First-time Motherboard Selection

[andrewcc]

Hello all-

I'm looking at building a system for the first time, and I'm kind of on information overload. I have a fairly good idea of what I want in everything except for the motherboard. I've looked around on THG and the newegg reviews, and several other websites, but there's so much info that I don't quite know what to do.

I'm essentially going to be gaming on this machine, but I don't need a full on "Extreme Gaming/OCing" board. I'm looking more for something that'll expand well and last for a decent length of time. I know that I'd like to start with an E6600 CPU and a single Geforce card, with a bump up to SLI when the money comes around. The ability to minorly OC the the processor would be good when I get the guts to do it, but for the most part everything will be at stock speeds.

Any help/suggestions would be appreciated

As a PS.....how long would this info be good for? I'm probably not going to do this in the next 2 weeks or anything, so if it's going to be a month or so, should I even bother looking at parts now? I'm not sure what the shelf life on some of this stuff is.

 

[Newf]

MSI P6N SLI-F LGA775 nF650i 2IDE ATX Conroe $115+6 2/18/07
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130082

Asus P5N-E LGA775 nF650i SLI 2IDE ATX Conroe $130+6 2/11/07
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131142
Asus P5N-E Review 12/22/06
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2894

 

[Newf]

...As a PS.....how long would this info be good for? I'm probably not going to do this in the next 2 weeks or anything, so if it's going to be a month or so, should I even bother looking at parts now? I'm not sure what the shelf life on some of this stuff is.

A month from now pricing will have changed. This is especially true for cpus and video cards. Motherboard prices are more stable (until a new chipset is introduced). As far as parts themselves go, one fly in the ointment could be ATI/AMD's response to the nVidia 8800 series. New competition should cause prices to fall, but it could also change your decision on which card (and from which OEM) to buy.
This could impact your choice on a motherboard if, for example, you wanted a new ATI card with the ability to run Crossfire down the road. No longer would you choose an nVidia chipset motherboard...

 

[andrewcc]

Ok, that makes a lot of sense. There's just so many boards out there, with so many different chipsets and whatnot that I'm having a hard time keeping them straight, let alone being able to match the capabilities with what I want to do. This makes for a great base to compare a couple of the other things I'd been looking at. Thanks!