Nvidia based build recommendations

[redzoneos]

hey guys, I'm going to be building a new system for a friend of mine that wants to spend around 1400.00 USD. He wants to use Nvidia so he has the ability to SLI since Nvidia clearly has the better video cards right now... I don't know anything about nvidia chipsets and stuff so I was hoping you could make some recommendations.

He's buying the new quad-core processors that are 350.00 (Q9450 I think)... Video card I think probably a 8800GTX since it's performance is very similar to the new 9800GTX or better, and can be found for about the same price now, This can change though based on your recommendations...

Motherboard: I have no idea... He obviously needs one that will support 45nm quads, but I don't know what brands are good, and what chipset to use.

RAM: depends on motherboard, but I'm hoping it will be a DDR2 board since the price is so much cheaper.

so anyway, the CPU is a definite... motherboard/RAM/video card is where I need your help, please fire away any suggestions you have!

 

[dagger]

Right now, 780i is the way to go for sli. It runs natively at 1333mhz fsb, and can be reliably overclocked to 1600mhz fsb, which is 3.2ghz for Q9450. Many people have been able to reach 1800mhz fsb on 780i, but that's not a number to bank on. You may not be able to duplicate it. For faster than 3.2ghz, you'll have to dump sli and go with x38/48 chipset motherboard, which rans natively at 1600mhz fsb and overclocks reliably to 2000+mhz. It only supports crossfire. The two costs around the same.

 

[redzoneos]

well ati has **** for video cards right now in comparison to nvidia (I personally have the HD3870)... So I think based on the amount of money he wants to spend, he'd rather get nvidia, because he will not overclock anyway... at least not enough to matter.

Any specific 780i boards you have in mind? Are they ALL 45nm quad compatible? what brand is good for nvidia boards?? also do you have suggestions for video card, and ram type (DDR2 vs DDR3).

Thanks