Help pick mobo to OC 6600 (possible upgrade to quad) and SLI

[Phrozt]

Ok.. I kind of want everything with this board. I want the ability to upgrade in the future, the ability to OC, and the ability to do SLI (because you can't have crossfire and SLI abilities on the same board, right?)

Last time I built a comp, people barely even cared about the chipset (now more correctly called the "north bridge") and there wasn't even a south bridge to worry about.

I've been looking into the Gigabytes, but only one has 2 PCIE x16 slots, and the comments were that the board had a lot of problems ( GIGABYTE GA-965P-DQ6 ), and yet they also say the gigabyte boards are best for OCing...

Right now, the board choice is a pretty big hangup for me.

 

[Nossy]

If you want SLI, any P965 board is out of the mix as they only support Crossfire. The Gigabyte P965-DQ6 board is great for OCing and does have 2x PCI-e but it's configured as (16x/4x) configuration.

Your best choice is the nforce 680i or 650i. The 680i can do 16x/16x in SLI mode while the 650i can only do 8x/8x on the PCI-e slots, so that's something to consider.

Gigabyte is coming out with the 680i-DQ6 soon and some current boards are already out. They all support Quad and have 1333MHZ FSB capability.

EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel

ASUS P5N32-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel

ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

ABIT IN9 32X-MAX LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI

ASUS Striker Extreme LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX The Ultimate Gaming Motherboard

Out of all these boards I'd probably feel better with the ABIT IN9 32X-MAX or the EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR.

 

[OxIN]

If you don't want to pay the really high price of the 680i chipset, Gigabyte and MSI are coming out with with a 650i chipset themselves this month (found out on this board, actually), since the ASUS received less than growing reviews.

 

[Phrozt]

darn... just when I thought I had found the perfect board....

are there any boards out there that support SLI and CF?

 

[jphillips1868]

I would be very carefuly about the nforce 680i based motherboards. They have lots of problems.

My EVGA 680i died after one week. Until then it was very stable and easy to OC.

Check out the EVGA forums for a tasted of the problems.

 

[Nossy]

SLI and Crossfire on one board? Not officially. Some people have said they tried hacking some of the P965 board to work with SLI, but I havent seen it yet. It's either one or the other.

EVGA is brand new to the market with MBs so I'm hesitant to go with them. Also, I'm not sure if EVGA uses solid state capacitors and 8+ phase power - which increases the durability of the MB, especially if you want to overclock. This probably explain why the EVGA board is the cheapest. Asus, Gigabyte, and abit are the more reliable ones (Asus quality has been going downhill in my mind the past few years). Gigabyte is pretty good, except they don't have a 680i board out on the street yet, but it was announced - N680i-DQ6.

The 680i chipset has generally been getting mostly positively review for overclocking, but its southbridge, the MCP has been much criticized (Some reports of data corruption using SATA Drive).

The abit IN9 32X MAX is the one I'm eyeing on with the 5-phase Digital PWM. It does come at a price ~ $350. Just waiting for the reviews...