ZeroDamage March 17, 2007 Share ZeroDamage Member March 17, 2007 I am looking to do an upgrade in the coming days/weeks. My delima is the confusing number of intel chipsets and features and the like. The AMD boards and chipsets are easy to choose from; you pick an Nvidia Nforce 4 based chipset. With intel, you have the P965, the Nvidia chipsets, etc, etc. I think paying more than a $150 tops for a motherboard is ridiculous. Although I have no intentions on going SLI or Crossfire, I would like the option available. The board I am looking for must be a decent over clocker. What are some of your thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boiler March 17, 2007 Share boiler Member March 17, 2007 This ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail is probably what you are looking for then. I am running an Asus P5B P965 with my E6600, 7800GT, and 2GB corsair ram, and it's been great. Haven't done boatloads of overclocking, but the little that I did play with indicated good potential. Just for fun I cranked up my processor to 2.8GHz, and it was ridiculously easy to do in the BIOS. I would imagine the P5N-E SLI would be similar in overclocking features. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Preacher March 17, 2007 Share Preacher Member March 17, 2007 Well you need to do homework man. Some dude that says his mobo is awesome is not a good reason to shell out your hard earned money to get it. I suggest you go to newegg and check out the reviews section of each motherboard you are considering. If at least 40 people haven't reviewed it then move on and if the reviews are less than 5 read carefully. You must choose whether it is SLI or crossfire because noone handles both. If you are an ATI person I suggest you go with the AMD side anyway and a nice ATI chipset for your crossfire dealio. My first response to anyone looking for a motherboard is to go Asus. My reason is that I have had 9 asus based PCs and have never needed to RMA or had one go bad. Gigabyte, Intel, PC-Chips, ECS, Shuttle and MSI have all let me down at least once. Asus is not, however, the very best for OCing- it ain't bad though. Most OC folks these days like DFI. I have a good friend who has the core 2 quad CPU and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813136168 he is a major OCer and gives this one a big thumbs up. He also is a big nvidia fan so he wanted one that would go SLI. When in doubt though check out places like Tom's Hardware or just google the model of the board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boiler March 17, 2007 Share boiler Member March 17, 2007 (edited) I always research my parts before I buy/recommend them for others or myself That DFI looks good, but it's over his price range. From the sound of it, the cheaper ASUS might still do everything he needs it to. But again, like Preach said, you need to do a little homework yourself using the recommendations you get from other folks in here. Most of the guys that post help in this forum seem to know what they're talking about, so our recommendations are a good starting point for your research I honestly can't tell you the advantages of the nvidia chipsets over the P965, etc. It seems that the nvidia chipsets are the ones that support SLI however, so you'll want to look at one of those, like the one I linked to in my previous post. Happy shopping! Edited March 17, 2007 by boilersax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroDamage March 17, 2007 Author Share ZeroDamage Member March 17, 2007 Well, I am not stupid to the computer area of things. I am looking for additional input on the Intel side of things since I've been an AMD guy since the Athlon first came out back in 1999. AMD motherboards are simple when it comes to chipsets. Intel on the other hand is a little more complicated and this will basically be my first Intel system EVER. I know that Cujo and I think M2 have Intel sets now and I am looking for some opinions on the matter. I am an Epox motherboard fan. They always seem to push out performance in the top 10% with a much lower expense than other board makers. I am using the 9NPA+ Ultra now with my Opteron 165. I am in no rush for an upgrade, I just want to get as much input as I can first. I think the big confusion is whether I should go Crossfire or SLI. Without a new ATI card to compare, I just do not know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Preacher March 17, 2007 Share Preacher Member March 17, 2007 Personally I would wait for the dx10 ATI cards to arrive and then go that way. My experience is that ATI always outperforms Nvidia. Plus monthly driver updates has always been nice. Epox has always been a good company but I personally have never gone that direction. I do have a lot of friends that have though. With ATI and AMD working together you might see a next-gen pair-up come out with a quad core amd and a dx10 vid. Wait till you can't play what you normally play as well as you would like then upgrade Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroDamage March 18, 2007 Author Share ZeroDamage Member March 18, 2007 Personally I would wait for the dx10 ATI cards to arrive and then go that way. My experience is that ATI always outperforms Nvidia. Plus monthly driver updates has always been nice. Epox has always been a good company but I personally have never gone that direction. I do have a lot of friends that have though. With ATI and AMD working together you might see a next-gen pair-up come out with a quad core amd and a dx10 vid. Wait till you can't play what you normally play as well as you would like then upgrade I want to be able to play HL2:EP2 with my details as high as possible at my current resolution. I am not sure if my system can do it when that happens without first bumping up my CPU and overall System speed. Video card upgrade will come later of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boiler March 18, 2007 Share boiler Member March 18, 2007 source loves fast CPUs, the Core2's do great with it. I haven't played HL:ep 2 in a while, but I saw a huge difference when I upgraded my cpu! My graphics card was pushed pretty hard, but I got playable fps with almost everything on high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cujo March 19, 2007 Share Cujo Member March 19, 2007 I haven't played HL:ep 2 in a while probably cause it's not out yet! anyway ZD, as the other's have said at least wait til the new ati cards come out. though ep 2 isn't coming out til Q3 at the earliest and by then there should be some second generation ati cards coming out so i'd just wait til then... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boiler March 19, 2007 Share boiler Member March 19, 2007 lol, i guess thats what happens when I try to have coherent thoughts the day after partying for st. patricks day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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