Where you can get Sandybridge Motherboards

[Sarvoth]

My situation sucked when they recalled all the Sandybridge boards. Why? Because I had everything sitting at my desk here at work to build a new PC except the board because I was still deciding. The following day I decided to go for an Asus P67 pro board, come to find that they had all been recalled.

I searched and wasted a lot of time on Amazon and other sources to find that, really, no one was going to sell me a board until I found Overclockers in the UK. (google for the link, I can't post them).

So for anyone who wants to get their hands on a 1155 socket motherboard, that is a place to do it. It took about 4 business days for me to get the board in Florida from the UK. It cost about 40 bucks to ship it, and it would of gotten here quicker if it didn't get held up in the UK for random security checks.

For reference, the board I picked offered 2 6gb/s ports and 2 3Gb/s ports (Sata) that aren't apart of the issue. The 4 possible effected ports on my board are completely ignored and thus I am not effected by the issue that caused the recall to begin with. End result, I have a manufacturer warranty on my mobo if needed, I got a next gen gaming rig and I didn't have to wait till April to complete it.

Just thought I'd give this as a tip.

[Saithes]

And costed 2x as much! Woohoo!

[Sarvoth]

Not really, I think the board was on Newegg for close to 200 bucks and I ended up spending 240 dollars, 40 dollars for shipping from the UK. I could be wrong on the price from Newegg, but I am pretty positive that is what it was up for. It was the pro version of their P67 boards.

[Saithes]

Not really, I think the board was on Newegg for close to 200 bucks and I ended up spending 240 dollars, 40 dollars for shipping from the UK. I could be wrong on the price from Newegg, but I am pretty positive that is what it was up for. It was the pro version of their P67 boards.

lol Then you got lucky since the exchange rate on the USD vs the GBP is horrible. Just know that the only way for you to get a replacement is through Asus Europe.

[Sarvoth]

Right now here is the conversion:

1 US dollar = 0.7250 euros

For the board in question, I just did the conversion from Overclockers, it costs 190 US dollars for the board. Of course you do have to pay more for shipping, but if you want it bad enough like me... then there isn't really an issue with that. Now, this post is directed to people who were caught like me. I would rather have a running system then parts collecting dust for the next month or so. I know Intel says boards should be out by mid March, but who knows.

As for the warranty being for Asus Europe, I already spoke with them and they said there wouldn't be an issue honoring it in America. There is nothing about my board that designated for Europe, it is the same board I would of gotten if I ordered it from the US.

[Saithes]

Right now here is the conversion:

1 US dollar = 0.7250 euros

For the board in question, I just did the conversion from Overclockers, it costs 190 US dollars for the board. Of course you do have to pay more for shipping, but if you want it bad enough like me... then there isn't really an issue with that. Now, this post is directed to people who were caught like me. I would rather have a running system then parts collecting dust for the next month or so. I know Intel says boards should be out by mid March, but who knows.

As for the warranty being for Asus Europe, I already spoke with them and they said there wouldn't be an issue honoring it in America. There is nothing about my board that designated for Europe, it is the same board I would of gotten if I ordered it from the US.

Except, England = Pounds, not Euros.

1.00 USD = 0.619800 GBP

Same board yes, but it's all about the serial number. Anyways, enjoy your Sandybridge

[Sarvoth]

Yeah you are right about the pounds.

By the way, I was wrong on the 137 pounds pricetag, thats with VAT and you don't have to pay that if you live outside the European Union. So it would actually cost 114.99 Pounds, or 185 US dollars. Still, not bad.

The serial number is what I gave them in question which they said should be okay. I personally don't plan to return the board anyways and it has been running for weeks, overclocked, just fine. I am really happy with my system. I can understand why some people who would be skeptical about buying a recalled board or something from the UK or others who are willing to wait. I was not and it took me a bit to find out the information I posted here, so this might help someone who is okay with the cons.

[Wrestler]

I also did what you did Sarvoth. I purchased mine on 2/22/11 from OverclockersUk should be here at my house anytime. I contacted Asus US yesterday the Tech told me since i bought it in that region they will not cover the warranty or RMA. I would have to go threw the Asus UK. Who knows what will happen i hope they honor it as it is an Asus product it shouldn't matter what region it was bought in as long as you have the reciept.

[Doomsin]

It's only SATA port 3 (labelled 2 on most boards) and above that 'might' have issues... Ebuyer.com has a couple, scan.co.uk does, and overclockersuk does too... just google the board you're looking to get and you'll find loads. P8P67 PRO was the one I was thinking of, with a 2500k cpu and 8gb of Ripjaw 1600.

[DrgnDancer]

So you're buying a board with a known defect rather than wait a month until Intel fixes it? I mean sure, the defect might not affect you now, but what if you decide to add drives? It's an impressive level of impatience to pay more money for a gray market item, that you can't get it through normal channels becasue it's known to be broken.

[Wrestler]

No iI am not worried about the ports cause my set up does not require me to use them only for an optical drive other than that its in the 6gb/s port and i will probably not add more drives

[Sarvoth]

First off, I got my board a week or so after the recalls were done, maybe not even 2 weeks. Also, I had all the other parts waiting. There is a difference of being impatient when you have nothing and you are just waiting to buy all the parts once the new boards come out. Everyday I got to work I got to stare at 1250 dollars worth of equipment sitting at my desk, collecting dust (ok maybe not collecting dust, but you know what I mean). I was both excited to build it and coupled with the fact I wanted my new PC for the plethora of PC games coming out next month like Shogun 2, Dragonage 2, Crysis 2 and Homefront, etc.

Do I plan to add disks? No. I have two 2 TB disks in my PC for storage and I am used to running on half of that.

Here is my setup:

ASUS P67 Pro
i7 2500K Processor (cooled with an Corsair H70 water cooling block), overclocked to turbo speeds of 4.8 Ghz per core
8 gigs (2x4) 1600 G.Skill ripjaw memory
130 GB 6gb/s SSD3 for the OS
4 TB (2x2tb) disks for storage
HAFX Coolermaster case
and dual Geforce 470's overclocked in SLI mode

I am very happy with my system and don't plan to return the board even when the new ones come out.

Tips for Overclockers:

Make sure you ship the item to your address that matches your credit card. If it is your first time ordering from them, be prepared to send a lot of info to them via email to pass their security check. I sent them a bank statement, photo copy of my license, credit card, and utility bill. Of course I blanked out sensitive information on all the documents. They just need to see the address and your name on them. Once I got through that hurdle, it was smooth sailing from there.