Need help with building an E8400 system. Upgrading after a year.

[Apocalypse23]

Hi all, I'm building a E8400 system, plan on installing perhaps ddr2 800 memory, not sure if itll be 2 gigs or 4 gigs, but i will probably be using a 8800 GTS g92 chip series...but ive looked all over and most SLI mobos these days are going 3 way but i want good overclock support since i plan to overclock the e8400 to 4 Ghz, and im not sure what the best mobo would be for this, not the most expensive but then again not the cheapest , something reasonable and has good oc potential....im thinking of Asus but not sure.....any recommendations would be helpful, thanks!

 

[toadeater]

Maybe wait for 750i? They are PCIe 2.0 x8 in SLI though, not x16. That won't make any difference. Overclocking will be good. Price will be much better than 780i. Take a look at the specs:

http://www.hothardware.com/art...s/Item1075/7_specs.png

 

[Apocalypse23]

im getting all confused now....so there is the X38 chipset which is intel's latest and now i am not sure if i should just get a x38 setup?

 

[straubs]

I'm in roughly the same boat. Looking for an E8400 mobo with (probably) DDR2-800, OC capability, and SLI support. Subscribing.

I've so far learned that X38 doesn't seem to be worth the extra money unless you're using DDR3.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Don't you mean X48 is the newest Intel chipset? 780i is a tad expensive but its nice and stable for me anyways, that was with just a quick 8 hour run with 3.0, gonna shoot for 3.6 later.

 

[Apocalypse23]

Okay this is crazy bugging me now, so the new 780i mobos have this PCI E 2.0 feature and are SLI also, I just wonder if that means that you can get full bandwith from both pci E slots if you have 2 video cards and go SLI? I am not sure if i need to actually pay 300$ for a 780i mobo or stick to a 680i or 650i mobo for about 200$? Please advise. The following are the lists of mobos i have looked at, any other mobo recommendation would be appreciated from that website:

mobo lists: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?minorcatid=107

mobo 1 - http://www.ncix.com/products/i...AY00Z&manufacture=ASUS

mobo 2 - http://www.ncix.com/products/i...-NF78&manufacture=eVGA

mobo 3 - http://www.ncix.com/products/i...80ISH9&manufacture=XFX

mobo 4 - http://www.ncix.com/products/i...e=ASUS#CustomerReviews

 

[straubs]

I gave up on SLI and have decided on the IP35 Pro. Not that my decision will help any--sorry.

 

[Apocalypse23]

and does having PCI E 2.0 mean that i will get full x16 tranfer from both slots if I go SLI ? :S Does it even make a difference in gaming and fps?

 

[Puffnstuff]

You can only run sli on an nvidia chipset mb. Intel does crossfire only but for a single card they rock. I plan to leave nvidia with my next mb and get an intel chipset as I don't do sli.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Ok here it is, most 680i boards and the 780i boards will run in SLI at x16 for both, not like theres a performance difference from x8, but PCI-E 2.0 doubles the bandwidth the pci-e bus has, although as of right now, no gpu we know of benefits from it at all since they all perform the exact same with regular PCI-E x16, hope that clears things up for you.

 

[Apocalypse23]

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
Ok here it is, most 680i boards and the 780i boards will run in SLI at x16 for both, not like theres a performance difference from x8, but PCI-E 2.0 doubles the bandwidth the pci-e bus has, although as of right now, no gpu we know of benefits from it at all since they all perform the exact same with regular PCI-E x16, hope that clears things up for you.

now i've been reading up on 780i boards and they aren't as good for overclocking when compared to the P35s. How is your overclock right now and your memory timings with respect to your 780i board?

Also, is it possible to run crossfire setup on a 780i board, and also possible to run say only two 8800 gts 512 in SLI and not 3?

 

[Apocalypse23]

bump! okay so this is what i will be buying for certain:


Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB 2X2GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL4-4-4-12 EPP Dual Channel Memory Kit - $149 - $119 after rebate
EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GTS Crysis Edition 670MHZ 512MB 1.94GHZ DDR3 PCI-E DVI-I HDTV Out Video *IR-$20* -$339 - $319 after rebate
Scythe Infinity 5 Heatpipe CPU Cooler LGA775 S478 AM2 S754 S939 S940 120MM 1200RPM 23.5DBA 46.5CFM - $49.99
E8400 core 2 duo - $219

Need a motherboard (pci e express 2.0 SLI would be nice but crossfire is okay too...has to be gr8 overclocker under $200 and a case/PSU for cheap

 

[krnmastersgt]

Originally posted by: Apocalypse23

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
Ok here it is, most 680i boards and the 780i boards will run in SLI at x16 for both, not like theres a performance difference from x8, but PCI-E 2.0 doubles the bandwidth the pci-e bus has, although as of right now, no gpu we know of benefits from it at all since they all perform the exact same with regular PCI-E x16, hope that clears things up for you.

now i've been reading up on 780i boards and they aren't as good for overclocking when compared to the P35s. How is your overclock right now and your memory timings with respect to your 780i board?

Also, is it possible to run crossfire setup on a 780i board, and also possible to run say only two 8800 gts 512 in SLI and not 3?

Haven't had the spare time to really overclock my whole system just yet, but the BIOS is pretty standard, nothing special but easy to use, only OCed my Q6600 to 3 ghz so far, shooting for 3.6 later . Since I didn't have too much time to run all the stability tests to get my system to its prime I just put the timings at 4-4-4, I could probably go lower but whatever. It is true that Intel chipsets overclock better but if you want SLI it's hard to find a good board with and Intel chipset and SLI. Also they give you two SLI bridges, one for regular SLi and another for Tri-Sli. Also you won't see anything special about having PCI-E 2.0 until maybe the 9 Series enthusiast models are out and even that's unlikely. Oh and one last note, you can't tri-sli 8800 GTSs, only the GTXs and the Ultras can be Tri-SLIed

 

[Apocalypse23]

okay so i've decided to wait on the motherboards for SLI and will be going with only ONE VIDEO CARD setup. Please recommend me a good Asus P35 board for overclocking, doesnt have to be crossfire or SLI.

thanks

 

[Arcanedeath]

For an Asus P35 board you can go w/ the P5K series, there are tons of options generaly the best of the bunch price performance wise seems to be the P5K-E it has good features and overclocks well, the P5K premium series tend to run cooler due to mosfet placement (1/2 are not on the back of the board like the P5K e & deluxe) but they tend to cost more. the vanilla P5K doesn't seem to go as far as the P5K e, deluxe, or premium, but it still a good board and can be hand around $125, which board you pick depends on your budget, also the new P5E X38 boards are not much more than the higher end P35 boards so those may be an option too.