X79 Board for OCing 3930k and 2 7970s?

[alduin]

So I am upgrading my 1090t to a 3930k and I am having a tough time choosing a motherboard. The requirements/setup are as follows:

3930k and 16GB (4x4GB ) of Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz (for now).

2 7970s in crossfire. Obviously I want to be able to use both cards with PCI-E 3.0 x16, and possibility to add a third card down the line would be nice.

For cooling I will be using an H100 and the reference coolers on the 7970s. I do plan to water cool a few months from now once I can afford it.

I will be using Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD, which can use any x1, x4, x8, or x16 PCI-E slot. So on-board audio makes no difference to me.

This whole setup will be installed in my Coolermaster HAF-X with a Corsair TX750w PSU.

I have 4 Hard drives to be installed; 2x Corsair Force GT 120GB in RAID 0, OCZ Vertex 2 60GB, and a Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB.

This machine will be used equally for gaming and 3d work and rendering on 3 Dell U2412m monitors at 5760x1200 (6048x1200 bezel corrected).

I'm pretty certain I want to get an Asus board, as it seems that other vendors are having issues. So currently I am looking at the Sabertooth and the P9X79 PRO. Which one of these should I choose? I really don't think it would be necessary to go for the RIVE or RIVF. Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[kilobravo]

Is it only for gaming?Single screen?The purpose of your build will also help us to help you.
If you really want a X79 build with the above mentioned,you need a bigger psu.750w is a little short.
The 3930k + 2xhd7970 are really powerhungry,when oc`ed.

 

[alduin]

Is it only for gaming?Single screen?The purpose of your build will also help us to help you.
If you really want a X79 build with the above mentioned,you need a bigger psu.750w is a little short.
The 3930k + 2xhd7970 are really powerhungry,when oc`ed.

Right I have edited the initial post. This will be powering 6048x1200 3x Dell U2412m. This machine will be used equally for gaming and 3d work and rendering. I realize they 750w may be cutting it close but I either plan to give it a shot and only upgrade if I run into problems, or just run stock clocks for a while until I can upgrade to water, at which point I would also go with a modular 850 or maybe 1000w.

 

[kilobravo]

I would reconsider,and maybe choose the R4E.Its more expensive,but for a work-build that runs on heavy loads many hours,it should be worth it.Quality/durable/price is close connected i think.

 

[Vicey]

Get the P9X79 Pro in my opinion. The RIVE whilst a great board (I have it myself) is really an unnecessary purchase for your needs.

And to be honest it's a very confused board I think. Is it a gaming board? It's in their Republic of Gamers branding and yet it has tons and tons of overclocking features and sub-zero cooling features not to mention the GPU voltage headers that you can solder to your cards. It's very expensive and I feel it would present many features to you that you'll never ever use so instead get the cheaper P9X79 Pro.

However having said all that... if you are however looking at any board at all which would mean beyond Asus then I would recommend the new C606 powered Gigabyte X79S-UP5 - That board is in a league of its own and is only £244 retail. Yes that is £44 more than the P9X79 Pro but I feel it's worth it, up to you though, almost all the X79 boards are fantastic and there isn't that much difference between them when it comes to core functionality, they are all offering SLI, Crossfire, some USB 3.0 chip and SATA 6Gb - It's hard to go wrong with whichever you choose.