Motheboard and gfx card questions.

Vaedar · 04-13-2007, 05:30 PM

Hello, hardware peoples!

1. I'm undecided on which motherboard to choose for my new Intel quad core rig. I've pretty much narrowed it down to Asus, Abit, or Intel. MSI is right out because that's what I have now and I have never had so many problems. Abits have always been good boards for me, but i'm willing to take another chance. I've also heard bad things about any board using the nVidia chipset so those are right out as well. The board needs to be Vista ready. It does not need to support SLI nor am I interested in RAID tools because I do not plan to have either of those. For memory, I will be using 2-4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2.

Edit: Yea, uh, gfx card question was answered. Deleted cause I feel like an idiot.

Thanks in advance!

Fozzik · 04-13-2007, 06:05 PM

If you rule out an entire line of chipsets for motherboards because you've heard some bad things... you aren't ever going to be able to buy anything.

All manufacturers at one time or another create a "lemon"... a board or chipset or whatever that just isn't much good. It's best to look at individual products based on your needs, performance, and budget, and go from there. Generalizing is tough because these things are just so damn complex.

There are complaints about every hardware product in the world. If you look around, there are problems with everything. Not because everything is a bad product...but because it's extremely complex, produced in mass quantities in the cheapest way possible, and because they know if there's a problem you can always send back for a replacement.

rabb1t · 04-13-2007, 06:35 PM

With those restrictions you really have a forced choice into the Intel BadAxe boards.

My suggestion - forget everything you've heard or read and go with a 680i or 650i based motherboard. IMO if you are going to drop the $500 for a quad core you really should just take your chances and go with a 680i type board.

Fozzik · 04-13-2007, 06:44 PM

Personally I think either way would be fine...just depends on the particular board.

Check out my recommendations for some choices to get you started.

Strike Anywhere · 04-13-2007, 07:21 PM

I use an EVGA 680i SLI board and I can't complain. There are some issues with overclocking the FSB on quad cores on the original batch of boards - which is what I am still running for who knows what reason... guess I should invest the 20 minutes it would take to contact EVGA about getting the revised board cross shipped to me.

I really wouldn't rule out the 680i chipset based on what you've heard. I have found a lot of bad reports to be somewhat exagerated. I bought a QX6700 chip out of NCIX's first shipment to Canada when they were released and grabbed the 680i board from eVGA same day, when they too were very new. There were some growing pains, but the BIOS revisions were fast and furious and they fixed my main problems with the board, and I am content with my OC as it is for now because I was never planning on pushing it much farther than this until I got water cooling anyways. The 680i is a nice chipset and is super easy to work with. It gets my recommendation.

Just don't use the nTune software and you'll be fine

lev · 04-13-2007, 07:28 PM

badaxe 2 is my recommendation. but if youre going sli your only great choice atm is a 680i.. roll the dice

Vaedar · 04-13-2007, 07:33 PM

Thanks. I'm not going SLI or RAID.

Let me ask the question another way.

Intel Quad Core CPU
2-4GB DDR2 800 RAM
May look into overclocking at some point.
Cost is not a factor.
Will be running Vista.

What motherboard would you buy right now?

lev · 04-13-2007, 07:37 PM

RIGHT now, the badaxe, but honestly the DFI 965-S is so close!

rabb1t · 04-13-2007, 07:39 PM

*shrug* same answer. A 680i or 650i based board.

Just because you are not using SLI doesn't reduce how good the boards are overall.

Cost not being a factor, I'd say go with the Evga 122-CK-NF68-A1 at $215 post rebate.

Course if cost truly is not an issue, I'd also recommend pairing that with 4 gig of Corsair XMS2 Dominator DDR2-800 at $175 (per 2 gig kit) and then switching on the EPP ram feature.

lev · 04-13-2007, 07:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rabb1t

*shrug* same answer. A 680i or 650i based board.

Just because you are not using SLI doesn't reduce how good the boards are overall.

Cost not being a factor, I'd say go with the Evga 122-CK-NF68-A1 at $215 post rebate.

Course if cost truly is not an issue, I'd also recommend pairing that with 4 gig of Corsair XMS2 Dominator DDR2-800 at $175 (per 2 gig kit) and then switching on the EPP ram feature.

why would you get that ram :P if you got a quad and money is not an issue "dreams" you should get some amazing gskills, or some ballistic! or something even more badass. i would personally go with a 4gb kid of 2 sticks because most mobos under OC do not like 2 full channels for various reasons.

"goes back to reality" i have some crap ddr2 800 non epp corsair xms2 2gb kit

Strike Anywhere · 04-13-2007, 07:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vaedar

Thanks. I'm not going SLI or RAID.

Let me ask the question another way.

Intel Quad Core CPU
2-4GB DDR2 800 RAM
May look into overclocking at some point.
Cost is not a factor.
Will be running Vista.

What motherboard would you buy right now?

Even if you aren't going SLI I would still suggest a 680i board. They were built with overclocking and Vista in mind and after all the revisions they are running very stable.

I honestly would not trade any piece of my system out for anything else that is on the market right now, including the board. I'm 100% happy with all of it and I've recommended this board to all of my friends who were building new systems in the past couple months.

rabb1t · 04-14-2007, 02:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lev

why would you get that ram :P if you got a quad and money is not an issue "dreams" you should get some amazing gskills, or some ballistic! or something even more badass.

Well, for one, it has an uber roxor name, Dominator! Oh… um… I mean because neither G.Skill nor Crucial (the manufacturer of “Ballistix”) have the EPP ram certification. Part of “the big deal” about the 680i chipset is the EPP ram certification which boosts speeds by up to 25%. Your argument doesn’t work because you’d be ignoring a northbridge feature if you are talking to someone who has ‘unlimited money and wants the most performance’.

http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/45121/sli_memory.pdf

(At least I think it's 25%. They seem to have removed the flash demo that showed the %.)

Quote:

i have some crap ddr2 800 non epp corsair xms2 2gb kit

EPP ram will only be boosted by a 680i chipset (or 590 for AMD). There is no point in getting EPP cert ram if you don’t have one of those chipset types.

"Crap DDR2-800" is what ya want if you aren't on a super uber northbridge board.