Asus X79 or Z77 for Gaming

[Octavean]

I'll also point out that while the native Intel USB 3.0 support of the Z77 line is a natural progression it doesn't mean that the third-party solution USB 3.0 support on X79 boards will suffer or somehow be inferior. Some Z77 boards will use third-party USB 3.0 in addition to Intel USB 3.0 too.

[Octavean]

If you look at the leaked Intel documents here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/172096/In...er-Report.html

You'll see "Desktop Processor: Standard Power Reference Tabel" which lists the following Sandy Bridge-E processors at the top:

Core i7 3970X
Core i7 3960X
Core i7 3930K
Core i7 3820

Followed by some of the following Ivy Bridge possessors:

Core i7 3770K
Core i7 3770
Core i5 3570K
Core i5 3570

And more, however, if you look to the right you'll also see a column on the chart for "PCIe Gen 3.0". Almost all of the Socket LGA1155 chips have a check mark for PCIe Gen 3.0 support and none of the Sandy Bridge-E LGA2011 processors have a checkmark for PCIe Gen 3.0 support.

The Ivy Bridge-E processor in the next leaked doc specifies PCIe 3.0 support though.

[OnInstinct]

If your problem is you want to run the Graphics cards in SLI at x16 3.0 go and find a motherboard that can do that, there are a few around on the Z77 Platform and it will save you money... i personally have an i7 3770k with an MSI Z77 Mpower and 660ti and it plays any game a good fps at 1080p on 120hz 3d monitor

[Octavean]

LGA1150 motherboards with the new Intel Z87 chipset are not that far off. So if no progress has been made you might want to switch the question to Haswell:

Intel Readies Nine Socket LGA1150 Desktop Boards for Q2-2013

[Kaerar]

Haswell should outperform the Sandy-E's so now it's looking better to wait for them as Ivy-E's are set to be released after Haswell. Such a pity that Gigabyte changed the SAS ports on the UP5 to being 3GBPS instead of 6GBPS. I got the UD5 instead because of that...

[Volja1971]

Originally Posted by Kaerar

Having just gone X79, I'd definitely take it over Z77.

Yes it has native PCI-E 3.0 support too.

Seeing as I'm running at 4Ghz with the crappy Intel $20 cooler without noticeable temperature rise with the 3930K it's definitely off to a good start. The boards also have many more features than the Z77's with the exception of Thunderbolt which as far as I can see is just a jumped up Sata port which can double as a monitor outlet too.

Also the new Gigabyte X79S-UP5 on the C606 chipset is a very intriguing proposition especially with the additional 8 SAS ports and support for Xeon processors...

Man, that is truth lie as x79 may have a native support of PCI-E 3.0, but none of the 2011 CPUs dose. There are no 2011 socket CPU that support PCI-E 3.0, also we do not know if there will be one!

[Kaerar]

I never stated the CPU's had PCI-E 3.0 active. Just that X79 chipsets natively support it. I can't help that Intel yanked it out of the Sandy-E chips.