Best Sli Mobo

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TheoPetro

Banned
Nov 30, 2004
3,499
1
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I checked anand's mobo roundup and noticed there are newer boards out. i was wondering what the best mobo for sli is. i want silent if possable. i will be running whats in my sig (except w/ 2 7800gts and the reccomended mobo). I want good overclocking but STABLE. i cant stress the stability issue enough. I am computer problem prone. if it can go bad w/ a build it will w/ me. so the bord w/ least problems and a good OCer. also needs 3 pci slots.

cliffs notes
Stable/ least problomatic board
Good OCer
3 PCI slots.
 
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Koudelka

Senior member
Jul 3, 2004
539
0
0
Well i know the ASUS A8N32 SLI Deluxe just came out.. its sold out in almost every retailer.. and sells out within hours of sites getting them in stock again.

It uses Phase 8 cooling which keeps it quieter and cooler. It also is one of the only boards that has Dual x16 PCI-E slots in SLI.
 
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squonk

Member
Jan 14, 2005
56
0
0
I have two ASUS A8N32 SLI Deluxe boards and they are awesome and stable to say the least. I'm very impressed with these boards. A lot of peeps complain about the layout of the pci slots but i only use an Audigy 2 ZS in the middle slot between 2 1 slot EVGA 7800gtx KO ACS3 cards. Thats on one system. The other is running 2 2 slot EVGA 6800 Ultras and although an Audigy 2 ZS still fits in the middle slot its what i would consider too close the the top video cards fan on the heat sink. Im running the onboard sound on this one at the moment while working on a bracket to mount the optional fan that came with the boards at the top of the Audigy 2 to pull air down to the top video cards heat sink fan. Both systems are in SLI and working great. Also they each have a 24" wide screen Dell 2405 FPW with DVI connections to the cards. The 6.82 chipset drivers for Nforce 4 x16 are very stable and im using the 81.94 drivers for the cards. The biggest thing that impresses me about the heatpipe in these boards is my temps. This thing takes a good week or so to settle down so be patient over 7 days and watch the temps drop considerabley from the day you first looked at them. Both my boards started at MB temp at 45C and ove the past 9 days are now solid and reporting 32 C idle and after 8 hours straight of EQ2 yesterday 35C. The processors both (Athlon 64 FX 55) report 38C idle and 43C under load and I cannot get them to go any higher and trust me I have tried lol. I really think Asus has done a fabulouse job on these boards. FYI no overclocking here (except the out of the box OC'd EVGA 7800gtx's). Wanted to let the boards burn in and take snapshots prior to testing next week for increased insanity :) I am still using the 0703 bios on both boards. The bios is the best improvement I have seen in a while from Asus.

I beleive the temps im getting are a result of some forward thinking and a lesson I learned in science class in the 8th grade LOL. HEAT RISES. I have two modified Lian Li Warriors (PC60 Mods) wich have a 120 MM blowhole in the top, two 80mm in the front and 2 80 mm in the side as well as the 80 mm exhaust in the back. Couple that with the ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm 2 Ball Blue LED Light Cooling Fan/Heatsink's that stand up and direct air towards the rear exhaust seems to be a driving factor in low the low temps im seeing. The board sit with the heat pipes facing the ceiling and the block next to the cpu at the top. I figured the Zalman pointing at the rear exhaust was the key to dispatching all the heat comming out the top of the heat pipe and its working much better than i expected.

Also the PC Power and Coolling 510 SLI deluxe power supplies with dedicated video power for each card is a huge win for stability/ I have also tried the PC Power and Coolling 850 watter on one of the baords and it works fine.
 
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vanvock

Senior member
Jan 1, 2005
959
0
0
Originally posted by: Koudelka
Well i know the ASUS A8N32 SLI Deluxe just came out.. its sold out in almost every retailer.. and sells out within hours of sites getting them in stock again.

It uses Phase 8 cooling which keeps it quieter and cooler. It also is one of the only boards that has Dual x16 PCI-E slots in SLI.
Click to expand...

It's 8 phase power & passive cooling.
 
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PeterAlt

Junior Member
Nov 13, 2005
23
0
0
I, myself, just ordered the Abit AN8 SLI. It's not an SLI-16 board, but it's priced great and has more features that other boards of its type. For example, it has high definition audio, firewire B, 2 PCI x1 slots, fiber and coax digital audio IN and out, and a silent heat pipe. It also has really good reviews throughout the web. If your graphic card only has 8-pipes, you don't need two 16 pipes. So, what I did is bought two Aopen Nvidia 6600 (8 pipes and a great price)-based SLI boards with silent heatsink and it's also low-profile. For the PCI Express x1 slots, I just ordered two PowerColor ATI Theater 550 Pro analog tuner cards. So, that leaves me two regular PCI slots left. I don't need a sound card because the board comes with HD 7.1 sound. I'm in the process of deciding what's going to go in those two slots.
 
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