Best motherboard to run windows 7 64 bits

MartyMacfly

Inactive User
Joined
May 31, 2010
Messages
117
Reaction score
30
Location
London
Hi chaps.
I want to build my own desktop system and would like to run windows 7 ultimate 64 bits on it and was wondering what is the best but not too expensive motherboard to do it.
Ideally I would like 8gb ram, i3 or i5 and be able to watch hd movies on it or stream internet hd videos.
I am new to this all so any suggestions are welcome.
My budget is no more than £400 for the project but can go slightly over. Although the cheaper the better if it is possible.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Marty
 
Are you building from scratch ? As in you need to buy mb psu CPU ram gfx ? Maybe case aswell ?
 
Any reason for 8GB ? 4GB should be plenty enough for what you are doing.

What other bits do you need, are you buying everything ?

And the cheapest option will be to buy a bundle, don't forget the cost of O/S if you want to be legal.
 
Yes I will build it from scratch. I willneed all the hardware to build it.
For the mobo I was thinking about those
Asrock h61m/U3S3
ASUS P8Z68V-PRO/GEN3
ASUS P8Z77-PRO
Yes I want to get as much ram as possible
 
Im running a Asus p8z77-LX with a i7 3770... 12gb ddr3... good solid mainboard tbh!!
 
Out of them the z77 is better but considering your budget the I would go or the 68

Well to be honest considering your budget I would go the amd route tbh, 400 is not a lot for a full new system
 
Last edited:
I got to ask, why the requirement for loads of RAM ? You will probably see better performance spending the cash on a better CPU, gfx card or SSD/hybrid drive depending on what you are doing.
 
I got to ask, why the requirement for loads of RAM ? You will probably see better performance spending the cash on a better CPU, gfx card or SSD/hybrid drive depending on what you are doing.


I have 16GB in my PC, more than is in my server :p lol

8Gb I would consider reasonable, 4Gb is borderline I would have thought as you always end up doing more than you intend.
 
Want a pc that I can upgrade for the next 4 5 years so a good motherboard to start with would.be great. Then I can upgrade the components to keep my system up to date as the years go by
Any suggestions are welcome
Thank you
 
Let us know what you decide to get - my MoBo is rather unhealthy after an electrical storm that blew a satbox and a LNB, so I want to upgrade too.
 
Want a pc that I can upgrade for the next 4 5 years so a good motherboard to start with would.be great. Then I can upgrade the components to keep my system up to date as the years go by
Any suggestions are welcome
Thank you
Depends what you'd be looking at upgrading as the machine got older...

My PC is approx 4 years old. For at least the last 18 months, if I'd wanted to replace the CPU, I'd've also had to replace the motherboard (or gone second hand). Intel's road map is well known, and the next socket (LGA 1150) is due out the middle of this year. However, there is no point in holding off on purchase as the socket it is replacing is less than 30 months old, plus you it's unlikely a CPU will appear in your price range until at least the Autumn.

Now, you'll always be able to add more DDR3 RAM to a DDR3 motherboard (until you reached the maximum allowed that is). But Intel is expected to move to DDR4 some time with the tock of the 14nm process. AMD are expected to go with DDR4 in 2014 at the earliest. These days the memory controller is on the processor, and they're not backwards compatible. As such if you wanted to switch to DDR4, you'd be looking at replacing the motherboard and the processor.

So far, the SATA and PCIe standards have been backwards compatible - so you shouldn't have a problem with those.
 
Anything from Asus and Gigabyte should be fine. Z77 chipset if you are going the intel route.

You need to decide how many memory and PCIe slots that you want.
 
If your starting from scratch then price up the rest of the components you need i.e. PSU, Case, 8Gb Memory, Graphics Card and so on then you will know how much you will be able to spend on your M/board & CPU. What your asking now is "How long is a piece of string"?
 
Many thanks for all the suggestions. After a lot of reading on the forums, reviews and so on, I have decided to go for this motherboard:
Asrock Z77-PRO3 ATX form.
I can get hold of 1 for 70 quids so not too expensive. I do not mind to go for 2nd hands components as I do not mind to learn in the process.
I will use the Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor for the mobo but will need everything else to build the desktop.
So I mean the following:


ram Memory:8gb DDR3
Storage: Internal Hard Drive
Video Card:
Case:
Power Supply:
Optical Drive:

I have all the peripherals such as monitor, printers, mouse, keyboard & windows 7 ultimate edition...I am just looking to build the tower/desktop.
Any suggestions are welcome.
Thanks in advance chaps
 
There is an integrated graphics processor on the i3-3220 which will be more than enough for HD video playback. If you want some light gaming too then an Nvidia GTX 650 or AMD Radeon HD 7750 for ~£100

Case is largely subjective. However, this CoolerMaster case + PSU combo is cheap without needing to throw the PSU in the bin: Coolermaster Elite 342 Black Micro ATX Case With Elite.. | Ebuyer.com

If you don't like that case, you can't go wrong with Corsair's PSUs.

As for optical, if you've the budget slap in a 6x BDR for <£60. If not a 24x DVDRW can be had for under £15.
 
Back
Top