What motherboard to pick for X2 6000+ and 2900 XT?

[FTemplar]

CPU:AMD ATHLON 64 X2 6000+
MOTHERBOARD: ???
MEMORY: 2GB DDR2 800 mhz
HARD DISK: RAPTOR 150GB
VIDEO CARD:ATI RADEON 2900 XT 512mb
PSU:550W Antec
TOWER CASE: P180 Antec

Thanks in advance for any recommendations.

 

[Roguestar]

You're kidding, right?

A Core 2 Duo will be cheaper and blow the Athlon X2 away, and the Radeon 2900XT is overpriced considering it is only as good as an 8800GTS.

 

[FTemplar]

Please show me where the X2 6000+ gets "blown away" in these benchmarks http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2933&p=8

(by the way, maybe you aren't aware but since the price cuts, 5$ is about the price difference between the X2 6000+ and C2D E6600) As for my decison, it's quite simple really; an AM2 motherbord will ensure me forward-compatibility with the Phenom CPU.

As for the 2900 XT, think what you want to believe, but the 8800 GTS has had driver optimization for what, 7 months now? The 2900 XT's drivers are brand new, give it a few months and its performance will most likely increase. I do not think the 2900 XT is "only" as good as a 8800 GTS.

I wasn't looking for recommendations on either CPU or GPU.. just motherboard. Thanks for your input anyway.

 

[AmdInside]

Originally posted by: Roguestar
You're kidding, right?

A Core 2 Duo will be cheaper and blow the Athlon X2 away, and the Radeon 2900XT is overpriced considering it is only as good as an 8800GTS.

I agree. I am overclocking my Core 2 Duo to 3.2GHz on stock cooling and stock voltage. I know it can go higher but my computer is so fast. I would also recommend a Geforce 8800GTS 640MB. Its cheaper and performs faster. As for motherboard, I don't know. One of the reasons why I decided to just upgrade to Core 2 Duo after my socket 939 motherboard died was because I wanted an Intel chipset again. Overall, my nForce 4 x16 chipset was stable but it seemed slow in certain areas. Like booting up. I have the same amount of programs installed but my computer seems to boot up faster with my Intel chipset. And file transfer seems faster and return from suspend is faster.

 

[igloo15]

Doesn't matter if you think 2900xt will be faster after driver updates. Its more expensive and uses more power then the 8800gts the minor 2% increase over the 8800gts if that from drivers doesn't offset these factors.

 

[Goty]

Thanks for being completely irrelevant, guys.

Now, back on topic. If you're looking for a board with Crossfire support, the ASUS M2R32-MVP would probably be your best bet. If you're not looking for multi-GPU support (at least with an ATI card), I'd suggest one of the Asus M2N32 boards (the bundle varies with different versions).

Those two boards are priced in roughly the same range, but wihtout a budget I can't really give you much more.