Need SLI board

[Dorkenstein]

Can anyone recommend an SLI board for overclocking a Q9550 effectively? The only thing is, I would like to get one that takes DDR2. Thanks for any help.

 

[aka1nas]

You are pretty much stuck with the 780i if you want DDR2 and 45nm Quads. They don't OC any better than the 680i boards do, unfortunately.

 

[Shmee]

I actually have a 780i FTW, and it seems to oc my Q6600 much better than my XFX 680i LT version did, even when the later was flashed to full. With a Q9550 the EVGA 780i FTW willl probably be the best board for ocing a Q9550 with SLI. That is, if you need to stick with DDR2.

 

[Mango1970]

I loved the 780 FTW when I had a chance to use it but the cost is simply prohibitive.. unless there are sales but never did see one. The thought of spending that much coin on a mobo to go SLI was actually the reason I don't use SLI any more -- just could not justify the cost. I know there is also the 750i series of nVidia boards.. not sure how good those are but much less costly if you can find them. It honestly is so easy to go crossfire now with almost any P35 and P45 mobo which many are so affordable -- again the reason I left Sli and nVidia and moved to a very robust Intel chipset with ATI graphics.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Cool, thanks for the replies. I will look for a 780i board.

 

[Puffnstuff]

The ftw has a mir at newegg bringing the cost to $209. I'm using one right now after my striker bit the dust and it's ok except for not working with my asus xonar d2x in the middle pci-e slot while in sli. Evga has never released a bios update for the ftw and will not do so even though they know that several issues exist. I'm not happy about that and although this is the 2nd evga 780i mb we're using in the house it's going to be the last one from them. No support for a higher end mb that we paid a premium for? They won't be selling me any more mb's I can asure you.

 

[carlosdivega]

Hi all,

i'm running the EVGA 750i FTW for 2 months now. E8600@4Ghz prime stable over 28 hours.
I stopped prime after 28 hours without any errors.

The EVGA 7x0i FTW boards are bad ass boards for OC. The 750i FTW has the smallest feature set. But if only SLI (2 x 16 PCI 2.0) is all you need go for it.

The only downside of the 7x0i boards are the complex OC parameters. But they are well described in the EVGA user forum.

I was able to bring all CPU dependent voltages within the Intel specs on the 750i FTW.

I'm very happy with my first EVGA board.

Carlos Di Vega

 

[geno]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
You are pretty much stuck with the 780i if you want DDR2 and 45nm Quads. They don't OC any better than the 680i boards do, unfortunately.

750i will take care of that, too, for cheaper. If you're sure you won't need the third PCI-e slot, you can got he 750i route. Supposedly, the 750i NB takes to higher FSB speeds than the 780i. I'm going off of what I've read about casual comparisons to the two boards.