Help me choose a LGA1366 for SLI setup with Sound Card

V

Vol

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 30, 2005
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213
I'm planning on building this system but I don't know which motherboard to choose. I don't plan on doing OC. If I do, it will be very minor OC. The rig will be used for gaming and developing 3D games.

Case: Silvertone Fortress FT02B-W (to buy)
PSU: Corsair HX850 or HX1000 depending on what is needed (to buy)
VGA SLI with 2x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Fermi 720MHZ 1024MB 3.6GHZ (bought)
SSD: Intel X25-M 120GB 2.5IN SSD SATA II (bought)
HDD: RAID 1 with 2x Western Digital WD20EARS 2TB SATA2 (bought)
CPU: Intel Core i7 950 (to buy)
MOBO: ??
RAM: I'll look into that when the motherboard is selected
SB: Audigy X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity (would like to use it from my current PC) edit: I previously stated it was a 2-ZS but it was a mistake

If it wasn't for the sound card, I would choose one of those 3 (in order of preference):
ASUS P6X58D-E
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
ASUS Sabertooth X58

Is there any motherboard that have room for a sound with a SLI setup? That would have to fit inside the FT02. Do I need to pick a LGA1156 instead so that I have room for it?

Should I just forget about using my sound card and let it rot inside my soon to be old computer? If so, which one of the 3 X58 boards has the best sound? What is your preference in those 3?

Thanks for any advice!
 
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The three boards you list all use a Realtek ALC soundchip. I'm not familiar with the 892 chip used on the Sabertooth, but my experience with the ALC889 has been good. Noticing a difference (between modern onboard and an Audigy 2 ZS) is arguable unless you have very good speakers or headphones...

This board from EVGA looks like it would be ok, with good GPU spacing and a PCI slot at the bottom where it wont be obstructed if you use the upper 2 PCIe slots : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188065 - not a lifetime warranty board only one year.

and this older model from Asus may work but the soundcard will sit between the two GPU's (dunno if that'll work but it should fit) : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131403
 
go with "ASUS Rampage III Formula" then you probably won't need a sound card.
 
The E758 and E768 have the best positioning for an SLI setup and PCI slot free. Most of those other boards will cover the free PCI slot since those cards are dual slot cards. You basically need a tri sli board or a board like the P6T that spaces the PCI-E cards out.
 
Thanks for all the input :)

I made a mistake in my initial post. It's a X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity that I currently have in my PC. That would be the card that I would be reusing in my new PC. The Audigy 2-ZS is in my older one (I always get confused when I update my drivers...). This changes thing a lot since it would use a pci-e instead of a pci slot... I feel kind of stupid now :S

I know the difference between on board sound and a dedicated sound card is hardly noticeable but I really love all the bell and whistles that comes with one. I've look at all the board suggested and I was surprised to see that some board comes with integrated X-Fi. I really didn't know about that existed. I must say that I wasn't really looking at the +250$ board anyway. Still, I would like something around 200$ if possible.

The Gigabyte X58A-UD3R has 2 pci-e x1 next to the first pci-e x16 while the 2 ASUS from my initial post only have one. Should I consider this when I think about airflow or will it will not matter enough?

I'm leaning more toward the ASUS Sabertooth. Anyone has any experience with that board?
 
Vol said:
The Gigabyte X58A-UD3R has 2 pci-e x1 next to the first pci-e x16 while the 2 ASUS from my initial post only have one.
Click to expand...

I use this same board and the topmost x1 slot on it is useless unless the card is shorter than (approx) 3.25 inches. Any longer and it'll hit the motherboard heatsink/heatpipe assembly.

The second x1 slot works very nicely for add-on sound (my X-Fi working very well there now and it's not in the way of anything).

The built-in X-Fi on some motherboards is no better (IMO) than any of the recent onboard sound from Realtek (ALC 885, 889, etc.) and you often pay a high premium for it. They do not use the EMU20K chip that 'real' X-Fi uses (same thing they did with the X-Fi extreme audio - it is basically a rebadged Audigy SE).

There was a thread on the Sabretooth when it first released, and general comments seemed to be very good. I have not read or followed it in quite awhile but it's here for your reading pleasure: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1542946&highlight=sabretooth
 
No Realtek chip is capable of sound as good as a medium-end soundcard. I'm using an 8-channel Realtek chip onboard my motherboard with DTS tech right now, and it doesn't do nearly as well as my Xonar D1 with Dolby in its surround simulation. Overall it's not bad, but it's not as good, either.
 
Thanks for the link maro. Most people seems satisfied with Sabertooth which is good.
I finally went with the ASUS Sabertooth. With my Audigy X-Fi everything should sound good :)
 
I almost went for the ASUS Rampage III Formula but I went overboard with my build. I wanted to build a moderate PC around $1500 to replace my 3 years old rig. In the end, it cost me $2275. The Rampage was $120 more than the Sabertooth. I told myself that reaching +900 was starting to be way over my budget. That was the end of the argument but I kept everything else XD

edit: I just reread myself. The order of my sentences sucks but I'm too tired to make it better. I'll go back to my lines of code...
 
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