Asus Motherboard for my 8800

The second 2 are open box items that i would pass on. these are items that have been sold and then returned, hence why they are cheaper, they are less likely to work and will most certainly have something missing from the usual sealed box.

As for the other 2, the first is the Striker Extreme which is an ROG (republic or gamers) board which is ASUS top line product. To be honest the main difference is the packaging contents the Striker has more copper for cooling (better OCing) and onboard LED's and power/reset buttons. For the price IMO not worth it get the 2nd one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131073

Actually you only picked 2 different boards. One of each new and one of each openbox. I personally wouldnt spend that much on a open box item. Open boxes are products that someone else had problems with.

well, im gonna stick with the 680i Sli ATX, and if it dont work to well ill return it.

The difference between the two boards you linked is the Striker has a e-sata port as well as buttons on the board for power, reset, and clear cmos. The Striker also has some onboard LED's for a little bling factor and a display on the back which displays error messages when an overclock fails. I have the P5N and it's a good board but I have had my problems with it. I think the Striker is overpriced and if your dead set on a 680i board you should go with the P5N or the Evga 680i.

One thing you might want to consider is the 780i chipset which Nvidia should be releasing soon. It really is nothing more than a 680i but has a few added features like PCI Express 2.0 support and an extra PCI Express controller that adds additional lanes to the ones in the 680i to make three-way SLI possible with three x16 PCIe slots.

If you never plan on getting a second video card I would strongly suggest getting a P35 board, something like the P5K-E for $142 is a great board http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131225 . That said if you plan on SLI at some point then the 680i is your best option and I would suggest the P5N32-E SLI or the Evga 680i A1 Revision.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131073

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Prod [...] ode=246713

Sorry for waking up an old thread but I just got a Q6600 with the G0 stepping and have been thinking about the Maximus card, what memory are you using when running at 3.6 GHz? Currently I have Corsair Extreme DDR2-800...guess I will have to replace them...?

OK, thanks - will start with my old memory then and see what sppeds I can reach

All the info you want on PCIe 2.0 is right here: http://www.pcisig.com/news_room/faqs/pcie2.0_faq/

The two standards, PCIe 2.0 and 1.1/1.0, are backwards and forwards compatible respectively, No issue there. However, don't expect to see any difference, at least not for a while (I hope I'm wrong... I like things faster). So to answer your question, JammerM, they are compatible and your Mobo is always the bottleneck for speed.