Which Motherboard is best?

[fasteddie]

Hi folks, first time poster in this forum.

I've come to the crossroads of digital darkroom processing and must decide what PC motherboard/cpu are going to best serve me in the future. This new system will be used exclusively for Photo Editing (no gaming). I'm planning on upgrading to Windows Vista 64/PS4 and I'll need a faster, more powerful PC system that allows me expandable RAM (minimum 8 gigs but expandable up to 32 gigs). I'll also be using a dual monitor system so I'll need a motherboard that supports two video cards. What would you recommend I get?

Thanks in advance!.
Ed

 

[o1die]

Newegg sells a Tyan s2912g2nr opteron server board for $59.99 closeout that might work for you. At this price, I recommend you get 2 while you can. Sanmicro.com sells the quad core 2346 (socket 1207) for only $99 (heatsink extra). You can run with one or two quads. An Intel setup with xeon cpus is considerably more. Only negative is you'll have to flash the motherboard bios with a regular opteron to use the quad. Tyan recommends "Biosman" to exchange bios chips or flash it for you, if you don't want to buy a regular opteron. The regular opteron 1207 actually may cost more. If you don't need up to 32 megs of memory, then a regular Intel quad setup will work fine. Read the newegg customer reviews and decide if it will work for you.