Asus P5B-E vs M2N-SLI Deluxe

[Sir Fredrick]

I have been undecided about C2D vs AM2, so I decided to go with whichever has a better motherboard that is more likely to be upgradeable in the future,so yes, I am comparing apples to oranges.
I don't care about overclocking. I *do* care about power consumption, noise, features and stability. Both these boards have the features I'm looking for. The M2N-SLI Deluxe seems to have a nicer layout, and they are the same price. But which one has more potential for upgrading later? I tend to build a new PC every 5 years or so, and I would love to be able to drop in a much faster CPU halfway through that life cycle to see a nice boost in performance. So which board is my better option?

I know Intel says they are going to make a couple more generations compatible with LGA775, and AMD says the AM2+ and AM3 processors will work with AM2 boards, but I know that sockets are only half the battle, they also have to work with the given chipsets (and the MFG has to update the BIOS to include support).

edit: Edited text is in bold. How could I forget stability?!

 

[Centurin]

Originally posted by: Sir Fredrick
I *do* care about power consumption and noise and features.

If that is the case, then C2D should be the obvious choice. You can already upgrade to quad core if you want, and the power consumption difference is a no brainer. Even the lower end Conroe's are faster than the FX-62. Then again, it's your choice.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

I've had a hard time finding conclusive results comparing the power consumption of, say, a E6300 to an 4200+EE X2. I know the performance winner is E6300, but they're both blazingly fast compared to what I've got now, so I'd rather get one with better power consumption and a brighter future, so to speak.
I did notice that most of the intel boards are already quad compatible, which does make it seem like they will be more upgradeable to some extent, although if more applications don't start using multithreading well, the performance jump from dual to quad cores may not be as significant as that from current gen dual core to next gen...it's hard to say.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

^^ have to make my decision soon