Making Mobo purchase friday and need some input!!

[dt27pilot]

Okay guys my situation is this: My msi x58 platinum needs replaced (burnt 12volt pins on 24pin cable and board)....this is the second time with this model board. Have replaced everything within past year so know its not any of my other components or power supply....and no, no power surges. Just think the board cant handle the power draw with 2 radeon 6970's and a pci x1 fatality soundcard. Its a older x58 board regardless its getting replaced friday. Now heres my delima and need input on the following 2 choices I have to make.

1. replace current board with msi x58 big bang xpower maybe some more memory....

or

2. replace with lga 1155, core i5 3570

Now Im pretty much only gaming...World of Tanks and BF3. I am running multi GPU AND multi Monitor setup. I am currently running a i7 920 which was sent brand new from intel this past august. I know with my current setup I get full advantage of x16, x16 crossfire but my cpu clock is only 2.6ghz. The 1155 will be 3.4ghz BUT Im stuck with X16, X4 or X8, X8 or even X16, X8. So I would be losing bandwidth there and I need to stay within budget so finding a board with nf200 is out of my price range and Im not sure that nf200 latency would GIVE me anything.

My budget is 300ish USD. Both solutions are essentially the same as far as price is concerned. I would prefer to go core i5 route but if Im losing fps while gaming I would just replace with a x58 and wait for 2011 prices to drop. A lateral upgrade with performance loss would make me disgruntled..lol. Forgive me for my platform ignorance but have had no reason until recently to be interested in replacing any of the current rig. Any help with performance input from you guys who have actually made the move from 1366 to 1155 and run multiple monitors would be great and thanks ahead!

My specs: msi x58 plat sli
core i7 920 w/noctua 1366 cooler
12gb kingston hyperx
2 radeon 6970's
pci x1 titanium fatality professional
corsair 60gb ssd
seagate 650 hd
OCZ 1250 ps

[Horrorwood]

Option 2.

PCI-e 3.0 = 8 GT/s bit rate (with 1.5% lost for overheads)

PCI-e 2.0/2.1 delivers 5 GT/s whilst losing 20% for overheads.

PCI-e 3.0 is basically twice as fast, so 8x pci-e 3.0 = 16x pci-e 2.0/2.1

Obviously the 6970 is pci-e 2.1 so it will not run at pci-e 3.0 speeds, but its nice to know you have it in the future. However all of what I just said it useless because of here

The results are actually a bit shocking to us to be honest. We weren’t so surprised that in the previous evaluation x8/x8 did not cause any differences at 2560x1600 but did at 5760x1200. However, we thought certainly at x4/x4 PCIe 2.0 mode there would be some kind of a bottleneck at 2560x1600, but the results have proven otherwise. Even with all the data that GTX 480 SLI is pushing across the PCIe bus, x4/x4 is NOT a bottleneck in a single display setup at 2560x1600 with AA enabled. The only game to show us any difference was AvP, but it did not affect the gameplay experience. Therefore, if you are on an aging PCIe 1.X system at x8/x8 mode (equivalent to PCIe 2.0 x4/x4) on a single display fear not, you are not holding back the performance of GTX 480 SLI or we guess with any CrossFireX or SLI configuration.

Not only that, the i5 3570 is a much faster chip and will give you much higher FPS in games with your setup anyway.

[dt27pilot]

Thanks for replying...its been a while since I have been in the forums. Was kind of surprised it took as long as it did to get some feedback. I didnt know anything about the 3.0 pci express architecture. Again thanks for the input

[Horrorwood]

Thanks for replying...its been a while since I have been in the forums. Was kind of surprised it took as long as it did to get some feedback. I didnt know anything about the 3.0 pci express architecture. Again thanks for the input

No problem. Make sure you get a Z77 or Z68 gen 3 board so that you get pci-e 3.0 :)

[dt27pilot]

Went ahead and got the asrock z77 extreme4 and i5 3570. Have to say a noticable upgrade as far as in game performance even tho both vidcards (radeon 6970's) are running in 8X pci express 2.0 mode. Would have liked the 3770 but the price on the 3570 was too good to pass up. Mobo, cpu and 8gb more memory only set me back 322usd.

[Horrorwood]

Went ahead and got the asrock z77 extreme4 and i5 3570. Have to say a noticable upgrade as far as in game performance even tho both vidcards (radeon 6970's) are running in 8X pci express 2.0 mode. Would have liked the 3770 but the price on the 3570 was too good to pass up. Mobo, cpu and 8gb more memory only set me back 322usd.

There is zero difference in games between the 3570 and 3770 at the same clocks anyway