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Best gaming Mobo

P

Plumcuda1

Senior member
Going to be putting together a new gaming system and looking for a good mobo. Probably couldnt bring myself to spend more than $200 on a board ... but who knows.

And if it matters here are a few pieces that will be in the system

Q6600
Either 2x8600GTS 512's or 1x 8800GTS 640
4 gbs of Crucial Bllistics ddr2 pc800

Then the usual stuff ....


oh and this is the board I have been considering ..

EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
 
That's the board I have. Been running it about 2 weeks now without a hitch. At the advice of other owners on the EVGA forums I replaced the paste on the chipset with Ceramique. The stock paste was GOBBED on there. Apparently the problems a lot of people were having was attributed to poor application of paste on the chipset. I also replaced the tape on the mosfets with Ceramique because some people were also having problems in that area.

The other morning I woke up and when I turned the PC on I got a POST message that said something about the CPU frequency being out of spec (I don't remember exactly what it said I was half asleep). The strange thing is that I hadn't been fooling with the FSB speed at all. Until I get my Q6600 I'm still running my old P4 530 in it and I OC'd the P4 a little but since it's a prescott and I'm still running the stock cooler it was getting pretty toasty so I put it all back several days before getting this message. This kind of worried me, but I figure EVGA has such a great RMA service that if it goes belly up I can just send it back.

Also I'm not sure if they're still doing it, but when I registered my mobo with EVGA they have this Advanced RMA thing where they'll cross ship you a new board and as long as they get the old board back within 14 days of filing the RMA they won't charge you for the new board. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

But yeah, I'm not a guru and don't have as much experience as some of the guys on these forums, but I'd reccomend going with that board.

 
If you decide to go with only 1 vid card, you can save yourself a bit of cash by going with a good P35 mobo. Take a look at the Abit IP35 series, Gigabyte P35 DS3R, and Asus P5K-E. Just released also is the DFI Infinity P35 T2RL "Blood Iron" for ~ $140
 
Im sorry, but what's a P35 board? Been a while since I did any research on motherboards and trying to catch up on new tech for my upcoming build

edit. nvm. found out what it is. just a chipset
 
I used to have a P5N32-E SLI, I killed it with a bad BIOS flash. It was a good board, almost identical to the Striker Extreme without a couple of fancy useless things the Striker Extreme has. Some software would mistake it for a Striker Extreme even. However, I prefer my new Asus P5K Deluxe.
 
Originally posted by: Plumcuda1
So is the evga card that I mentioned a waste of money for a single 8800GTS?
Click to expand...

Yes, if you are not going to go with SLI you should be getting a cheaper but better P35 based motherboard.
 
My personal opinion is that very few people will ever use 2 vid cards. It's mostly a marketing gimick. Ask yourself...1 year from now will you really add a second 8800 GTS in there, when the latest and greatest card at that time will almost definitely be 100% faster? You'll sell your existing card or hand it down, and go buy the new one.

Hence, save yourself some money and skip the 680i board and go with a cheaper and less buggy P35 that overclocks just as good.
 
SLI then 680i chipset.

NON-SLi then P35.

For P35 boards:

Abit IP35-E
Gigabyte DS3R
DFI Infinity Blood Iron

I wouldn't bother with the ASUS P5K series.
 
Originally posted by: brencat
My personal opinion is that very few people will ever use 2 vid cards. It's mostly a marketing gimick. Ask yourself...1 year from now will you really add a second 8800 GTS in there, when the latest and greatest card at that time will almost definitely be 100% faster? You'll sell your existing card or hand it down, and go buy the new one.

Hence, save yourself some money and skip the 680i board and go with a cheaper and less buggy P35 that overclocks just as good.
Click to expand...

P35 overclocks better than 650i/680i. Also requires less Vcore for the same core speed.

 
overclocking is actually easy if you just do a little research. I have a very modest OC (CPU limited), but I notice a performance difference. DO IT!
 
Originally posted by: nyker96
just get a nice P35 board like the blood iron one mentioned above will serve you well.
Click to expand...

If I dont go with that board ...

other suggestions?

The mobo is the last piece I need. The vendor I use doesnt have the Blood Iron board ... so I need a GOOD mobo option tonight.

Thanks!
 
P35C-DS3R if you dont need 2 x PCI-E 16x, firewire & 1T command rate (limitation of all P35 I believe). You get 8 SATA2 ports with RAID, a reasonable sound card and upgrade opportunities with 45nm cpu support & 2xDDR3 slots. Plus it overclocks like a dream. And it cost $140 here in the UK and is probably a lot cheaper is the US.
 
P35 mobo & an 8800.
the abits & Gigabytes are a known quantity & appear pretty solid - I keep seeing a lot of niggles posted about the Asus P5K series.
the DFIs have potential but there isn't a lot of feedback yet from retail boards.
 
Well trying to get that DFI blood iron board .... but the distributor that the company that is building my pc .... is waiting for them to come in. I know newegg has them ... but not a huge rush and it is a friend of mine that owns the company so I want to give him the business. BUT ... if the DFI board does not come in on Monday ... I will get this http://www.newegg.com/product/...p?item=N82E16813128047
 
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