Looking for PC upgrade advice

[Carmen813]

I'm thinking about taking some birthday money and upgrading my Athlon X2 4200+ to an Intel 8400 Core 2 Duo.

I have only built one Intel system in the past and am looking for some upgrade advice on what type of motherboard to get. I don't really know much about current 775 compatible motherboards.

I'm looking to spend $100-150, and would like it to have it support SLI in case I decide to grab another 9600 GT.

Any advice would be appreciated

 

[JPB]

I did a search on Newegg.

It looks like to me that the options are going to be limited for SLI on a newer chipset Intel board. Most ( but not all ) of the newer ones support CrossfireX.

Most of the more expensive boards only have one PCI-e slot.

Do you absolutely have to have support for SLI ? I mean, instead of adding a second 9600 GT in the future, you could sell it to offset the price for something along the lines of a GTX 260.

Doing that, would really open up your options for much nicer motherboard in your price range.

I am sure someone will post some boards for you with your specs and pricing. But I would consider a single slot *better* board.

 

[will889]

I agree I would steer clear of nforce boards and stick with the Intel chipset - use the 9600GT for a while then upgrade later to a faster single powerful GPU.

 

[DSF]

Adding another 9600GT down the road is probably going to underwhelm you in terms of the performance increase. As others have said, you're better off buying an Intel chipset which will be more stable anyway, and upgrading the video card later on.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Another vote for "forget about SLI", get a single-slot board and use your single card while you save up for a better single card.

I'm happy with my $95 Gigabyte P43 chipset motherboard (using with E8400 and ATI 4870), though the Asus P45 P5Q model chipsset boards are more popular right now.

 

[Carmen813]

Ok, could you guys provide some more suggestions for Intel based boards? I don't really know much about them at all. Don't worry about SLI.

 

[JPB]

Originally posted by: Carmen813
Ok, could you guys provide some more suggestions for Intel based boards? I don't really know much about them at all. Don't worry about SLI.

ASUS P5Q