Question about SLI mobos

[jeremychiam]

going for a budget starcraft 2 build, i always get best parts for the money every 4 years

corsair tx 650
g.skill 4gb 1600
gtx 460
i5 750

whats the best mobo for the money?

and if i wanted to OC would it be easy? never done it before

also nice if some1 can suggest a good mobo for future SLI as well, and to name a few non SLI mobos and some SLI compatible would be great!

dont just name 1 mobo, as Im in Australia and most ive seen are GB, asus, asrock

so far im looking at Asrock p55DE3 for maybe SLI future, not sure on a non SLI mobo

theres so many mobos at different prices, not sure whats important and whats not

 

[Maziar]

Well most P55 boards support both SLI and CF, there are few(if any)boards that support none of them.
Asrock P55DE3 is a good choice, another good alternative would be ASUS P755D-E Pro/Deluxe.

 

[lowriderflow]

When you're looking for an SLI board, ideally you want a board that has two slots that can operate at PCI xpress x16. Most of the cheaper motherboards in the $100-$150 range commonly share one bandwidth... effectively making each slot an x8 when you install two video cards. Make sure you get one that has two seperate bandwidths (each PCIxpress x16 slots has its own) - I use and reccomend this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128423

 

[Nils]

Well most P55 boards support both SLI and CF, there are few(if any)boards that support none of them.
Asrock P55DE3 is a good choice, another good alternative would be ASUS P755D-E Pro/Deluxe.

That's not entirely correct. About all P55 mobo's support CF, but not all support SLI, as the manufacturers have to pay nvidia to enable sli on their boards. That's why boards supporting both are more expensive.
However, if a P55 board supports multigpu's, then most of them run in x8/x8 modes and not x16/x16 mode which is better. There are few P55 that offer true dual X16, but again they are more expensive. So If you want a P55 SLI/CF board with dual x16, you'll end up with the highest bill.

 

[Younasqureshi]

U must buy Intel DX58So
bcz it has ATI CrossFire technology enables two ATI* graphics cards & Nvidia SLI technology enables two Nvidia graphics cards
and it has multi -GPU GPU platform support (2 grphics cards in 1 graphic card)

but only one problem is tht,it is costly n it is i7 n intel xeon processor compatible.

 

[Younasqureshi]

Intel® DP55SB
&
DP55KG
are also best for i5 processor

 

[jsc]

Intel motherboards tend to be poor overclockers compared to Asus and Gigabyte boards.

However, if a P55 board supports multigpu's, then most of them run in x8/x8 modes and not x16/x16 mode which is better. There are few P55 that offer true dual X16, but again they are more expensive. So If you want a P55 SLI/CF board with dual x16, you'll end up with the highest bill.

The x8/x8 mode is a limitation of the CPU chip, not the motherboard. The i5's only have 16 PCIe lanes inside the chip. The only way around that is extra motherboard logic. And I think that only nVidia makes chips to do that.

 

[Maziar]

That's not entirely correct. About all P55 mobo's support CF, but not all support SLI, as the manufacturers have to pay nvidia to enable sli on their boards. That's why boards supporting both are more expensive.
However, if a P55 board supports multigpu's, then most of them run in x8/x8 modes and not x16/x16 mode which is better. There are few P55 that offer true dual X16, but again they are more expensive. So If you want a P55 SLI/CF board with dual x16, you'll end up with the highest bill.

That's why i said "if any", because i was almost sure that all of them support CF, but i thought there may be few that support none.
Thanks for the clarification

 

[Nils]

Intel motherboards tend to be poor overclockers compared to Asus and Gigabyte boards.


The x8/x8 mode is a limitation of the CPU chip, not the motherboard. The i5's only have 16 PCIe lanes inside the chip. The only way around that is extra motherboard logic. And I think that only nVidia makes chips to do that.

I actually said about the same thing in my previous post, but you erased that part when quoting

BTW: a motherboard is just as good as its chipset

 

[Nils]

U must buy Intel DX58So
bcz it has ATI CrossFire technology enables two ATI* graphics cards & Nvidia SLI technology enables two Nvidia graphics cards
and it has multi -GPU GPU platform support (2 grphics cards in 1 graphic card)

but only one problem is tht,it is costly n it is i7 n intel xeon processor compatible.

Indeed. If you buy a x58 board you will get both CF/SLi and true dual x16 pcie for a lower motherboard price. The cpu will be a little bit more expensive but what you save on the mobo can be spent on the cpu.
I suppose however, you already have the 750?