Desperate for a motherboard reccomendation for my build...

[Blank2k2]

hi, was hoping someone could help me *stressed out*

ive been looking at motherboards etc for my new build for a week now & im no closer to finding one. (that isnt stupidly priced)

my new setup consists of.....

PSU: OCZ GameXStream 700w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply
Case: Antec P180 Advanced Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Black)
Processor: Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
Motherboard: Abit AW9D Intel 975X (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 [ Removed after learning it doesnt support SLi]
Grapics: BFG GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
Ram: Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB)
Soundcard: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - OEM


and this is all ready to buy (just need to click confirm right now..)
but after learning motherboard is no good just before confirming im lost.

can someone suggest a good motherboard that supports SLi (Dual Nvidia Graphics, im hoping to upgrade to SLi in the future) aswell as everything above? (price range £0-150)


Edit: tempted to just forget the whole dual graphic thing, will "Crossfire" motherboards work with just 1 Nvidia card without any problems or bottlenecks?

 

[3lfk1ng]

ASUS P5N-E SLI

EDIT:

Edit: tempted to just forget the whole dual graphic thing, will "Crossfire" motherboards work with just 1 Nvidia card without any problems or bottlenecks?

Yes

If I could suggest any motherboard in your pricerange I would highly recommend the ASUS P5B deluxe, I'll let you choose if you want wifi or not.

 

[Blank2k2]

ASUS P5N-E SLI

EDIT: Edit: tempted to just forget the whole dual graphic thing, will "Crossfire" motherboards work with just 1 Nvidia card without any problems or bottlenecks?

Yes

If I could suggest any motherboard in your pricerange I would highly recommend the ASUS P5B deluxe, I'll let you choose if you want wifi or not.

think ill go for just single graphics, i guess in a year or 2's time 680i boards will be cheap anyway.

and ironically i was just looking at that very same board while refreshing this page lol only 1 avalible on UK website is the WiFi, tho ill never use it but meh its there like guess its something to play with

 

[3lfk1ng]

Happy Building Blank2k2!
~3lfk1ng

 

[Blank2k2]

thanks for the help ill order up my parts now ^^

 

[Blank2k2]

hmm, was looking at this motherboard this morning...

"BFG nForce 680"
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-001-BG

tis £30 over my budget but i guess i could find £30 spare since its using the 680i chipset

is this board any good? ive never bought BFG before (tho im ordering a BFG 8800GTX graphics card, maybe a good combo?)

 

[Blank2k2]

kk thanks, think ill go with setup of...

Case: Antec P180 (Black)
PSU: OCZ GameXStream 700w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply
Motherboard: Asus P5W DH Deluxe
Processor: Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
RAM: Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB)
Graphics: BFG GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
HardDrives: 2x Raptors (RAID)
Soundcard: Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Professional (prefered the sound of this as it had x-ram for £20 more then music edition)
OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Edition (yep im prepaired for the bugs)

DVD-Rom: Asus E616A3 16x DV-ROM (Black)
DVD-Writer: Asus DRW-1608P3S 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)
Floppy Disc: Sony Floppy Drive (Black)

and forget the idea of dual graphics for now, can always use the other slot for phsyics or sommit in the future i guess..

that all seem like it'll go together without bottlenecks / problems?

 

[Talon]

So far that board has gotten good reviews. There have been problems as mentioned above but there have already been BIOS releases in the last week to fix the most substantial of the problems.

I can't confirm that it was a 100% certain fix but a lot of users report it fixed their SATA issues. If you really like the idea of SLI in your upgrade future I think the BFG and the EVGA are great boards overall just going through a couple early growing pains.

 

[Blank2k2]

So far that board has gotten good reviews. There have been problems as mentioned above but there have already been BIOS releases in the last week to fix the most substantial of the problems.

I can't confirm that it was a 100% certain fix but a lot of users report it fixed their SATA issues. If you really like the idea of SLI in your upgrade future I think the BFG and the EVGA are great boards overall just going through a couple early growing pains.

at the rate graphics cards are going there making huge leaps foward,
i was thinking in 2 years time when the graphics slow down & i have to start lowering settings to play games etc i could whack in another 8800GTX for £100 or less & double up my performance, but i know its never that simple anyway thinking about it chances are in 2years time nvidia will have another card out that doubles/triples the 8800 performance anyways so ill skip SLi for now i think

 

[Blank2k2]

Sure! And, given the obvious trend of continuing
miniaturization, in 2 years most high-end graphics
cards will have 2 or even 4 GPUs on a single card,
eliminating completely the need for 2 PCI-E slots.

I seem to remember seeing a 2xGPU PCI-E
video card just last week.


Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library
http://www.supremelaw.org/

yup im sure this will be the last 1xGPU & 1xCPU (dual core, but u know what i mean) build ill be doing.... no doubt we'll see multiple cpu/gpu's etc in the near future.

 

[Blank2k2]

ive looked into the 1066fsb thing, and it requires the 680i chipset, which requires me to buy a new motherboard (£100 extra), and then new ram (another £100)

spending over £1500 as it is (£100 over budget) so im pretty sure ill be sticking with the build i stated above unless theres a problem with it

the only worry i have is the Vista, x64 not ever getting drivers for my R300 printer etc.... but then id guess the story would be the same for x32 vista aswell

 

[Blank2k2]

thats what i ment sorry i didnt do very good job of explaining it lol

ram can run at 800mhz, processor can do 1066fsb.

but for 1066mhz ram i need the 680i chipset

neway im no good at numbers, it gives me a headache lol,either way i imagine the performance ugprade from my current AMD64 3500 & 6800GT graphics will be quite noticeable

 

[twanto]

corsair memory is an overprice ripoff. I'd find something a little cheaper.

 

[Blank2k2]

> but for 1066mhz ram i need the 680i chipset

I think that statement is not correct.

For comparative purposes, this very moment
I'm looking at the User Manual for our P5WD2 Premium,
under "DRAM Frequency." Here are the options
we have on our i955X chipset:

[Auto]
[DDR2-400MHz]
[DDR2-533MHz]
[DDR2-667MHz]
[DDR2-800MHz]
[DDR2-711MHz]
[DDR2-889MHz]
[DDR2-1067MHz]

And, I'd be very surprised if a much newer
ASUS motherboard and newer i975X chipset
did not also support the very same options.

And, our User Manual also has a table
explaining that:

The FSB setting of 1066 works with
all of the above DRAM settings.

FSB setting of 800 only works with
Auto, 400, 533, 667 and 800.

FSB setting of 533 only works with
Auto, 400 and 533.


You can download the ASUS User Manual
for the P5W DH Deluxe from the ASUS website:

http://www.asus.com

I hope this helps.


Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library
http://www.supremelaw.org/

hmmm.... oki u win ill keep it in mind for a future upgrade, tis come to my attention my brother wants to build a PC... so in 6months time i could sell him my ram & upgrade to faster ram

now its 6am & i need sleep before i drop dead lol.

 

[Blank2k2]

my post re-appeared, couldnt find it earlier...


anyway, after researching that board, yea the board will go upto 1067mhz on the ram after an update...... butttt 100s of ppl cant get it to go past 900mhz without crashing etc & are flaming corsair n things cause they reccomend it for that motherboard.

some guy said it might be doable in the future when the bios gets more "mature" but atm its not

i found an extra £100 then too.. dunno weather to buy pc8500 ram anyway.

 

[pongrules]

If you do plan to go SLI in the future, keep in mind that the only boards that are doing true 16x in SLI (16x times two) are the 680i motherboards. The other motherboards do 8x in SLI (8x times two).