Quote:

Originally Posted by audiorapture 

       Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core selected: need mobo for great sound with a new soundcard, (not sure which yet), some gaming  and a lot of music, streaming, burning, taping, compilations made for DVD's and CD's.....usually I use Newegg or Tiger or Geek, but recommendations are welcome...thanks for your help

Hey Danny,

Unless you are heavy into overclocking I would stay away from the pricey "enthusiast" motherboards as you would not need the extra features. Just make sure it has stuff like USB 3.0... other than that they are all more or less the same and will all support the soundcards and videocards you want to use.

I have used the Asus STX soundcard with great success although I only use the SPDIF out now for my DAC.

If you are going to overclock make sure you get some artic silver 5 thermal paste and a fat heatsink. The i7 make 4.0 pretty easy from what I have read.

Other than that consider a solid state drive to install your OS and frequently used apps on if you are going to be encoding data and moving lots of files and don't want to get hitches.

The graphics card really depends on the resolution of your monitor and how recent your games are. I will check late for some specific products.

Quote:

Originally Posted by audiorapture 

thanks, I want something that will last for  a while and I figured to get something great once instead of just average and then have to replace it every other year or so....found th Asus Rampage III Formula which so far look very good....but ...getting a good soundcard for the music and listening and such will also be a challenge.......thanks again and let me see what you come up with

Well the motherboards don't improve the performance of anything really... they just have extra features or more slots and can generally handle more power being forced into the CPU and GPU. If you do not overclock though these boards are highly superfluous. If you check benchmarks they actually tend to score slightly lower overall than their less feature rich counterparts.

Sooo, if you don't OC I would suggest pouring a little more $$$ into the processor for this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115224&cm_re=core_i7_bloomfield-_-19-115-224-_-Product

A motherboard like this should be more than enough http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128456&cm_re=gigabyte_1366-_-13-128-456-_-Product

Again,  unless you need a specific feature the other motherboards offer the same performance unless you are really into modding.

The RAM is also a place where people waste money. The actual frequency of the  RAM has to do with your multiplier and a bunch of other things, so in many instances more expensive ram, unless tweaked properly, doesn't run any faster than the more generic kinds. Eg my DDR 2 ram right now runs at a retarded 882 or something, but they are 1066 chips... they can GO UP to 1066 without frying but I can't use it as it is not stable with my processor at 4.1ghz... so don't go spending crazy money on RAM either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sokolov91 

Well the motherboards don't improve the performance of anything really... they just have extra features or more slots and can generally handle more power being forced into the CPU and GPU. If you do not overclock though these boards are highly superfluous. If you check benchmarks they actually tend to score slightly lower overall than their less feature rich counterparts.

 

Sooo, if you don't OC I would suggest pouring a little more $$$ into the processor for this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115224&cm_re=core_i7_bloomfield-_-19-115-224-_-Product

 

A motherboard like this should be more than enough http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128456&cm_re=gigabyte_1366-_-13-128-456-_-Product

 

Again,  unless you need a specific feature the other motherboards offer the same performance unless you are really into modding.

 

The RAM is also a place where people waste money. The actual frequency of the  RAM has to do with your multiplier and a bunch of other things, so in many instances more expensive ram, unless tweaked properly, doesn't run any faster than the more generic kinds. Eg my DDR 2 ram right now runs at a retarded 882 or something, but they are 1066 chips... they can GO UP to 1066 without frying but I can't use it as it is not stable with my processor at 4.1ghz... so don't go spending crazy money on RAM either.

Motherboards do effect speeds of a lot of things as it connects everything together. There's a lot of benchmarks out there showing the difference in speed with different motherboards. Not necessarily saying it's worth the money though.

And i think it's safe to say he will probably overclock considering he has an i7. Those chips are made to overclocked lol. Still you do not need an expensive mobo to overclock. My cheap $180 MSI X58 pro-e can easily do 4.2ghz with my i7 920 (with proper cooling of course).