Motherboard confusion

[lucent0]

Hi,

I am planning to assemble a system shortly. Its my first experience in building it myself. I am considering the following components for my system; I would really appreciate if you GURUs can review and advice:

CPU - Q6600
MOBO- ???? Undecided, need you help to figure out
RAM - G. Skill 4X2Gb 240 PIN DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000) Dual Channel
Video - one 8800 GTX now (probably one next year in SLI)
Coolermaster COSMOS
PSU - still figuring out

I am planning to use 64bit Vista and also intend to use graphics in SLI mode. I am also planning to OC the system.

Please suggest motherboard that can meet these requirements. My budget is USD300 for the MOBO.

Thanks,

Lucent0

 

[badge]

Hi,

I am planning to assemble a system shortly. Its my first experience in building it myself. I am considering the following components for my system; I would really appreciate if you GURUs can review and advice:

CPU - Q6600
MOBO- ???? Undecided, need you help to figure out
RAM - G. Skill 4X2Gb 240 PIN DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000) Dual Channel
Video - one 8800 GTX now (probably one next year in SLI)
Coolermaster COSMOS
PSU - still figuring out

I am planning to use 64bit Vista and also intend to use graphics in SLI mode. I am also planning to OC the system.

Please suggest motherboard that can meet these requirements. My budget is USD300 for the MOBO.

Thanks,

Lucent0

SLI requires the nvidia chipset. Any 680i would be the top chipset available. 780i will be availabe very soon.

 

[lucent0]

I guess thats where the confusion starts; not sure which one is better (ASUS, G'byte, Nvidia).
Saw BIOS issues in some of the MOBOs avail today. Also read about incompatibility issues with 64 bit.

 

[badge]

You mentioned ASUS, Gibabyte and EVGA. ASUS and Gigabyte are the top 'enthusiasts' boards in the market. BIOS issues? BIOS revisions are commonplace. manufacturers release new BIOS versions regularily to address any issues that arise, provide support for new CPUs and enhance performance. ASUS uses American megatrends BIOS while Gigabyte uses Award. A matter of user preference. There is no incompatibility with a 64 bit OS as long as you build a 'modern' system for use with it. An older system could possible have some issues with a 64 Os, but a lot of people are fine with it.

 

[lucent0]

Good point "badge".

In that case I should be okay if I go with ASUS Striker EXTREME.

 

[badge]

The 680i will not officially support the penryn 45nm CPUs. The 780i nvidia chipset will be out soon. That will give you penryn support and PCIE 2.0.

 

[badge]

Intel X38 supports Penryn and PCIE 2.0 and you can Crossfire ATI/AMD cards.

 

[lucent0]

I was leaning towards 8800 GTX though. Was planing to buy one now and probably one same time next year.

 

[badge]

9800 series will be on the market in a year! 8800GTX will be Ebay frontline computer hardware next December!