750i mobo choice

[venoz0r]

Hey guys.
I am working on building my self a new system. The biggest issue i've encountered is choosing the right mobo. Now, what i am looking for is an SLI mobo. 2 Way SLI is enough for me, so i think ill be going for 750i cheapset, with the price being very important here. I am not going for 780i mostly because of the over the top prices.

Here's are the parts i've chosen so far:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Memory: G.Skill 4GB Kit DDR2 PC6400 800MHZ 4-4-4-12 F2-6400CL4D-4GBPK
GFX: BFG Tech 8800 GTS 512 OC Edition
Cooling: Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX
Case: Compucase 6XM1 Midi-Tower Black
HDD: X2 Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200Rpm 16MB SATA II

As you can see, i am not going for the Top of the Top, but i am trying to get as close as possible to it.

I'll be glad to hear you suggestions for the Mobo and your thoughts on the other stuff i've picked.

So far i've had my eye on ASUS P5N-D. How ever as far as i read and saw, its design and layout is problematic and the NB gets very HOT. The other mobo i'v been checking out is P7N SLI Platinium. Seems to be great mobo. The only problem i have with it, is that the second PCIe slot is x8 and not x16. : Preferably a sub-$200 mobo

 

[enigma700]

Hey man, your setup sounds a lot like what I am tryin to build. I am using the intel e8500 though. I am thinking of getting a 780i mobo so I can use the DDR2 1200 memory for a slight speed boost. I am awaiting the 790i and 780a just to see what sort of other options are available. I don't want DDR3 though because of the outrageous prices for little gain. It would be cool to get a board supporting both DDR2 and DDR3 for upgradeability as prices come down, but that is extremly limited due to the fact that they can't share the same memory slot. But anyhow your build is very similar to my in progress build.

 

[Thorbaden]

i plan on doing the same, going with a 750i mobo. chances are i will buy the MSI p7n sli platinum. even though both slots aren't 16x there really aren't any graphics cards out there that will use up the entire bandwidth anyway. as ive read a review by some guy using 2x 9600gts on that mobo it was same performance as the 780i version with 2x pci-e 16x.

reasons im shying away from asus is becuase i hear lots of problems with the heat of the NB and that lots of cpu fans wont fit well (expecially when the NB fan is installed)

only downside i see with the MSI board is the fact both pci-e arent 16x (but like i said wont be needing that at least not untill much later in the future) and no pci-e 1x but thats not a prob either as u can find regular pci cards instead.

im going to be using the intel Xeon E3110 (same exact cpu as the E8400)
2x1gb corsair xms2 ddr2 800
and an xfx 8800gts 320 <-- not my choice but i got it for free as an RMA from a xfx 7900GS agp (they were out of the 7900gs agp so they offered me the 8800gts 320 pci-e )