Setting a new computer Mobos advise needed

[awillys]

Hi,
setting a new computer i am lookng for the "best" mobo for Socket LGA 775 Intel. Readig some reviews here and there two boards seem to be above the other:
- Asus P5ND2-SLI/Deluxe nForce 4 Skt 775
- Gigabyte GA 8N SLI Quad Royal SKT775 Nvidia Crush 19+nForce4 SLI FSB1066 PCIE x 4 Dual Channel DDRII 8Channel audio Dual G LAN ATX

Usage: hard core gaming, photoshop, Maya, 3dMax, Flash

Which one of the two would you recommand me to buy? or would you recommand another one that is not listed here?

Thanks in advance for your advise.

Antonio

 

[mesarectifier]

You're seriously considering the Quad Royal?

Okay, ask yourself some serious questions about whether you're really going to buy 4 (!!!) graphics cards and then ask again.

You really need to post:

a) Budget

and

b) The rest of the specs for the proposed build


Quad Royal....what a joke.

 

[awillys]

Hi,

well I am not going to buy 4 graphic cards that's for sure.

My budget for the mobos: up to £150

Rest of the config:
- processor: Intel P4 - budget £200 (have not chosen which one yet - advise needed)
- graphic card: budget £300 (have not chosen yet - advise needed)
- RAM: 2GB DDR2 (2*1024). budget: around £200 (have not chosen which model yet - advised needed)
- case: Antec P180 EU Aluminium Super Miditower

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Antonio

 

[mesarectifier]

Okay, so I'm guessing the budget is about a grand then?

First, motherboard, don't bother with more than £120.

2GB DDR2 (2x1gb) starts at about £98, not £200.

This leaves you with 180 quid to distribute around the rest of the build. I'd reccommend spending a little bit more on the CPU, as a £300 graphics board is still about the best you can get. Don't bother with SLi setups, though.

Where are you buying from?

 

[awillys]

Hi,

Yeah the budget is quite important.

For the motherboard you think that the Asus P5ND2 is a good one then?

You don't advise to buy 2 PCI-E graph cards but one very good card instead? Radeon or Geforce?

Which CPU would you recommand? An Intel Pentium 4 900 Series (LGA775)?

I shall order everything on www.ebuyer.com.

Regards,
Antonio

 

[mesarectifier]

Asus' Pentium boards have a very good reputation, so I'm sure a top-line one like the P5ND2 will surely be a good board.

I will say to you not to buy it to allow yourself upgrade path to SLi - because SLi really isn't a sensible upgrade path.

Buying a 7900 instead of 2x7800, for example, would be a much better and cheaper idea than going for the SLi setup. If budget is important at all then steer well clear of SLi, only should it be considered if you have all the very best components in every other area of your system that matter to you and still have budget left over.

As for nVidia vs ATi, the choice is really GeForce 7900 vs Radeon 1900, although to be perfectly honest there isn't a huge difference between the two. People say ATi plays better in Oblivion, if that makes a difference.

As for a CPU, the Pentium D 950 looks good and is within your budget.

Have you already decided on other components yet?

 

[awillys]

This is what i have in my list so far:

Case:
- Antec P180 EU Aluminium Super Miditower - No PSU

Case modding:
- Mini USB Vaccum

Graphic Card:
- Geforce 7900GTX (maybe)
OR XFX GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB DDR3 DUAL DVI VIVO PCI-E

Processor:
- Intel Pentium D 950 (BX80553950 ) Dual Core 3.40GHz FSB 800 2 X 2mb LGA 775

Hard Drive:
- Western Digital WD2500KS Caviar SE 250GB 7200RPM SATA2/300 16MB Cache - OEM

RAM:
- (not chosen yet)

Mobo:
- Asus P5ND2-SLI/Deluxe nForce 4 Skt 775 Dual SLI PCI-E GB-LAN 1394 USB2 8ch.audio SATA/RAID Prescott and Dual-Core compatible ATX


Cheers,
Antonio

 

[mesarectifier]

It all looks great so far. I'm a big fan of 250gb drives from a price/size/speed point of view, and also 16mb caches are a must IMO.

As far as RAM goes there are a couple of options.

Going with 2x1gb DDR2 is the smartest option here, so you can use dual channel and leaving another 2 slots free for the 4gb upgrade that Vista is going to want if you want to stay at the cutting edge.

On eBuyer, the two I would look at are the Corsair 1gb DDR2 module priced at £54 and the Crucial 1gb DDR2 module at £65. If you can stretch the budget there is OCZ 1gb DDR2 sticks for around £90 each (obviously going for a pair of any of these). If you plan to overclock the OCZ is probably the best option, as 'premium' RAM is a must, however if not the Crucial or Corsair modules will perform more than adequately.

If you really want to save money, the eBuyer extra-value RAM is priced at £46 - I've never had problems with it (and I've used it on a great many systems) but it's your call.

 

[Primitivus]

Go with the Asus board. As far as memory is concerned check out Kingston as well. In my experience they're very stable which counts for a lot.