156 suggests you will be changing from your current form, this usually means quite a big jump in tech which means other components usually need upgrading as well, this of course makes a simple upgrade become more expensive.

I have always bought the top end boards, I figured they would compliment a top end system more than a cheaper board, but over the last year I have been revising that thought, and will not buy top end boards anymore, because I simply wont benefit what they fully offer, but this doesn't mean you buy bargain basement either, so I suggest looking to top end boards that are in the mid range selections if that makes sense.

These are usually priced at about the half way mark between the most expensive and the cheapest, it means you should get a very good board without costing the earth, but if you list the current hardware you have that you probably intend to use with the new build, then we can warn about what will\wont work with what, also include your PSU make\model, the last thing you want to do is upgrade to a nice new system to have your PSU die and take you kit with it because it's not man enough for the job, if you don't know this info then it's usually on a label on the side of the PSU, hope this gets you started anyway.

8210GUY,

Thank you very much for your reply.


That is the reason why I have some doubts when it comes to choosing a motherboard. It seems make sense to go for mid range board as the pricey ones that offers some sort of features which I may not know can become redundant for my daily usage. At first, I thought it might be a good idea to get Asus Maximus Formula III for my future rig but then I had a second thought it might not be well worth of the money. But I have a question, I'm not sure that if I got myself a mid range board like P7P55D Pro and have a GTX 295, would there be any noticeable difference in performance compared to Maximus?



Well, currently I don't intend to purchase all the hardwares for my future rig as I am planning to buy the parts at a separate timing. I could provide you a rough spec but it may change in future depending on the price. Anyhow, I have already purchased two parts last month. Corsair TX650W and Lite-on iHAS324


These are the list of my want to buy list hardware :
CPU - Maybe i7 920 or some i5 i7 LGA 1156 depending on the price, however I also want to have a system that could last me a good 4 years starting from next year.
RAM - 4GB to 6GB DDR3 1.5V the cheapest I can find, with a good brand of course.
Motherboard - As mentioned, on the first post but after seeing what you have said, I think I have a general idea about it.
HDD - Western Digital 1.5TB 7200rpm
Graphic card - Maybe a close to high end spec but a mid range card like GTX 285?

I guess that's pretty much it. Thanks.

NP, but your approach is a very good one to getting an affordable high end system, few can afford it all in a single go, but can often add a bit as time moves forward, but as good a move as this is, it also carries some very high risk\cost issues, because this field moves at such a fast pace you run the risk of components being outdated by the time you get to complete the build, because quite simply, if you buy the newest\hottest thing thats just hit the stores, by the time you buy it, it's already outdated, things are moving that fast here.

IMHO your best attack plan is as follows, buy the biggest most powerful\affordable PSU you can afford, PCP&C are pretty much the best out there, because you need solid reliable power to run a system, more so a high spec one, but these are large units, so often a new case with more space is required for them to fit in, this is proved a good move as well due to the size of high end video cards these days, some are massive.

So the case may be the wisest 1st purchase (not knowing what you have), it means you can use it straight away, then add the PSU as again it can only improve your current set up by giving solid power and better cooling.
After that comes the drives, you can add what you want when you want there, WD is a good choice (go for the black edition), but with such large drives comes a warning, when they go bad backing up can be impossible, so a wise choice is probably to duplicate the large drives and create a mirrored array, then if 1 drive dies the other still has the data, my 1TB has not long gone wrong, hence my foresight on this area lol.

Now assuming the difference in tech is not great enough to mean a different video card, then you could get this next, up to this point you can use everything you have bought straight away and at least benefit from the parts, but ultimately these are all the main parts that add to the cost of a new system, BUT, once you have these parts, you may never need to change them again, that makes upgrading far more affordable, because worst case the only things left to get are the motherboard, CPU and ram, everything else you already have, and if the jump in tech is not that great the ram can often see you through a couple more upgrades as well.

I have the 1st gen formula, and it's this that has made me rethink my future boards, don't get me wrong, great board, but do I get my money's worth from it ? probably not TBH.
So IMHO when looking for a new board, just take notice of if it gives you all you need, Wi-Fi for example, also make sure it offers enough internal\external connections for your needs (the most important things really), eg Sata ports for drives, card slots, also when considering card slots, bare in mind some video cards are so big they obstruct use of card slots effectively making some of them useless.
The ram however probably IS worth getting quality stuff, not top end tweaker stuff, but a 6gig kit using Tri channel (this seems to be taking over from dual channel now) as this will make a noticeable difference to your system when comparing the good and bad choices available.

I hope this offers a bit of clarity to you.

PCP&C is too expensive for me but I have already gotten myself a Corsair TX650W as well as a DVDRW from Lite-on as my 1st purchase recently (using it now) and I really hope it would be enough (If it's not enough I think I might consider a dual PSU setup lol). As for the casing, I'm thinking of getting Silverstone FT01 because its airflow design but it may be too expensive because at the same time I could get a Raven 01 at a much cheaper price, reason being it's a full tower chassis.



I'm just wondering why black edition and not blue edition? - You got a point there about the backup, so it means I would need another 1TB to create RAID 0 for my system?

You do have a good PSU, but you will need to double check it can supply the power required for the system, especially the video card, hopefully it will be enough, but it will have to work much harder than a higher spec unit to do the same job, but if you are ever in the fortunate situation to be able to get a PCP&C unit (750w upward) then it would be money well spent.
I have a Temjin TJ10 which has lots of space, and they are a really good make, but I appreciate the money side of things, there are probably several cheaper cases that should fit what you need, but do check out card sizes as the sort of card you mention are big, maybe a search of cases fitting x video card may bring up some suggestions there, but a tight fitting case will not be the best performance for you, so space is much better for cooling etc.

The reason I say black edition is purely they are the best\fastest ATM, an alternate would be the F3 (this does have the edge on WD, but WD is a better make IMHO), but in my time with hard drives WD have yet to let me down, so I find them to be the most reliable.
As to raid, raid0 is for speed, should you want speed with security you need 4 drives minimum, 2 for the raid0, and 2 for the +1, the +1 is a mirror of the raid0, but this obviously eats into drive bays and pushes up cost significantly, now I'm no expert with raid, but I believe raid10 gives you the mirrored array, and it requires equal numbers of drives, 2 being the minimum, hope this helps a bit.

All right! Thanks for all of your useful suggestions!