Advice on the direction of Intel Chipsets

[imported_Louis]

Hey there,

I work for a company that's involved in high end graphics applications basically as a low level Systems Admin, who arranges buying. At the moment I don't really have a great deal of control over what is purchased (for whatever reason my company has sided with ATI and Intel chipsets), except that now the motherboards we have bought as standard are being phased out and I'm being asked to investigate new alternatives. Generally speaking I'm a PC Hardware enthusiast but I have tuned out a little (since my last upgrade a year and a half ago), so I'm not very well versed on the current direction of intel and ati chipsets.

If someone could give me a rough break down of the various Intel and ATI (GPU) chipsets that are currently on offer or direct me to resources that could help me make an informed decision on a motherboard and graphics card to adopt as a standard.

As a second question, If you were looking to buy roughly 50 computers of the next year how would you handle this

Thanks in advance,

Louis

 

[imported_greentea]

Currently there are just two chipsets supporting Intel Core 2 Duo, either Intel 965 or Intel 975. Some of them come with integrated graphics. ATI's RD600 chipset supporting Core 2 Duo isn't available right now. With the merge of AMD and ATI, motherboard makers aren't eager for RD600. The future support for RD600 from AMD/ATI doesn't look good either. If you are looking for crossfire capability, go with 975. Otherwise go with 965. They are both terrific.

 

[markymoo]

rd600 will be the last board with intel chipset from ati

 

[cmdrdredd]

Guys, i think he's talking about ATI graphics cards, not motherboard chipsets.

 

[markymoo]

sorry its the excitement of rd600 getting to me.