Recommend good i7 motherboard.

[MarkJohnson]

I am going to buy an i7 motherboard and I'm leaning towards a Gigabyte.  I see there are sseveral X58 boards to choose from and was wondering if someone can give me a rundown of the differences between them.

I just bought a 920 processor and currently have a pair of OCZ 1800 DDR3 memory I can test with until I save up for a triple channel set.  I also have an Asus 4870X2 and may buy a second one later on.  I just ordered an  ANTEC|TPQ-850 850W RT PSU.  It looked powerful enough and I've had great luck with Antec in the past.  I have a HT Omega Claro Plus + PCI sound card and an Areca ARC-1210 Raid controller with 1TB (4x250GB) Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3250310NS in RAID 5.

I like to overclock and I have a water cooler for CPU and GPU.  I'm sure I'll need an adapter for the i7 chip.  I play mostly games, surf the Internet, eMail, watch some videos/movies, etc...

Thanks
-=Mark=-

[runn3R]

Hi Mark

comparison of current 3 mobos with X58 chipset you can find at:
http://www.gigabyte.eu/Products/Motherboard/Products_ComparisonSheet.aspx?ProductID=2957,2958,2959

if you use water cooling then you may consider GA-EX58-Extreme as it already has water block on it's chipset's northbridge so you will be probably able to connect it with your water cooling system to cool by water not only CPU and GPU but also chipset.

[MarkJohnson]

I decided on the Extreme board for the water cooling NB.  I should get it early next week.  also, the tripple channel version of my memory is on the compatibility list so hopefully my dual channel kit will be fine.

-=Mark=-

[runn3R]

ok, thanks for info. 

[MarkJohnson]

OK, I got the board today.  I hooked everything up and it gives an error b6 or maybe 69.  There are a ton of LEDs on the board and the first 4 NB LED light up starting with g/y/g/y (g=green/y=yellow) and the last three off. Is there a BIOS error code list somewhere to look at?

-=Mark=-
ps. The NB waterblock looks worthless.  It sits on top of the air cooler heatsink?  I was expecting the NB waterblock to make actual contact with the NB, not contact to the fins of the heatsink.  very odd design.

[runn3R]

bios POST error code list you can find in manual starting from page 116. And the troubleshooting procedure is at pages 114-115

[MarkJohnson]

I guess it might help if I RTFM.  lol  All the books and CDs are still in the box.  lol

anyway, I put the memory in the second set of slots, the white slots, and everything is up and running great!  It's nice to have a board actually fire up on the first try.  I was surprised the dual channel memory worked.  I'll have to get another set, or price some triple channel and sell these. 

This thing runs extremely hot though.  This stock cooler does a terrible job keeping things cool.  It went on too easy and I think it might not be making real good contact with the CPU.  I ran prime95 for an hour at stock settings and the CPU was hitting 80C!!!!   I can't wait for my CPU water block to arrive today.  I may have to wait to install t though as my case hasn't gotten here yet.  Right now I have everything on the bench. 

The only issues I'm having right now are all the temp monitors are way off.  HWMonitor reads the cores from upper 40s to upper 50s, SpeedFan reads from low to upper 30s, and Everest Ultimate reads from upper 40s to lower 50s.  I like the Everest readings so far! lol although I wish SpeedFan was correct, but I know it's way off as I can really feel the heat coming off that CPU cooler.

Thanks again for the help
-=Mark=-

[runn3R]

Hello Mark

for hardware monitoring you can use Gigabyte software called EasyTune6. It's bundled on the CD with mobo and also available at Gigabyte website:
http://www.giga-byte.co.uk/Support/Motherboard/Utility_List.aspx

[MarkJohnson]

I already tried tthat.  It fails to even install correctly, and when it comes up after reboot it gives a, "Windows sockets initialization fails".  I think it may still have issues with vista x64, or maybe jusst the i7 and x58?

Hopefully it'll be fixed soon.

-=Mark=-

[runn3R]

Which version of EasyTune6 have you used ? B8.1113.1 ?
What is your mobo bios version ?

[MarkJohnson]

Yes, it is list ed in your link above.  I even tried the other version for X58 and neither work.  They both give an AppCrash error.  then a windows sockets initialization error.

Maybe I have a corrupt windows install.  I'll try a fresh install later and see what happens.

-=Mark=-

[runn3R]

do you have bios ver. F3 on your mobo ? please first load this bios

[MarkJohnson]

Yes, I still have BIOS F3, I'm too scared to change it. - lol  If it isn't broke, don't fix it, is my motto! - lol

anyway, I reinstalled Vista Ult x64 w/sp1.  I loaded lan drivers and downloaded ssp22 and realized it was beta and quickly aborted install.  I then downloaded EasyTune 6 and it installed fine.  Hopefully it stays working after I update everything.

Thanks for the help
-=Mark=-