Newbie to gigabyte looking for advice on build.

[Snakeyes]

I have been building and overclocking PCs for many years but generally with EVGA motherboards. This is my first build with gigabyte and I would greatly appreciate any and all advice as well as additional locations where I can learn more about my motherboard. My build includes the following: –

GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 LGA 1155
CORSAIR DOMINATOR GT 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
Creative PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series Sound Card
Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz
CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX1200 PSU
OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 series RVD3X2-
Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS 300GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0
PLEXTOR Black 12X BD-R SATA Blu-ray Disc Burner PX-B940SA-11
2 x EVGA SuperClocked 015-P3-1582-AR GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
Watercooled CPU with Swiftech Apogee XT (Rev 2) High Performance CPU Waterblock

I am familiar with the RevoDrive, but expect to have the usual problems. Again any and all advice and suggested reading, will greatly appreciated.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome.

Seems like a nice build that you are planning there. There have been several people with the new Revo 3x2 and they don't seem to have had any real problems. I have the Revo2 x2 and it works wonderfully onmy P67A- UD5 with no probs at all. I boot off it and it is certainly quick.

I would just suggest looking through the forum here for info as there is a wealth of it going begging. There is overclocking tutorials and all sorts of things.

[Aussie Allan]

 

    And Welcome again!

  Wouldn't be building a gaming rig their "Woodja"..... Can't believe my Revo X2 is already over the hill...

  The only couple of thing I can suggest.....bang for buck...small ... Say 32Gb SSD ..... really,really quick one for a system scratch disc....game cache, TEMP,TMP,Firefox and IE Temp.....Page....the lot......this would / should make a noticeable difference to a system like the one your planning.......If you don't want to add to the shopping list...................you could try out "DataRams" Ramdisc....4 GB is free.....just create Multiple  TEMP folders in the drive letter you create (virtual Drive) and every time you turn your system off.........it dumps the cache.........Very security savvy.........or even better.......max out the Memory (cheap ATM)  pay the tenner for the full license to DataRam and use say 10-12GB of memory as the fastest scratch disc on the planet .... 4000Mb/s Plus....

  Aussie Allan

[Snakeyes]

Thanks, good advice Dark Mantis, I have begun trolling through the forum. Great members with great advice.

Aussie Alan, it's funny, but my existing system using a EVGA 760 classified board has two SSD's and the RevoDrive X2, before I pass it to my son, I will steal one of the SSD's to use exactly as you suggest. Your advice, my gain and his loss, though he still ends up with my RevoDrive. Unfortunately the RevoDrive 3 X2 will give me better speed at higher queue depths but slow down my boot by about 7 – 10 seconds. I was considering maxing out the memory at 16 GB but my experience with EVGA motherboards was that it limited overclocking, maybe that is not the case with the gigabyte mobo?

[Dark Mantis]

You are quite right about a large amount of memory being a limiting factor if you are pushing the limits. I think that is the same on any board.

[Aussie Allan]

Thanks, good advice Dark Mantis, I have begun trolling through the forum. Great members with great advice.

Aussie Alan, it's funny, but my existing system using a EVGA 760 classified board has two SSD's and the RevoDrive X2, before I pass it to my son, I will steal one of the SSD's to use exactly as you suggest. Your advice, my gain and his loss, though he still ends up with my RevoDrive. Unfortunately the RevoDrive 3 X2 will give me better speed at higher queue depths but slow down my boot by about 7 – 10 seconds. I was considering maxing out the memory at 16 GB but my experience with EVGA motherboards was that it limited overclocking, maybe that is not the case with the gigabyte mobo?

       
     Tell me about it.........I have 24gig in my tower .... have just put the Axe down after threatening the PC with a mod if it doesn't play going from 4.1 to 4.2.......it'll boot all the way to 4.45 just cant get it stable past 4.1 with that much Memory ....Grrrrrrr!.... Funny.....you don't sound like a gamer..... Canon or Nikon?

  Aussie Allan

[Chubby]

CORSAIR DOMINATOR GT 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866

Hello Snakeyes

The GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 only has four memory slots so you might want to take another look at achieving your total memory requirements. I do think its a beautiful board though and the quailty of it is top notch. 

[Dark Mantis]

Yes I must admit that hadn't caught my eye but Chubby is quite correct. The memory kit you are talking about is really for a Triple Channel board like the X58 series but this board is only Dual Channel and so there is nothing wrong with the memory but just get a Dual Channel kit or a Quad kit if you really want to max out your board.

[Snakeyes]

Aussie Alan "Funny.....you don't sound like a gamer..... Canon or Nikon?"-- Not really a gamer, just an old fart crazy about speed – fast cars (used to race and rebuild muscle cars) and fast PCs that I use for work (fairly intensive high que-depth) and the occasional game for relaxation. In my youngerunmarried days, fast women were high on the list.

Chubby and Mantis, I did not realize that the motherboard was limited to dual channel. I was playing with option of using three 4GB matched sticks to activate triple channel. If that's not the case then I might be better off with only 8 GB (4x2) since I intend to max out my CPU overclock. I presently have an EVGA classified X58 i760 running stably at 4.7 MHz. (Watercooled). Hoping to break 5+ with the new system.Your thoughts please, and any specific recommendations for choice of RAM.

[Snakeyes]

Just checked the motherboard specs – dual channel. Feel like an idiot, thanks a lot for the heads up.

Aussie Alan, Dark Mantis – I have been trolling the gigabyte site and have learnt a lot from both your posts, the forum is lucky to have you guys.
(Three cheers for Ned Kelly )

[Aussie Allan]

Just checked the motherboard specs – dual channel. Feel like an idiot, thanks a lot for the heads up.

Aussie Alan, Dark Mantis – I have been trolling the gigabyte site and have learnt a lot from both your posts, the forum is lucky to have you guys.
(Three cheers for Ned Kelly )

  Mmmmmmm! fast Women............"Concentrate Allan"..........probably get killed for saying this...........I'm actually going to hold off for revision 2 of the up and coming "Z-79"/ board/s......it seem over the years it's every third generation you see truly......" Fast Women Performance" hit the shelves..... the 38/48 was the last big leap.........you might want to read up on IBIS (OCZ) as well...... this should mature about the same time as the version 2 79s..........these drives are shipping with a free PCI-E raid card for connectivity.........funny how their's a 50Mhz link between two PCI-E ports on the up and coming 79 Architecture .... Keep in touch when you start filling your toy list.

  Aussie Allan

[Dark Mantis]

Thanks for the kind words always appreciated even though they are not looked for.

Yes you should be able to go past 5GHz no problem as you can get to about 4.5 with just the multiplier. These boards/chips oc very easilly.

Personally I am waiting for the 2011 socket with quad memory channels. I reckon that should be a mean machine. Now just got to convince them that they should give me one!