GAH! Pick me a new mobo please

[AVC]

Right, that's it. I've had a gutfull of this PC.
Time for a new gaming rig build.

I'm gonna go i7, with an ATI Radeon VC (and I'm eyeing off the new Samsung 27" LED monitor with 2ms response time).

I just need to choose a mobo, but I'm open to suggestions for the rest of the rig. I'll reuse my HDD (new 1TB) and my 1kW PSU

Need a decent case that will fit full size cards and with the PSU at the bottom so it'll blow the hot air under the desk not back into my face.

Budget open

 

[Pugsport]

Right, that's it. I've had a gutfull of this PC.
Time for a new gaming rig build.

I'm gonna go i7, with an ATI Radeon VC (and I'm eyeing off the new Samsung 27" LED monitor with 2ms response time).

I just need to choose a mobo, but I'm open to suggestions for the rest of the rig. I'll reuse my HDD (new 1TB) and my 1kW PSU

Need a decent case that will fit full size cards and with the PSU at the bottom so it'll blow the hot air under the desk not back into my face.

Budget open

well im guessing your going to be using the new sandy bridge cpu so id go with a Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD4-B3 running the Z68 chipset and atx forum factor as i guess thats the rout you will be going down. Samsung or Sony monitors are all good

as for the case its really down to what you want or can put up with. the one thing i will say is when buying a case get one thats built well with some nice thick metal. coolermaster, lian-li, silverstone, corsair are all good makers of cases. really need to know what size case your looking at getting mid tower, full tower or a m-atx case before i can really say models numbers/names. my coolermaster haf 932 has big side pannels and they are still perfect shape (i thought they were going to bend easy as they were so big but they have stood up to the test of time and are still fine) also depends on if you want a case thats going to be quite or if you want good cooling.

as for power supply the psu fan sucks in air and blows it out the back so by having it in the bottom of the case its going to be drawing in cool air from outside the case rather than warm air from inside the case if it was mounted at the top.

 

[Joe Momma]

I agree with pug, Z68 motherboards from Gigabyte are great. I also recommend you go with an i5 to save money and get almost the same performance. core i5 2500k is a great chip. Make sure the motherboard you pick has a 1155 socket, and USB 3.0 (future proof my friend). If you want to go all out, then by all means grab a 2600k or 2700k. 2700k is the same as 2600k but it's clock is slightly higher.

 

[AVC]

I should add, this pc will be gaming only, so I take it the i5 is better yeah?
The reason for bottom mount psi, is that the box sits under the desk and the outlet would blow air under the desk panel. A lot of the new boxes have the psi at the bottom now

 

[Joe Momma]

I should add, this pc will be gaming only, so I take it the i5 is better yeah?
The reason for bottom mount psi, is that the box sits under the desk and the outlet would blow air under the desk panel. A lot of the new boxes have the psi at the bottom now

Yea, anything more than i5 2500k is overkill for games.

 

[Pugsport]

I should add, this pc will be gaming only, so I take it the i5 is better yeah?
The reason for bottom mount psi, is that the box sits under the desk and the outlet would blow air under the desk panel. A lot of the new boxes have the psi at the bottom now

yes the i5 is better for gaming as not many games use more than 2 cores at the moment

as for the psu all most all full tower case have the option of putting the psu at the bottom or the top. altho if you have an e-atx board you might find there not enough room for it to fit at the bottom or if there is you might struggle to be able to use some headers at the bottom left of the board.

 

[AVC]

The Z68s all have integrated graphics by the look. Not that I would be using it, but would it not be better to get one without?

 

[Pugsport]

having onboard graphics can help if you need to trouble shoot graphics issues or just as a genral back up. it wont make any difference if its there or not as soon as you plug your card in to the board it will switch over and turn the on board off. if you still dont like the idea your better off with a P67 chipset as not all of them have onboard graphics. also they are now starting to making Z68 motherboards which are pci-express 3.0 ready so thats another reason to maybe thinking about getting the Z68 over the P67 chipset. when it comes down to board tho you really need to think about how many usb ports/headers you need and the same with sata. also if the motherboard uses two sata controllers always use the intel chipset over the marvel or other brand as the other chipset ports are not full speed sata 3/6gbps altho you did say you was going to be using your old hard drives anyway.

also another thing i would say with the core i series is because the north bridge and south bridge have been made into one with the processor controlling the ram and gpu id watch out how much ram you put in the board as the more dimm slots you and the closer you get to the boards max memory the harder you going to be working your cpu. id say you should be looking at a max of 8gb DDR3 1600mhz ram with a timing/CAS of 8 for good performance. you can easy get away with 4gb of ram if your only going to be using it for games as its not until you start using your pc for photo editing and video editing that you will need to use 16gb or 32gb of ram. im not sure if you have choosen your ram or not yet but i thought id share some info on it.

also id swap out the stock cooler with a coolermaster v8 or something along them lines to aid cooling.