Which chipset for s775?

[TheSmJ]

My socket 939 AMD X2 system is getting long in the tooth and is starving my 8800 GTS, so I'd like to get a new CPU/Mobo/RAM in a couple months.

Trouble is, I haven't been paying attention to all these new chipsets which have come available over the past 3 years. I hear Intel's P35 chipset is currently best in terms of overclock-ability and performance (over the NV 680i), is this true?

Also, why do Intel chipsets use ATI's Crossfire, which is now AMD's brand? Can you use NVIDIA GPUs in Crossfire or is it still only for ATI/AMD cards?

 

[jkresh]

nvidia is sli, and there are some hacked drivers to get it to run on intel boards (though nothing for p35 or x38 yet). If you are looking at a couple of months nividia will have their nv7xx boards out and that may fix some of the problems with 680i (680i is actually a very good overclocker for dual core, it just doesn't seem to handle quad cores all that well).

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: TheSmJ
I hear Intel's P35 chipset is currently best in terms of overclock-ability and performance (over the NV 680i), is this true?

P35 is pretty much the mainstream enthusiast Intel chipset with the just-launching X38 pitched above that

Also, why do Intel chipsets use ATI's Crossfire, which is now AMD's brand? Can you use NVIDIA GPUs in Crossfire or is it still only for ATI/AMD cards?

Because nVida & Intel don't seem able to come to a licence agreement to allow SLI on Intel chipsets. That leaves Crossfire as the only alternative to allow multi-GPU acceleration use on Intel chipsets - of course you can run a single nVidia GPU on it no problem or 2 nVidia GPUs for multi-monitor (3/4 screens).
There are hacked nVidia drivers that allow SLI on Intel but they are pretty old & don't support the latest cards.

 

[TheSmJ]

Thanks for the replies. I may just wait well into January as I hear new CPUs will be available then, with chipsets too I'm sure.

I'd like to be able to keep this motherboard for 2 years, preferably 3, while replacing the CPU once or twice during its lifetime. How long do they plan on keeping the 1333 MHz bus around?

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Originally posted by: TheSmJ
Thanks for the replies. I may just wait well into January as I hear new CPUs will be available then, with chipsets too I'm sure.

I'd like to be able to keep this motherboard for 2 years, preferably 3, while replacing the CPU once or twice during its lifetime. How long do they plan on keeping the 1333 MHz bus around?

My guess is another two years. I believe Nahelem marks a new socket.