975x, 680i, R600 I can't seem to wrap my head around it.

[ohlmsjm]

I'm looking to upgrade soon and I had my heart set on the Asus Striker Extreme motherboard but as I sit here and think about it, I'm not so sure that I want to do any serious overclocking.

If I do plan to oc it's going to be rather mild without anything other than standard air cooling with a respectable HSF/Fan.

I'm a gamer, media designer, etc. so I would like to be as futureproof as possible while retaining maximum stability and I can't seem to decide between the BadAxe line of mobos, the Asus Striker, or holding out for the RD600.

Is there anyone that has any recommendations or point me to information where I might further educate myself on those 3 chipsets at a glance?

I plan to go with an E6600 at the time of this post, using integrated sound, and possibly a future SLI setup if that helps.

Thanks!

 

[rodney_ws]

An R600 is an ATI GPU... so I'm guessing you meant RD600. Either way, an ATI won't board support an SLI setup (SLI being NVidia specific) However, the ATI board will support Crossfire (ATI's name for dual graphics card setups)

If you're going for a dual card setup, it really depends on which brand of card you see yourself with... if you plan on buying dual NVidia cards go ahead and scratch the ATI board from your list. Want dual ATI cards? No NVidia based motherboard for you.

I'm rather disappointed that it's come to this.

 

[ohlmsjm]

Yup, it is dissappointing and I did mean the RD600.

I haven't officially committed to going SLI since I'm only sporting a 20" Dell Monitor anyway. It will only reach 1600x1200 which I understand is the bare minimum resolution that you will START to see benefits from a dual GPU setup.

I've used both ATI and Nvidia and have been impressed with both, I've just used Nvidia longer.

Like I said earlier, I REALLY have my heart set on that striker extreme board but I also said the same thing about the Abit AW9 Max.

I believe that I can be persuaded in either direction at this point but in my mind, stability and performance come first before feature sets which is why I am questioning the Striker, even though, it does seem like it's futureproof AND there's some pretty nifty bells and whistles on it.

 

[cb62fcni]

Well, the stryker sure is fancy looking, but how much does it really offer for that extra 150 bucks? Some LED's and a bunch more copper tubes? Why not simply get the eVGA and have extra cash for SLI/Memory/HDD? I'm honestly a little apprehensive about the RD600, not that I don't have faith in DFI and their designers, mainly because it will be the ONLY motherboard for C2D based on that chipset, and for future-proofability, it does NOT officially support Quad procs, or FSB1333. It will probably be among the very best overclockers, but that doesn't seem to be what you're looking for.

If you're dead set on stability and not so much SLI, than the 975X/965 motherboards are very good. The 965 offers better memory bandwidth due to a better controller, and more SATA, though only limited IDE support. The 975X is a very stable and proven, but shows its age when compared to 965 in some regards. The 965 will also support crossfire now. Both support Core 2 Quad and allow for highly decent overclocks, the 965 usually outperforms the 975 in overclocking.

 

[rodney_ws]

The whole ATI/AMD merger complicates matters for people who were AMD/NVidia fanatics... gotta pick one or the other now. My desktop at home is an AMD with an NVidia based motherboard and an NVidia based GPU. At the time I got it, it was really the best that was available (excluding an FX series processor) Won't be able to do that in the future..

 

[McParty]

I think the Striker is over priced for what you get, the EVGA is missing a couple of the minor bells and whistles bot for $150 less and a lifetime warranty, you can't go to wrong!
Now the Abit and MSI 680i based boards are coming out soon. Abit before the MSI I believe...and the Abit board looks pretty good!

You can also check out www.motherboards.org for some more information.

 

[Dan1317]

The whole ATI/AMD merger complicates matters for people who were AMD/NVidia fanatics... gotta pick one or the other now. My desktop at home is an AMD with an NVidia based motherboard and an NVidia based GPU. At the time I got it, it was really the best that was available (excluding an FX series processor) Won't be able to do that in the future..

I thought 680a was coming out as well?

 

[rodney_ws]

Think there will be something beyond that?