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Talk to me about motherboards

766 views 6 replies 3 participants last post by  zepp 
#1 ·
Christmas time is nearing, and if you remember I will have a new case and power supply to begin building a new system. So, I need to decide on a motherboard and processor, and I'm a bit out of touch with what is new and what is tops in the PC world after using Macs exclusively for five or six years.

The new computer will run Arch Linux, and hardware wise I want tons of power and future-proofing.

I've gathered that Gigabyte boards are awesome, I've read numerous bad reviews on Asus boards being DOA, and this new Z68 chipset is apparently popular now. I have also noticed that many manufacturers have moved to EFI, which I am used to on Macs, but of course I wasn't building those....anyways.

I want to be able to...

Throw 32GB or more of RAM in this thing.
Have the option of SLI, although I will probably not utilize it.
It has to be Intel. I plan to put a Core i7 in it, but I don't know which series/revision to go with.
Hardware RAID is a MAJOR plus because it will be running RAID5.
PS2 would be a nice touch, as would USB3.0 (seems common now).
It would also help if it is known to agree with linux.

Also, what is the big deal with the new Z68 stuff? And how much does EFI differ from the old CMOS BIOS functionally?

Pricetag isn't a big deal at this point, I can whiddle that down later.
 
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