Help choose a mainboard?

Stupendous Man

Hello.

Looking to replace my Q9400/P5Q combination with a Core i5 2500+

Basically, I want the least expensive motherboard possible, while still having the best combination of chipset features, overclockability, stability and speed.

Then I want to match it up with at least 8GB of the fastest DDR3 ram that can be afforded, still achieving good overclockability speed and price.

Ideally, all three would total out at about 500 bucks or so. I don't know if this is even possible, but does anyone have any specific suggestions?

BLEH! · **Memory**: 24GB @ 1600 @ 9-10-9-27

TBH you're probably better sticking a bit more money in the motherboard rather tha the RAM, get some solid 1600 MHz stuff or something to that effect, anything faster is basically wasted. I assume you're going for the 2500K, so you'll be wanting a Z68 board for OC support. Brand wise, I'm not sure what's in it with the Z68 stuff, but Gigabyte, ASUS and Asrock seem to be names that get thrown around a lot as recommendations.

Stupendous Man · 02-27-2012, 20:27 | posts: 510 | Location: Gatineau

Quote:

Originally Posted by BLEH!

TBH you're probably better sticking a bit more money in the motherboard rather tha the RAM, get some solid 1600 MHz stuff or something to that effect, anything faster is basically wasted. I assume you're going for the 2500K, so you'll be wanting a Z68 board for OC support. Brand wise, I'm not sure what's in it with the Z68 stuff, but Gigabyte, ASUS and Asrock seem to be names that get thrown around a lot as recommendations.

Thanks for the reply. Anyone care to elaborate on that?