Motherboard suggestion

[cboath]

Ok...I presently have a 939 Opteron 185 and 3GB ram. It still works great on nearly everything. Only problem is it's an AGP slot for the video card. I know I can get a 8800GT for a great price and would love it, except the obvious, it's PCIe. Well, i started poking around and realized that I can get an NForce4 level board for varying prices.

Is it worth going for an SLI board? I know there's a whole slew of newer processor types, slots, etc coming out in 2008. I'd like to put off buying a whole new setup for 12-18 months or so. I'm not looking to play crysis on 'very high', though 'high' would be nice. But with the new stuff coming up, it's not worth a whole new machine, yet.

The question to the experienced is, which would be the best board to get. Major overclocking isn't a mandatory, it'd be nice, but i'm realistic. I'd like to pick a solid board, that would allow for some overclocking and get me PCIe slot for video.

What would be the best choices? And does it really matter if it's SLI, Ultra, or just Nforce4?

(and as an aside, does the 8800 require a bigger PS? - presently 500)

Thank you!

 

[SerpentRoyal]

$71 Abit IP35-E.
$60 to $75 E21x0 or E4xx0.
$45 (1GB x 2) Kingston N5 DDR2 667 ValueRAM.

This rig should be able to hit 3.2GHz if you don't have a bum CPU.

Spend remaining $ on PCI-E GPU.

 

[cboath]

I appreciate it, but if i were to get a 775 board, it'd be extremely hard for me to not get a much higher end processor. I want to push that off til next year, which is why I was asking about nforce4's. I know i'm not going to run into any at a newegg, but they can be had.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

$50 NF4 board vs $60 E2140 CPU. What is the resell value of NF4 vs E2140 after one year?

 

[cboath]

The difference is the way my head works.

Getting the 775 board would probably keep me from getting a new machine next year. I can upgrade the chip on it to a quad core as is - which would be difficult for me to not do right now. I'm not concerned about resale value. I'm concerned about out of pocket right now. If I have a 775 to work with, it'll be hard for me to hold back on the chip and instead of 300-350 right now, it'd be board, 250 on a chip, 250 on a gpu, 150 on new ram (i'd get 4GB). Even if i held back to a 150 chip, that's still over 600. And no, it's not that bad. But even selling my old stuff (which don't know if I could, neo2 platinum, opteron, geforce 6800LE. 3gb ddr400) would i be able to keep it around 300?

 

[Martimus]

I have a ECS KN1 Extreme, and I haven't had any problems with it. I couldn't find it available on Newegg, but if you can get that cheap, I would do it. Other nForce4 boards may be available though, and mine was somewhat of a mid-range product when I got it, so you may find a better one at a good price. I don't see the point in getting an SLI board, as you are probably going to do a full upgrade next year anyway.

 

[cboath]

If i went with a 775, i'd be looking at the following:

The abit board you mentioned (90)
XFX 8800gt (270)
4Gb 2 sets of 2x1gb Kingston ram 800mhz (135)
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80562Q6600 - Retail (280)

Grand total about $705, unless i need to beef up the PS from it's current 500W.

How long should that last? 18? 24 months?

 

[o1die]

Get a retail boxed cpu for the 3 year warranty. Asus, msi, and abit all have a 3 year warranty on new motherboards with no service fee, last time I checked. But if you're lucky, you might get more than 3 years. But my own experience with boards lately is that 3 years is good. Anything more is a bonus.

 

[Denithor]

I would recommend you get an e6550 instead and save the $100+ to use toward a Penryn quad mid/late next year (cheap upgrade at that point if you also resell the e6750). The e6550 should easily push past 3GHz so you should be good until the Penryn quads are reasonably priced.

There just aren't enough programs out there that take real advantage of quad-core yet to justify spending the money right now.

On the other hand, you could also just get this Foxconn nForce4 Ultra motherboard from Newegg for $75 and be done with it. Your Opty has plenty of power to push an 8800GT to the top of its range so this should hold you well into next year (maybe jump on the Nehalem bandwagon when it launches in Q4-08). I would steer away from SLI, the gains are very game specific (some benefit in certain games, practically none in others).

 

[cboath]

I think that's exactly the type of thing I was looking for. 350 now (much better than 700) to save the rest until a year from now and get a much better board, chip, and ram, is exactly what I was hoping to do. Given the reviews there, it looks like Foxconn has a good reputation, yes?

Any thoughts on the PS? Will 500 be enough to power it properly or do i need to up that, too?

Thanks!

 

[teclis1023]

A8N32-SLI motherboard should do the trick for you, friend

 

[cboath]

True, but the only place I found selling one wanted about 200 for it. Too rich for my blood

 

[cboath]

Originally posted by: Denithor
I would recommend you get an e6550 instead and save the $100+ to use toward a Penryn quad mid/late next year (cheap upgrade at that point if you also resell the e6750). The e6550 should easily push past 3GHz so you should be good until the Penryn quads are reasonably priced.

There just aren't enough programs out there that take real advantage of quad-core yet to justify spending the money right now.

On the other hand, you could also just get this Foxconn nForce4 Ultra motherboard from Newegg for $75 and be done with it. Your Opty has plenty of power to push an 8800GT to the top of its range so this should hold you well into next year (maybe jump on the Nehalem bandwagon when it launches in Q4-08). I would steer away from SLI, the gains are very game specific (some benefit in certain games, practically none in others).

I seem to have timed it fairly well with my search...newegg just dropped the price of it to 45 shipped.

 

[Shadow Conception]

Report back if you get that mobo. I want a good dual-core 939 system, and there's a combo on that page for that mobo + an X2 4000+ for $79.98

Good luck in your endeavors dude.

Edit: Wait, the board doesn't support X2. And it was a single-core the board was combo'd with. Ahh crap, I thought I'd found something good finally.

 

[cboath]

The board is X2...

Just the chip in the combo isn't.

I'll report back when I get it and install it, just can't promise when that'll be. Gotta wait for the 8800gt, though. Can't do much without a video card

 

[cboath]

Originally posted by: Shadow Conception
Report back if you get that mobo. I want a good dual-core 939 system, and there's a combo on that page for that mobo + an X2 4000+ for $79.98

Good luck in your endeavors dude.

Edit: Wait, the board doesn't support X2. And it was a single-core the board was combo'd with. Ahh crap, I thought I'd found something good finally.

Finally got an 8800gt (and WOW! LOVE IT - beats the ever loving snot out of my 6800 ulta but i know it should, but the difference is amazing) and got the machine redone.

The foxconn documentation is first rate. Giant poster of the board detailing all it's pieces and pins and what not. Got my chip/fan transfered over with no problems and added the new PSU (Corsair HX 620).

The board is replacing an MSI Neo2 Platinum.

Upon boot, and the installation of the OS's (64 ult main, xp pro backup) it seemed a bit slow to me. Could be just me, but i don't think so. After install, booting was a bit sluggish until all the nforce drivers were installed. The only lasting issue i had after that was it wouldn't recognize my seagate external freeagent2go drive. Big issue since all my important stuff was backed up there. Not sure what it was either. I fixed this b y unplugging the drive and restarting. After booting, i plugged in my thumbdrive (sandisk titanium 2gb) and let it configure itself since. That worked. Then i unplugged it and plugged in the hard drive and it recognized it. Odd. Had the SAME problem under both OS's. I'd guess it has something to do with the usb ports and not the OS since it happen on two different systems. Had me bugged for a while til i figured it out.

The bios looks a bit different than what i've seen in the past. Personally, it's neither good nor bad, just different. You control the FSB, PCIE, and MEM speeds through one menu and the voltages are in a special overclocking menu. Since adding vista, i hadn't been able to OC my chip at all or it wouldn't even boot vista (opteron 185). Took me a while to rebuild and reinstall yesterday, so i didn't mess with oc stuff til just an hour ago or so. Anyhow, for kicks, i set it to FSB 210 to see if it'd boot and so far no problems. Eventually i'll try 220 to 230 and see how it goes. But after not being able to get anything previously, i'm happy at the moment - i know, it's a sad, lame, oc, but like I said in the first post, i'll be happy with a modest OC. Anyone have any clues how high I should reasonably expect to get?

Board seems fine so far, but it's been roughly 24 hours. The only issue i have with the board is the chipset fan is right underneath the GPU. There's plenty of wide open space on the board between the x16 slot and the cpu...seems they could have found a much better place. The board only has 1 ethernet card on it, don't know if that matters to anyone - the old board had, two -- though i only used one.

So far i'd cautiously give it two thumbs up.

 

[DaddyRabbit]

For what it's worth and IMHO you made the right choice, If you want to build next year based on Intel "piece partsing" an Intel system now would be counterproductive. When you get ready to build next year prices will be lower on most of the parts and you already have a great bang for the buck GPU to use...