Hello All.

Well, I am about ready to be done with my Asus P5NSLI (nforce570) motherboard. I have been pawing through benchmarks and reviews for months now and I still can not decide what I want to go with. I am Torn between the newer chipsets. P35s seem great, but are getting old. The nvidia 700's are very hot and the x38's are being replaced with the x48's before the x38's are even mature. I realize the X48's are just x38's with better wafers btw.

I am a gamer for one. I got to say my old asus board has served me well. Maybe one hiccup every few hours on crysis with all settings maxed in xp.(Non Vista/Non DX 10)

I basically do not want to upgrade now just to be way behind again come summer time. The MSI X48 platinum boards are looking good to me at the moment, supporting ddr2 and ddr3 is a bonus for me since i am happy with ddr2. But, then again... ddr3 will be mainstream soon... as will pcie 2.0 depending on the nvida and ati cards that come out later this year... so many things to consider......

I would sli if I could do it on a non nvidia board...

I am just looking for opinions....

System:
E6600
2x1Gb Patriot pc 800
Asus P5NSLI
Evga 8800 Gts 640
Pc Power and Cooling Silencer 750


Thanks for Looking

The P35 chipset is isn't really that old. I haven't really done my homework on the X38/X48 chipsets so I'm not really sure if the X48 is really supposed to replace the X38.

DDR3 RAM probably will not be competitively priced against DDR2 RAM until some time next year. Currently DDR3 RAM is about 3x - 4x more expensive than DDR2 which does not justify the performance increase, if any (for the moment).

Unless you plan on doing XFire, then the P35 should be fine.

I plan on upgrading to the Q9450 in the spring. At this moment the mobo I'm looking at is the Abit IP35 Pro for around $180.

I haven't been overly impressed with ddr3 price/performance either. It is still new and will remain high priced for quite some time like all new components. I have read many good reviews on the Abit IP35 Pro as well as some of the P35 MSI options. I'm trying to future proof a bit here, but I don't think that is going to happen....

Futureproof is really a catch word.

The system you intend to build will definitely not be futureproof because Wolfdale and Yorkfield CPUs represents the end of the line for socket 775 (LGA775).

Nehalem is scheduled to be released at the end of this year, but it might be pushed into 2009. Nehalem will introduce a new socket and I think it will take better advantage of DDR3 RAM than the Wolfdales and Yorkfields.

If you want to build a futureproof PC, then wait 'til next year. Keep in mind too that Intel plans on releasing new generations of CPUs every two years. That could also mean that Intel will introduce a new socket every two years as well.