Upgrading nForce4 to P35, what board?

[TheWhoDat]

I am having issues with my nForce4 SLI board.

Here is my setup:

E6600
2x 1GB RAM (I think 800MHz DDR2)
X-Fi Elite Pro
Geforce 8800GTX
Dell 24" LCD

In games like BF2142, I am having the hissing/crackling issue with the X-Fi.
I am have other issues with stability and just would like to get a new MB.

I will not be overclocking, I will stick to stock speeds. I really doubt that I will add another 8800GTX, but it might be nice to have the option, unless I give up stability and performance.

I play the normal games BF2142, C&C3, Supreme Commander, Company of Heros, and some other of the new games. I tend to play them at 1600x or 1920x resolutions and would like playable frame rates.

So which motherboard would you recommend.

I was thinking about going with nForce 680i, maybe even the 680i LT or the 650i.
Or should I go with and Intel board.

Are the extra features of the i680 worth it?

Again I would like the best performance, with little or no stability issues and I will not be overclocking.

Also is it worth upgrading to a E6850 or Q6700? I can use the old E660 for a development machine.

Thank you for any help or suggestions.

WhoDat

 

[cmdrdredd]

Abit IP35 Pro, Asus P5K, Gigabyte DS3R

Take your pick (all use P35 chipset).

 

[lopri]

- Bad Axe 2
- For me the extra features of 680i is worthwhile. For others it may not be. There is no 'correct' answer.
- Not worth it at all to upgrade to E6850 unless you're betting on substantially better overclocking from E6850.
- Depends on what you do, Q6700 can be a huge improvement. Although I would save money and go with Q6600 if picking up a quad.

 

[TheWhoDat]

What features made the 680i worth while?

Are the P35 boards more stable/best performance than the 680i boards?

 

[SerpentRoyal]

P35 generally requires less Vcore to achieve the same CPU speed. It also runs much cooler. Finally, it will probably overclock Peryn better than the 680i.

Only rationale for 680i is native PATA support and SLI. The ability to run RAM at lock/unlocked mode is no big deal. If you can afford the 680i, then you should be able to fork over a little more $ for quality DDR2 800 RAMs to run at 1:1 memory divider.

 

[TheWhoDat]

I play most games at 1920x1200 with the e6600 or the q6600 will SLI make that much of a difference for the $600 price?

If not I think I will go P35, are Abit IP35 Pro, Asus P5K, Gigabyte DS3R the best boards, and which one of those do people like the best?

Thanks

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Wait about 6 months and you'll be able to purchase a better GPU than two of the older GPUs. SLI is a marketing tool used by Nividia. Intel would embrace SLI if it's a cost effective solution to gaming. I think the IP35 Pro is still a little buggy. Dunno about Asus or Gigabyte's P35 boards.