New motherboard advice

[PooBear]

Hi all,

I need to invest in a new motherboard and after reading the articles on Tom's hardware I'm not totally sure what to do now! I've always had MSI boards and really seem to get on well with them.

I currently have a P4 3GHz Prescott processor which I want to upgrade (but not right now as it is still fast enough) so it needs to be able to support both new Intel processors but my older one too.

My current hard drives are sata and would need a min of 4 storage drives (more would be great!).

My memory is due for an upgrade so that is nothing to really worry about.

I already have one PCI-Express card which is 128mb (due for an upgrade later in the year) but would need an SLI ready board. I have seen some motherboards with 3xPCI-E slots running at 2x16 and one at 1x8.

I was original going to get MSI P6N Diamond but after hearing the layout problems that board has and the stability issues I'm not sure.

Then I saw this board MSI 975x Platinum PowerUp Edition but this only supports ATI Crossfire and not SLI 🙁

Any help/advise/input would be much appreciate!

Thanks in advance,

Alex

 

[aevm]

Are you sure you need SLI? It really makes sense only with 8800 GTX cards these days. Even then, combining two 8800 GTX cards with a single-core P4 will be disappointing. Of course, you can get an E6850 for $266 in July :lol:

I've read a lot of reviews these past few months and I really like the Asus P5N32-E SLI and a couple of Gigabyte mobos. I've also read a review for some P35-based mobo made by MSI but I didn't like it, the second card would run at x4 instead of x16. I expect that will be fixed in the x38 chipset this fall.

 

[bigblack]

I think that you make things harder by selecting SLI as a feature. Two cards SLI'ed cannot reach the performance of the next better model, while normally they cost more. Also the power specifications of your system need to be greater with SLI, making it rather inefficient.
Of course this is my opinion but you should research a little more the potential benefits or shortcomings of SLI before you decide.
All in all you would be better off with an i965 solution (Gigabyte DS3, Asus P5B-E). If you buy an EVGA video card, you can enter the upgrade program and in three months upgrade to a better card paying only the difference. Again, in my opinion, this should give much more performance/money than any SLI solution.

Even then, combining two 8800 GTX cards with a single-core P4 will be disappointing. Of course, you can get an E6850 for $266 in July Laughing

Totally agree!

 

[PooBear]

Are you sure you need SLI?

Not really I guess, do physic cards run on PCI-e or PCI? If it is PCI-e would it be better to have two PCI-e slots so it ran at x16 and not x8?

Some models would be much appreciate, thanks for your input guys 😀

Alex

 

[aevm]

Physics cards used to be PCI but PCI-E models are coming too. Here's an example: http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/02/ageia-building-pci-express-version-of-physx-card/

I'd stay away from physics cards because most games don't take advantage of them. Your money is better invested in a better CPU or GPU. If you get yourself a (E6850, Q6600, Q6700)/(8800 GTX, 8900 GTX) combo then you won't need a physics card anyway.

(And no, I don't know when the 8900 GTX will be out, I'm waiting for it myself 😳 )