HW Advice

[mr. nails]

So what board are you going with Nails??

it's not the question of what board i'm going with atm i'm going to answer right yet for i'm still undesided, but i will put this out for u.

if ur not going to run SLi or even crossfire, but still want a decent OC'ing mb i'd recommend this board to u...

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R.

if u want the same great quality, but want to be able to run crossfire i would recommend this board to u...

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS4 Rev. 2.0.

and of coarse the Q6600.

i can't recommend ANY SLi mb's at this time for it's my opinion that most of them are junk. i believe that the 680i chipset is a GREAT chipset, but manufacturers have $hit yields with that product, but ship it anyway. MSI being the number 1 junk maker followed by EVGA. once again.. this is my opinion. ASUS has been my board of choice for the longest, but their quality seems to be slipping as well. i mite be making the move to Gigabyte.

the x38 is a good chipset, but i'm not interested in the v1(bios) boards. i'll let some bugs get squashed first. the Gigabyte x38 IS the best board out there from this new chipset, but the p35 chipset is the way to go "atm". as long as my waiting game stands i will eventually get the x38 (lol, to make a long story short in answering ur question). this is precisely why i want ATI's new 3800 series card to shine. hopefully these new 3800 cards do @ least as good as the 8800gt i will crossfire them. the 3870 is the card i am looking @ atm for crossfire. if all goes that direction i will be a happy gamer.

sry for the essay for i'm @ work and i'm getting paid to do this. :p

[kaiweiler]

Detale, you may want to have a read through this article I came across today.
Aside from the CPU comparison they go through motherboard recommendation to match the processor.
In short the Q6600 and MSI P35 Neo2 were recommended.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/...uad/index.html

[hvymetal86]

I know you said earlier you wanted the new hardware NOW, but as Intel (and AMD too) are coming out with new procs in the next few weeks, it might be worth it to wait just a little and see about those. Just a thought. Also with mobos, I personally wouldn't go with anything other than Asus or Gigabyte.

[Detale]

Oh yeah to update I AM going to wait until after Xmas to see how prices drop/ new stuff comes out. Thanks guys for all your help

[clocker]

I personally wouldn't go with anything other than Asus or Gigabyte.

While those two have sterling reputations, don't forget DFI and Abit, both of whom made their bones building hot rod boards for overclockers.

DFI in particular absolutely ruled the s939 platform and set the bar for BIOS options.
Dunno if this has carried over to the newer Intel based stuff but they shouldn't be discounted lightly.

[hvymetal86]

I dunno much about DFI, but I've heard both love and hate stories for Abit. I'd appreciate it if you'd share any more info you have about those two co.'s boards.

Just as a side question, my sig image and avatar arent' showing up at all, anyone have any advice? I followed all the size and dimension requirements.

[kaiweiler]

I had an Abit motherboard back in socket A days, the NF7-S.
I've never owned a board I like more than that one. Was quite possibly the best overclocker of it's time. NEver had a problem with Abit whatsoever.

[lynx]

My first S939 board was an Abit. Absolutely no software support for 64 bit, so what was the point of having a 64 bit board?

After about a year I decided to upgrade it as my main storage system, lots of nice SATA drives. Only to find that the SATA controller was stuffed (as it apparently was on some boards) and it was a week out of warranty.

First and last experience of Abit, I won't touch another.

[clocker]

I dunno much about DFI, but I've heard both love and hate stories for Abit. I'd appreciate it if you'd share any more info you have about those two co.'s boards.

I had an Abit motherboard back in socket A days, the NF7-S.
I've never owned a board I like more than that one.

First and last experience of Abit, I won't touch another.

As you can see hvy, motherboards can be very platform specific.
I too was quite fond of the NF7-S (had two of 'em) but switched to a Gigabyte for my first forays into s754- a platform that lasted a matter of weeks, IIRC- and ultimately into s939.

Within a few months of the nForce4 release the DFI boards had already started to garner rave reviews, so off I went.

I don't think it's possible to generalize motherboards by manufacturer.
With each new chipset, some boards rise to fame while others die infamously and I don't think it falls along manufacturer lines.

Gigabyte seems to have risen lately and Asus has always been a tier 1 maker...Abit went through a few years of near bankruptcy (?)and some folks are really fond of MSI (whom I've always had really bad luck with) and then there's my sentimental fave, DFI.

When time come for my next upgrade though I won't be buying from the heart, I'll definitely check the hw fora* and see what's what.


*[H]forum
OCForums
Xtreme

[hvymetal86]

Yeah, I knew it varied between chipsets, but as niether I nor anyone I know has ever used Abit or DFI so the only things I had based my opinions on were online reviews. Personal feedback from people who've used them in thier own builds is always insightful, so thank you.

Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to do a new build until this summer, I wouldn't want to start one until AMD and Intel's new offerings come out anyway. My current system is:

AMD Athlon 64 3400+
GeminII heatsink w/ 2 12cm fans
ASUS K8N-E Deluxe
Antec TruePower 550
ATI X800 Pro
1 Gb DDR400
200Gb and 160Gb internal SATA HDs
300Gb external IDE HD
Thermaltake Tsunami case (black, windowed)
22" Samsung LCD and 21" Trinitron CRT
Logitech G15 and MX518

The most recent addition being the GeminII due to it being free on newegg with a rebate, lol, I snagged 3 of em which was the limit.
The system is decent, and with the heatsink and the 2 12cm fans on it my cpu temp at idle has dropped from 48ish to around 39 and at full load from 56 max to no more than 43. Haven't had a chance to OC it at all which i hadn't done before because it ran hotter than I wanted it to to begin with, but that should help the performance life of it some. The only big sticking points right now are the shader model of the vid card being to old (2.1) to run some of the newer games like lost planet and anything else with shader model 3.0 or higher.