what should my second 939 SLI board be?

[Mudbone]

I am real close to getting my new rig configured like I want it. Its an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, 3500+ 90nm, pair of BFG 6800Gt OCs, 1G of Corsair 4400, etc. I need to put together a second machine. The plan is to have one machine as a general use machine. It will be use for email, surfing, word processing and as a second gamer for when friends vist etc. The second machine, the faster one, will be stripped down for gaming. One HD, one DVD-ROM,(I don't see a need for a burner, do you?) and minimal software. It will be use as my main game machine and a back up surfer but no email. The plan is to use the CPU I have now in the general machine so the second will need to be a 939 board. I know DFI has come out with a SLI rig but I have been too busy getting this one set up and playing on it to keep up with the all the new releases. So should I get another Asus or something else. If something else, what, and which board would you use for which machine?
TIA

PS: Any chance Anand is going to do a heads up SLI review now that these other boards are out?

 

[Waylay00]

DFI SLI-DR. I dn about Anand doing any SLI reviews of all boards together.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I also have the Asus and am looking to build a second rig. I want to try one of the ultra (non-sli) boards either the Abit Fatal1ty or the DFI Ultra D, they are both brand new so I,m waiting to see which one performs the best

 

[ohnnyj]

Since this is going to a stripped down gaming machine, the DFI SLI-DR is your best bet, only you will have to try and find one first.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

It is useful to have two identical boards but it's more fun to have two different ones. I guess it's up to you!

Maybe the MSI onboard audio (Creative Live!) would be useful in your case.

 

[Mudbone]

Originally posted by: ohnnyj
Since this is going to a stripped down gaming machine, the DFI SLI-DR is your best bet, only you will have to try and find one first.

Yeah the interesting thing is that right now the A8N is easier to find and cheaper. Why do you say the DFI board is better for a stripped down gaming machine? It actually has more SATA connections than the A8N. On first observations, it seems like the A8N has an overall better layout. Particularly the wider gap between the PCIe slots. I wasn't sure if the DFI is easier/better at OCing than the A8N or if there were other reasons to go that route. I know a lot of folks are getting tired of hearing about the A8N. I guess that is just a side effect of being the first on the market. I don't want to be a hater but it seems like there are a lot of DFI fanboys just waiting for this board to come out so that they could declare it better than the A8N. (I am not saying that this applies to ohnnyj or anyone else suggesting that I try it.) When I got my A8N it was the only choice out there. Now it seems like I have a least 3 other choices, Gigabyte, MSI and the DFI. DFI seems to be the big news but I can't tell why.

 

[ohnnyj]

Well I actually own an ASUS A8N-SLI based rig and I won't be trading it for another board anytime soon. I merely suggested the DFI because it has less PCI slots and is geared more to the die hard enthusiast, hence all the overclocking features. Thus I assumed primarily a gaming rig = DFI. However, I like the ASUS board and have had no problems with it. I figure that since this was the flagship board that even nVidia used for all its SLI tests during the months coming to the release of the final product that it has undergone a lot of testing by even the makers of SLI just to make sure it works. Granted SLI is still in beta, the A8N is probably more mature than all the other boards out there.