Which Motherboard do I want?

[Precision690FAN]

Im custom building right now and I was looking at motherboards on newegg, but the selection is so big i couldn't make up my mind. So please tell me what you find.
there are some requirements it needs to make,

It has to fit this CPU (I will put the Newegg number cause i would like to buy everything off Newegg) Item#: N82E16819103913

Another feature it has to have, is Cross-fire, i want to do Cross-fire with 2 of these Item#: N82E16814102872

Also im on a budget and the motherboard cant be more than $150

I know thats a lot to ask but thats why I came Tom's Hardware.

Please post anything you find, like, or your current setup that is working for you .

 

[sadams04]

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T... First, if you plan on overclocking, drop down to the 1055T or 1075T. They will OC very similarly...

MB - There are lots of options out there. Look for SATA 6, USB 3.0 (800 series chipsets) How about the ASRock Extreme below? It will do crossfire at 8x/8x for that pair of HD 5870 GPUs (overkill??).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157198&cm_re=asrock_extreme3-_-13-157-198-_-Product

 

[tecmo34]

^+1....

The ASRock 870 Extreme 3 is the best value to performance / features motherboard you can purchase... IMO!

 

[Precision690FAN]

Don't get me wrong thats a great Motherboard, but please bare with me and i'm sorry cause i'm going to be picky...
I really like the specs on the motherboard and the only is, i wanted to do cross-fire with both slots being 16x (if thats even possible, i'm not to familiar with Cross-fire, and if they have to share the bandwith)
Also I would like the FSB to be as high as possible.
One more thing the CPU and graphic card is a solid deal (no changing) cause someone is getting me a REALLY good deal on them.
thank-you again and sorry for being so picky

(wait sorry I forgot its not called FSB its Hyper Transport. Got to get in the AMD frame of mind)

 

[sadams04]

8x8x versus 16x16x is a minimal difference, however I do understand where you are coming from. 16x16x => http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131644&cm_re=asus_motherboard-_-13-131-644-_-Product

 

[Precision690FAN]

YA thats a nice one!
So theres not much of a difference between 8x and 16x?
And are 16x graphic cards downgradeable to 8x?
Also what do you think of this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130275

 

[tecmo34]

I would go with the ASRock over the MSI. It runs at x16,x4 and isn't as good as x8,x8. If you can bump your budget up a little, you can go with the ASRock 890FX Deluxe4 AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard, which is the cheapest x16,x16 board.

 

[Precision690FAN]

whoa thats a nice ASRock board. But some people think ASRock is a cheap brand, are they? or is that just compared to ASUS and GIGABYTE.

 

[tecmo34]

Well... They are owned by ASUS, so they are a good brand.

I look at it as ASUS is a Lexus and ASRock is a Toyota... They are all own by the same group and are both good. One is just the budget brand and the other highend brand.

 

[Precision690FAN]

Great analogy! Now for the final question, is it cross-fire capibile with two of these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102872
(sorry i ask that question a lot)

 

[jaquith]

I would either go the ASRock 890FX Deluxe4 or ASUS M4A89TD PRO/USB3 since we're apparently popping the $150 cap. You want the 890FX chipset and you don't want a MOBO with an onboard GPU with CF.

Yep ASRock and ASUS are the same owners/engineering teams.

Side-by-Side -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007625%20600007943&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=22|13-157-208^13-157-208-TS,13-131-655^13-131-655-TS,13-131-644^13-131-644-TS

 

[jaquith]

Yep it's a CF card; note the connections in the top right corner.

 

[Precision690FAN]

OK, its just down to the ASRock or ASUS, which are exactly the same price. So I think i'm going to go with the ASUS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131655
Nice, thanks for answering all my questions! I got a machine to build

 

[jaquith]

HUGE QUESTION???
1. Do you play Crysis or what games do you want with the CF?
2. What resolution and how many monitors?

We play Crysis.

 

[Precision690FAN]

Single monitor 23" (for now,want more) running at 1920x1080.
and i'm not sure about the games, i'm kinda doing research for my friend. but ya he probably plays Crysis, and Ghost Recon advanced warfighter, and other games?

 

[jaquith]

Then you might want to research your ATI GPUs vs games, you 'can' get decent frame rates with low quality and might want to rethink everything. Also, nVidia scales better than ATI/AMD. A few months ago I built a 'crazy' AMD rig for one of my friends, warned him, and the gaming results $ per $ weren't close on an i7 vs AM3 rig which was a $1K more.

Good article - http://www.techspot.com/review/289-geforce-gtx-480-sli-versus-radeon-5870-crossfire/page2.html depends on the games, resolution, details, etc.

Research first that's all I'm suggesting. Rigs > $1200 my votes go for SB or X58. Bull dozer

 

[Precision690FAN]

Ok good info thanks

 

[jaquith]

Also, I'm not an AMD snob, I look forward to th Bulldozer {above hit post too soon}. I hope that their new stuff is great and whatever the ATI architecture scaling problem they improve it. I jump from ATI -> nVidia constantly, but with since the GTX 470/480 something popped with nVidia.

Again, it's all about the 'use' - AMD is killer with Maya rendering.

The older GTX 480's ran hotter than hell, but the new GTX 5XX series 'fixed' that problem and added better performance plus with a LOT LESS power. Go figure?!

 

[Precision690FAN]

Ya i have been reading alot about how nVidia has really been stepping it up and making ATI work harder. but now that nVidia's SLI has passed ATI's Cross-fire... it might be time for ATI to step down.