04-10-2012, 11:49 AM
I am in the process of building a new desktop PC and got lost amidst the myriad of motherboards on offer. I would like some help with picking the most suitable LGA 1155 chipset. I will use 1 discrete video card so no need for an integrated GPU or SLI support. I will not overclock or use RAID. I will use a boot SSD, which as far as I understand makes Smart Response redundant. Four DIMM slots and Quick Sync support would be nice but not mandatory. I need SATA 3.0 for the SSD and USB 3.0 for future use, although I have no idea if them being natively supported is important or not.
Here is the setup so far, just in case:
CPU: i5-3550
GPU: GTX 560 Ti or HD 6950
RAM: 2x4 kit
PSU: XFX Core 550 Pro
SSD: Sandisk Extreme 120 GB
I don't need much in way of PCI slots, but I need four SATA 2 and two SATA 3 ports, as well as eight USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports at least.
Based on the above, can you recommend a chipset for me?
(Some actual motherboard recommendations would be nice too if only as pointers, since price and availability is very different in my country. I am aiming for a budget of $120 tops, though $80 is what I am comfortable spending on it.)
Thanks in advance!
Here is the setup so far, just in case:
CPU: i5-3550
GPU: GTX 560 Ti or HD 6950
RAM: 2x4 kit
PSU: XFX Core 550 Pro
SSD: Sandisk Extreme 120 GB
I don't need much in way of PCI slots, but I need four SATA 2 and two SATA 3 ports, as well as eight USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports at least.
Based on the above, can you recommend a chipset for me?
(Some actual motherboard recommendations would be nice too if only as pointers, since price and availability is very different in my country. I am aiming for a budget of $120 tops, though $80 is what I am comfortable spending on it.)
Thanks in advance!