Upgrading to MSI 650i or 680i Diamond

[badnewcastle]

I'm upgrading from AMD 64 3200+ socket 754 system to a new intel core 2 duo E6750.

My first question is, do I need to reinstall windows or anything like that? or can I just swap out the boards and redo the drivers? I'm using a single HDD via SATA on an ASUS board and switching to one of .

I bought the MSI 650i Platinum then when I came to work this morning and saw the MSI 680i Diamond (open box) on sale for not much more then the 650i. I've read good things about both and bad things about the 680i, regarding the onboard x-fi which is one of 2 main reasons for going to the 680 over the 650. The other reason is the ability to upgrade to sli later if I need to. The 650 will only do 16x on one card and 8x on the other card... while the 680 does 16x on both. I also read about the 680i not reading all the memory with windows xp? I'm only using 2 gb is that right?

Which board would you stick with assuming both are in good condition upon arrival?

 

[JustaGeek]

Read more reviews of both motherboards, and evaluate complaints/issues about both boards. If you intend to use SLI, then go with the 680i.

For the motherboard exchange you should do Windows Repair Install. You can try uninstalling the IDE and chipset drivers from your current MB instead, but repair install is safer, IMO.

You will have to re-activate Windows if you do the Repair Install, and install all the updates after.

Good luck!

 

[chaddeus]

MSI is a good brand but you can always go for ASUS. ASUS has the Striker Extreme (680i) and the P5N32-E SLI which is also a 680i chipset.

MSI P6N SLI Platinum is a very good board however.

- Chalres

 

[badnewcastle]

Thank you guys, I will probably end up just using the P6N SLI Platinum from what I can find its as fast for gaming as the 680's and is a solid component. Thanks JG for the suggestion on the repair install, I will do that and reactivating won't be a problem, I had to slipstream SP2 into a wxp cd because my copy was from before sp1 and got scratched on my dvd drive.