Best MOBO and CPU combo for an i7

Let me preface by saying I'm DIY when it comes to PCs. I have a system that's bordering on 6 years old and have the $$ to upgrade. I want to go the i7 route (not planning to overclock) and am looking for advice on a good mainboard & RAM. It would have to have at least one PCI slot and of course a PCI Express slot, plus low DPCs for Win 7 64. I would migrate most of my peripherals over like my M Audio 2496, Edirol UA 101, my main drive which is an Intel SSD and my NVidia graphics card. Obviously I would reinstall the OS after the build was done. 

Pretty much any of the better boards would work.  I have an i7 2600k, and I bought a board based on having a combination of USB 2.0 and 3.0 support, support for 32 GB of memory, and a decent layout, as far as USB connector and SATA connector placement for easy case access.

There are now some boards that support up to 64 GB of memory - take a look at those.  For my system, I went with 4 8 GB memory strips to give me the 32 GB.  Total cost for that much memory was around $209 at that time, but prices have come down quite a bit.   www.microcenter.com is a GREAT place for inexpensive but top of the line components, such as memory and motherboards (and all the other components too).  I believe you can get 16 GB of memory (2 x 8 GB) for $69 these days - I just checked their price on that a moment ago.  That would get you up and going with a good deal of memory, and you could add another 16 GB later, if you make sure the motherboard can support it.

Bob Bone

  Been using the  ASUS P8Z68V GEN 3. It's been working pretty awesome. It has pretty much any port/slot you'll need for audio (although I think the legacy PCI slots are bridged which can cause issues if you have an old school PCI interface but the PCIE should be fine). It's reasonably priced. The one thing though is you absolutely MUST update the BIOS and a bunch of other crap right of the bat or it's gonna cause some problems.   

http://www.asus.com/Mothe...ocket_1155/P8Z68VGEN3/

aaaaand I should mention that although I did have some initial problems with my Layla 3G PCI interface at first after I optimized the system for audio it started working properly although I decided to just buy a newer USB interface. For other stuff less intensive PCI stuff though it should be fine.

The only other board I found close to it was an Intel which cost alot more. Gigabyte did have some similar offerings for less money but I was concerned about quality and I don't think it had as much port options. Cheers.

I was looking for 4 cores with hyper threading. Thanks for the tips on Microcenter, great prices, never heard of them before. So my next question is which is better Sandy or Ivy bridge?

Hi there, I too have an i7-2600K and built a bare bones machine in July 2011 based a lot on this article: http://www.xbitlabs.com/a...re-i7-2600k-990x.html. The audio benchmarking done was performed on X1 Producer. In addition to that, I went with ASUS for the motherboard (ensure it has an 1155 socket), as they had the best bus throughput and offered USB 3.0 before anyone else (I have become a big fan of them since). I recommended this site to a coworker (http://www.googlebb.magic...moreinfo.asp?iid=4245) whose son built one. To your last question, my computer RARELY goes over 15% doing almost anything, and often only uses core 0. This setup is more than adequate to run X1/X2 Producer. I also run an ASUS GTX 580, 240Gb SSD for the OS (Win7 64 Ultimate), and 3Tb 7200 rpm Seagate drive for data. Best regards, Michael

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I was looking for 4 cores with hyper threading. Thanks for the tips on Microcenter, great prices, never heard of them before. So my next question is which is better Sandy or Ivy bridge?

The new machine made eight virtual cores out of the four hardware cores. It works very well. there's barely a green line on all eight cores. Make sure you have the stats for the new boards, they're a bit a departure from the old older ones.

Thanks for the info guys, I've had good luck with Gigabyte MOBOs in the past, I know some haven't, but since the late 90s I've also heard great things about ASUS as well. One of the other reasons I want to upgrade is that my current system is only SATA 2. With an SSD for my system drive and two WD 1TB drives for audio and samples, it would be nice to realize the speed boost a SATA 3 interface would offer especially for the SSD.

if you need more info just ask !!

Why limit yourself- SATA is up to 6 now-not 3. Backward compatible with SATA 3 so..................
I have an Asus P6T Se\12gb Ram, etc. It's SATA3. But I had to add a card for USB 3.0 (works great) and a nice eSata @x outputs with room for many HDs (I have 3 at the moment. I also needed a PCI slot-so watch what you get, My Echo Layla3G is PCI and I love it. I had AP2496's (ran 2 using a sync) wotked great, They are around here somewhere. @ work very well together. All you need is a short dig cable.
 
I am about ready also-I have the 3rd Gen i& in my laptop and it's pretty done quick. I7 920 in the desktop.
 
But when I upgrade I want to have at least 5 years of peace. Also a DIY'er. Always have been. I already have 3 SATA 6G Hard drives , but using them as externals until I get the right board. Asusu has been my boards of choice for ever. Some say nay but I've never had an issue.
Gigabyte Nvidea has been my videa card choices for a l,ong time also.
 

Great options, obviously the 3770 is the way to go, after that I'll do my homework between Gigabyte and Asus for MOBOs. Thanks for all the input, it;s really cleared up a lot of confusion with all the different options out there, RAM, CPUs etc.