New Motherboard Suggestions

[ambershee]

Hi guys,

I've finally hit the end of the line with my Asus P7P55D-Pro. It's had issues from the day I bought it (a year ago) and it's still got them now, thanks to ****ty BIOS compatibility with, well, anything - and especially my i7 processor. My machine has been guaranteed to crash when running certain applications or performing certain tasks in others, and I've had enough of it.

My quest for technical support has taken me to Asus's own tech support twice (both times unanswered, and judging by their messageboards full of people having similar issues with this board and similar going unanswered, I'm guessing no help is coming). It's also taken me to Windows 7's own help, who were at least a little bit helpful in recommending disabling SpeedStep and C-State stuff, which did at least seem mitigate the problems for all of a couple weeks, before they kicked in again and everything was back to normal. I think I just got lucky for two weeks.

I then took my qualms to a third party site, and someone recommended me upgrading to the latest BIOS revision. No biggie, so I gave it a try, I was already quite out-of-date.

My problem is now ten times more pronounced, and here's the best one, Asus actually disabled the ability to revert your BIOS in this latest revision!!?. I'm stuck with this useless brick until they produce something new.


Or I can buy a new motherboard and tell them to go **** themselves.

Any suggestions on something reliable?

I need a socket 1156 based mobo to go with my (P55) i7, and I'm also using 4x2Gb Corsair Dominator (1600mhz DDR3 - 240pin DIMM), with a PCIE GeForce 9800 GT and Creative X-Fi. If it makes any difference at all, I'm using a single SATA HDD with nothing fancy thrown in and the usual pair of optical drives.

Cheers!

 

[inferyes]

I'm running a EVGA Mirco ATX Mobo with the same socket. It's worked great since the day I got it. That's what I would suggest to you.

 

[ambershee]

Thanks! It's possible, but I think I'd also like an option that supports hybrid SLI for when I upgrade in future.

 

[inferyes]

You could get a full size version of my board. I believe that would support SLI. I picked this micro board so I could downsize my case later if I needed to. My single HD5850 is more than enough to run any game at the highest settings so I don't worry about crossfire.

 

[ambershee]

Not available from my trusty local hardware vendor

http://www.scan.co.uk/Shop/Computer...t-1156-Intel-P55-Q57-Lynnfield-Core-i5-and-i7

 

[oldkawman]

This Biostar i55 Tpower mobo is pretty nice and it's not too expensive. It will do both SLI and crossfire.

Check out this review.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/254232-29-windwithme-1156-review-part-core-biostar-tpower

I run an i7 870 at 3.4 GHz with DDR3 1600. All I did was increase the clock and cpu voltage a bit. This is my first new mobo since the socket 939 NF4 era.

 

[Deathmaker]

Didn't hybrid SLi get taken out back & shot? I think I remember reading that it might make it onto the X58's but I can't say I've ever seen an H/P55/a support it.

I've built a few systems around Gigabyte's P55-UD3R and they've been very stable, I've been running one myself since January with my i5 750 @ 4GHz. with no issues what so ever. Scan don't sell them any more, only the P55A-UD3, which has USB3 & SATA6, but less power phases. If I were to be buying now, I'd probably go for the P55A-UD4, it does standard SLi.

I can't say anything about Gigabyte's support as (1) it's the first time I've supplied them & (2) those that I have supplied have all been fault free. I have heard that they are better than average though, so make of that what you will.

 

[shoptroll]

I used a Gigabyte (P55-UD4P) board in my current rig and it's definitely a step up in quality from the EPoX boards I'd used in my two builds prior to the current one. Definitely worth checking out. A shame about your ASUS board, I thought they were one of the better companies...

 

[Angel_Mapper]

I'm just glad they finally realized that the big honking video cards are blocking SATA ports and have started pointing the ports out the side of the mobos. I don't really have a recommendation, just a random thought.

 

[SkaarjMaster]

I'm using a Gigabyte board now (almost 2 years old) with now issues, so that's the brand I recommend; although, I have no idea about the i7 ones.

 

[Psychomorph]

I'm building a rig, and was suggested by a guy a Gigabyte Motherboard. He said that he experienced problems with several ASUS boards, but never with a Gigabyte.