Best Choice for a Mid-High config without O/C ?

[Muuthawg]

Hi there,

I need some advices to pick the perfect mobo, i haven't been following the mobos and chipsets news lately, but i've read tons of reviews about P35/45, X38/48, but noone helped me to make my choice.

I'm not a power user as i'm not overclocking and all that stuff, but i'm building a new mid-high config based on Quad Q5550, 4GB DDR2 (PC8500/1066Ghz), Radeon HD 4870X2.
I'm aiming at upgrading the single RadeonX2 to a CrossFire in the future.

I'm looking for a good performance card for this config and i don't care about DDR3 support, overclocking options and stuff that i won't use as a standard user (plug and .. play).
I don't want to spend many bucks for a card with features i won't use at all..

Should i choose X38 based chipsets ? X48 ? P35/45? Nvidia chipsets (bad imo for a crossfire config)?
Asus ? MSI ? Gigabyte ?
Quid of BIOS compatibility with my config ?


Any advice and help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[sgrinavi]

Nvida does not crossfire at all, just SLI.

If you really think you'll be running a crossfired x2 then you should consider the x48 board as it has dual 16x PCIE slots and the four GPUs may need them... BUT... I would wait to see how they scale before considering it. If you are not going to OC then a P45 board would be just as good for a single x2 or even a pair of 4870's

 

[Heidfirst]

with potentially 2 HD4870X2s in the future I would go X48