Motherboard Question!

[OneEyedEd]

Hey everyone, quick motherboard and CPU question!

I'm helping my friend build a new gaming rig and had a couple questions regarding a few of the parts he bought. He is currently strapped for cash and is pretty much at his budget limit so he plans to transfer his GTX 460 from his old rig until he can buy a new card. The mobo he bought off of newegg is a MSI B75A-G43. I wasn't overly thrilled with his purchase and I also couldn't find any definitive answers to my questions online. So we were hoping you guys could clear the air for us!

1) Will the board support a single Nvidia card? Everything I've seen about this board points to it only supporting AMD crossfire, so I'm assuming it dosn't support SLI. That being said will it support his one GTX 460 and a future Nvidia single card upgrade?

2) Does this board support overclocking of the CPU etc...? I've looked on a bunch of forums and most people are saying that it dosn't or not very well. The box however says it has "1 sec overclocking OC genie 2".

3) He bought a Intel Core i7-3770 Ivy Bridge. I was thinking he should have gone with a i5 k or i7 k to allow for the overclocking ability. Would it be worth returning for that or would the difference be negligible? I was thinking it might have been smarter to have gone with the i5 k and spend that extra money on a better motherboard, since he's pretty much at his limit already. Thoughts?

Any other thoughts, opinions or concerns about this motherboard or about the rig in general are more than welcome! If the motherboard turns out to be a bad option he can easily return it and get something else... So suggestions are welcome!

Thanks in advance for the help everyone!

His specs will be:

MSI B75A-G43
Intel Core i7-3770 Ivy Bridge
Nvidia GTX 460
Team Xtreem Dark Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
250g Blue western digital HDD
a FSP 1000w PSU
Corsair 400R case
LG optical drive

 

[Celery]

Why worry about overclocking? That CPU is very capable as it is.

 

[OneEyedEd]

because he's intending for this computer to last him hopefully 3-4 years+ and it would be nicer to get a little bit more bang for his buck so to speak.

 

[Celery]

True dat.

 

[PP Mguire]

Only Z series can overclock so he would need a Z75 or Z77 board to overclock a K series CPU which answers your other question. A standard 3770 can't be overclocked regardless of the motherboard. If it wasn't for that, the B75 motherboards are very solid and capable for the price and if he didn't want to SLI or overclock it would last him quite a long time.

Yes, it will support any single Nvidia card, including the dual GPU cards like the GTX690. Nvidia does not license SLI to any board that does not have at least an 8x secondary slot due to performance reasons.

My thoughts, return the cheap 1000w and 3770 to get an ASRock Extreme 3 Z77 motherboard, a better PSU (Corsair TX650, Seasonic M12II 620), and an i5 3570k. Gaming does not utilize HT so an i7 is wasted on a gaming rig.

 

[OneEyedEd]

Yeah the PSU was given to him from his brother so that can't be exchanged. Other than that I'm pretty much on board with what you suggested. Thanks for the reply!

 

[PP Mguire]

It's actually a rather old unit, I suggest him to get a new one asap.

 

[OneEyedEd]

Really? how come? I really don't have much knowledge when it comes to PSU's. I currently have a Corsair HX850 in my own rig, it had good reviews, I didn't look much further into it other than that.

 

[PP Mguire]

You have a very good and rock solid unit (I owned one). Although FSP OEM quite a few PSU brands out there, they usually go for the lower end market, especially in recent times. The simple fact is, the PSU powers your whole computer, every single little piece that gets electricity. You want the most quality going into that unit because if it screws up there is a 50/50 chance it can take out your whole computer or leave you wondering what's good and what isn't. That is exactly why I solely recommend Seasonic and Corsair due to their fantastic PSU lineup and more so Corsair due to having nothing but great experience with their customer support (not to mention many many other good sayings from others). A lower quality unit can undervolt certain areas like 12v which things like video cards depend on and will slowly kill your hardware over time. Older units tend to do this over time too if they aren't made with quality parts inside. Power browns or surges also can change the voltage output and regulation of a PSU which can happen over many years. Very cheap units can spike your whole computer or just die without reason. Considering my educated guess is the PSU in question was new around 2006 or 2007 I would suspect it's taken a beating, thus should be replaced with something with more quality in mind. He won't need anywhere near 1000w and something like a Seasonic 620 or Corsair TX650 would fit the bill for almost any hardware combination he wants to do.

 

[OneEyedEd]

I doubt he'll be getting a new one any time soon though considering he got it for free, despite what I say lol. Thanks again for everything and clearing those questions up, helped a lot.