Best Mobo for Phenom II X4 940 with DDR2-1066 and SLI

[bmbvenom]

Hey all,
I've been researching motherboards for a couple days now and I can't seem to find a good solid one that supports both the PII 940 and nVidia video cards. My life would be so much easier if I weren't so picky and wouldn't mind buying ATI cards or an Intel CPU, but I've decided to go with AMD and nVidia. I would love to grab a good EVGA board but they all seem to be Intel boards.
As a side note, I would also like DDR2-1066 support because I wanted to underclock it and tighten up timings a lot, but I can live with DDR2-800 if I have to.
Any suggestions from you guys? Any and all input would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

[Proximon]

Can't do it

Get a single nVidia card or go ATI

Or spend a bit more and get an X58 board and a faster i7 920.

 

[JaredAudiophileGamer]

Awesome Asus motherboard for crossfire and the phenom II 940
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.165049

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4870 1GB Awesome Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801

 

[unnameduser]

I don't think an EVGA board is made that supports SLI and AMD. There isn't one listed on their site at least.

 

[bmbvenom]

Jared,
That is a Crossfire board, correct? So I can't SLI with it?
Am I just better off picking Intel+nVidia or AMD+ATI??

 

[JaredAudiophileGamer]

i think these days to get the most performance for your money its best to go with amd + ati, nvidia has been making junk chipsets lately but pretty good gpus, but ati has started to take over the gpu market crossfire has become a very popular term these days.
and no you cant sli with it, and to be honest i was an nvidia fan for a long while and wouldnt settle for anything else, but after doing the research i found that ati is the best way to go these days.

 

[bmbvenom]

I currently have an ATI video card, but the one I had before this was an nVidia. The reason I prefer nVidia to ATI is purely the drivers. I think nVidia has a much better handle on that. In fact, the reason I wanted to go with an nVidia is because I dislike CCC so much. However, I haven't bought a new video card in some years (I still have AGP), so maybe they've gotten better about it since then?

 

[Proximon]

I thought I posted this, but it must have been dropped.

nVidia HAS announced a new SLI chipset for am2/AM3. It's called the 980a and is not available yet. It may or may not be worthwhile... I saw some comments that the onboard cooling needs improvement just like the 790i.

 

[JaredAudiophileGamer]

absolutely man i think its worlds better then they were

 

[Proximon]

My 4870 is rock solid and fast, not to mention running cool.

 

[bmbvenom]

Sweet guys, thanks alot! If you don't mind I'll ask a couple more questions pertaining to my new build, but not directly associated with processor/mobo compatibility.

How do all of these parts look as a $1000 budget build?

CPU/Mobo combo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.165049
CPU cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185125
Memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220334
Video card (future crossfire?): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801
HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148262
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009
Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042
Fans: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103052
DVD burner: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827129023

Of course I'll get some Arctic Silver 5 and some extra cables to connect the fans, but other than that how does it look? Any ideas/suggestions?

Thanks!!

 

[Proximon]

I'm sure the board is nice. Don't install the ASUS utility junk though.

Spend a bit more and get a high quality cooler. There is no reason not to at least bump your multiplier up a bit.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233029

Unless you really want green colored RAM, this has the same specs and is cheaper:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220314

Otherwise go for the high quality stuff:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231246

Wrong link on the GPU.

This combo is really nice, and this case is better cooled and roomier than the Antec 300:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.176939
You can drop the fans that way too.

For the money today, I think this is the best bang for the buck:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.177807
Ummm... check that combo. You might want to snap that up now. Gotta be a misprint. That's practically a free 640GB drive.

 

[bmbvenom]

Yeah I pretty much decided to go for all that stuff except I picked the Patriot over the G Skill memory. I don't need crazy ram, I've lived with 166mhz PC2700 for five years, I doubt I'll be able to tell the difference between the two you recommended. I also hope that the HUGE cpu cooler you persuaded me to choose won't block ALL of my dimm slots!
Thank you again so much for all of your help!!

P.S. I fixed the link before you replied, but apparently you still got the bad one. Oh, and just for the record I'm not planning on building this for a few months due to lack of funds right now. So hopefully some prices will go down or I'll be able to add an upgrade here and there for the same price!

 

[rav3n]

Get an Asrock K10N780SLIX3-WiFi. It supports 2 and 3 way sli, ddr2-1066 and the phenom II 940. I use it and its a very good board for its price. It is also a very good board for overclocking. i run my cpu at 4.5ghz on it.

 

[bmbvenom]

rav3n,
I looked at that board and I decided against it because of its limited SLI compatibility with the majority of nVidia manufacturers. In actuality, there are only 4 cards on the SLI compatible list and only two of them are the GTX series, as you can see here: http://www.asrock.com/mb/vga.asp?c=SLI3&Model=K10N780SLIX3-WiFi
If I went with nVidia I would want an EVGA card because they are known to be high quality and high performance.
However, thank you for your input and if you have any other ideas please post them!

 

[rav3n]

@bmbvenom

Thats only a list of cards they tested. I have a friend that runs evga gtx 280's in sli and i run 2 inno3d gtx260's without problem. And to be completely honest sli is a total waste of money. You will rarely see much of a performance gain anyway as most games don't support multi gpu's. You would be much better just getting a high end card then wasting your money on sli.

 

[Helloworld_98]

If you want to future proof it then the 920 AM3 is coming out soon and ddr3 is getting pretty cheap now. Only part that would up the price would be the mobo.

 

[bmbvenom]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you couldn't use DD3 RAM with a PII X4 940.... is this a misconception?

 

[Proximon]

New DDR3 Phenom IIs are coming. PII 945 or some such. I'm skeptical about them being any better, but we may see fairly soon.

 

[bmbvenom]

Does anyone have a rough time frame or price estimate on the new DDR3 Phenom IIs?
I can't find anything about them on the AMD site....

 

[Proximon]

http://www.techpowerup.com/82345/Phenom_II_X4_950_On_The_Cards.html

 

[wamphyrix]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128377


Very good AM3 board, and cheeper than the one you listed, although you will not be able to SLI but you could do crossfire in the future.


Also any of the newer Phenom II's support both DDR2 or DDR3


http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/socket-am3-phenom,2148.html

 

[wamphyrix]

Here is a AM3 processor AMD Phenom II X3 720 with both DDR2 or DDR3 support, its only a tri core but is a very good value.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103649

Here is a pretty good read on the AMD Phenom II X3 720

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3533&p=1

 

[rav3n]

If you wanted ddr3 my suggestion would be to wait until the new am3 cpu's and am3 mobo's come out. The current am3 boards don't show much of a performance gain over the am2+ boards. Or you could always build a core i7 system like i am preparing to do...

 

[rav3n]

If you wanted ddr3 my suggestion would be to wait until the new am3 cpu's and am3 mobo's come out. The current am3 boards don't show much of a performance gain over the am2+ boards. Or you could always build a core i7 system like i am preparing to do...