Mobo Advice?

[Lucky13th]

Hi, I'm looking to upgrade my motherboard and I'm totally lost. The last time I put together a computer it was really straight forward, there were no multi core processors, you had one GPU (which we called a "graphics card"), and you connected your IDE devices with ribbon cables (I swear, this couldn't have been more than three years ago). Now, however, I'm totally confused. I ended up buying a Phenom 9850 which required more power than the Xfx board I bought could take. So now I have all these parts (which by now are a little bit out-dated) but no board.

I have a 2.5gig Phenom 9850 AMD2+ Black edition, a 1gig nVidia 9800, four 2gig sticks of OCZ Dual Channel RAM, an ASUS Silent Knight II fan and heat-sink, and a 1000watt Prudent Way power supply. I intend to run 64bit Windows XP (I'm not quite sold on Vista yet).

After some research, I was all ready to blow about $250.00 on a Foxconn Destroyer, except I can't find very many user reviews on it. The forums that I have looked at tend to rate ASUS as making better boards than Foxconn, but no one knew much about the Destroyer. So, I started looking at ASUS products and came across three interesting boards:

1. M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe
2. Crosshair II Formula
3. M3N78 PRO

I started looking at the specs and got scared off by the numbers. I'm trying to figure out:

1. Which of the three ASUS boards will work with my hardware.
2. Which of three ASUS boards have the best performance (I mainly do gaming and watch videos)
3. How do the three ASUS boards stack up with the Destroyer.

I realize I'm asking a lot, and I'm totally ignorant about new things like SATA and eSATA, and almost everything else, but could someone please help me?

Thanks.

-Charlie

 

[mopman]

this is a pretty pricey board, but if you can afford it. this will stomp the competition. I have a friend with this board and he says it can handle anything. 8 gigs of RAM (perfect for you) big graphics cards. the works. also very reliable and can overclock like no other
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131284

 

[dirtmountain]

With what you already have " 9850 BE, 4 2 gig sticks of OCZ (DDR2 i hope) and a 9800GTX , then this motherboard at $160 which features tri SLI (16x/16x or 16x/8x/8x) should be a decent choice.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157134
of the one you named the M3n-HT looked pretty good
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131290
*edit* but i will admit to being a cheap bastard*

 

[Lucky13th]

It looks pretty good, but I don't think it'll work with my Phenom, will it? The specs indicate it's made for Intel chips.

 

[rener]

Hi, I'm looking to upgrade my motherboard and I'm totally lost. The last time I put together a computer it was really straight forward, there were no multi core processors, you had one GPU (which we called a "graphics card"), and you connected your IDE devices with ribbon cables (I swear, this couldn't have been more than three years ago). Now, however, I'm totally confused. I ended up buying a Phenom 9850 which required more power than the Xfx board I bought could take. So now I have all these parts (which by now are a little bit out-dated) but no board.

I have a 2.5gig Phenom 9850 AMD2+ Black edition, a 1gig nVidia 9800, four 2gig sticks of OCZ Dual Channel RAM, an ASUS Silent Knight II fan and heat-sink, and a 1000watt Prudent Way power supply. I intend to run 64bit Windows XP (I'm not quite sold on Vista yet).

After some research, I was all ready to blow about $250.00 on a Foxconn Destroyer, except I can't find very many user reviews on it. The forums that I have looked at tend to rate ASUS as making better boards than Foxconn, but no one knew much about the Destroyer. So, I started looking at ASUS products and came across three interesting boards:

1. M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe
2. Crosshair II Formula
3. M3N78 PRO

I started looking at the specs and got scared off by the numbers. I'm trying to figure out:

1. Which of the three ASUS boards will work with my hardware.
2. Which of three ASUS boards have the best performance (I mainly do gaming and watch videos)
3. How do the three ASUS boards stack up with the Destroyer.

I realize I'm asking a lot, and I'm totally ignorant about new things like SATA and eSATA, and almost everything else, but could someone please help me?

Thanks.

-Charlie

I also owned the M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe but sent it back because it was used, when I seen Destroyer is cheaper I bought that instead.
Destroyer is so far one of the best boards I have ever own it has advance overclocking abilities and supports AM3 you can't go wrong with this board I give it a 9/10 the only reason it is not a 10 is because I have 8GB of DDR2 1066 RAM from Patriot Viper Series and it shows that I only have 4GB but when I boot to Vista 64 Ult it shows 8GB so no prob there and for some reason when I output to my TV 32 LCD from Panasonic the logo does not show so I have to turn it off in the bios but it works on a regular monitor, it's kind of wierd. It also stays pretty cool 35 C.