[Recommandation] Sk 775, fsb1333, 650i or p35

[crimsoncosmos]

Hello!

I'm looking into acquiring a new mobo, and I'm looking for something rather specific. I read the articles on the P35 and 650i boards. It seems to me that the P35 chipset is the only choice for the users that might consider a Crossfire configuration at some point. What brings me down is that the second PCI Express slot is really slow.

Basically, is there another chipset with all the advantages of p35 that supports Crossfire? If not, I'll stick with the GA-P35-DQ6 one probably...I can't manage to get my hands on a MSI P35 Platinum Rev. 1.1.

Also, please let me know if there are other aspects that elude me in the comparison between the nforce and intel chipsets. I'm not that much of a hardware guy

Cheers!

cc

p.s. for a nforce mobo without SLI support, but all the advantages of the latest models, what would you recommend?

 

[tuksonrider]

For a non-sli board, I would go with the eVGA 650i Ultra. It's a no frills board stable board. From what I read, it's built for mild overclocking as you can't step above 2.1v on the memory. The board itself is $100 with a $20 mail-in rebate (newegg).

The 680i has more bells and whistles including 2 - PCI-E 16x running in SLI and a thrid PCI-E 8x for a physics card. You're also paying alot more for those boards (cheapest I've seen is the eVGA 680i for $160).

I was debating between the 680i and the 650i, but ultimately went with the 650i. For one, I'll never go SLI. Second, with the money I saved, I'm buying a X-Fi card and disabling the onboard sound (Realtek ALC885).

 

[BUFF]

It seems to me that the P35 chipset is the only choice for the users that might consider a Crossfire configuration at some point. What brings me down is that the second PCI Express slot is really slow.

Basically, is there another chipset with all the advantages of p35 that supports Crossfire?

Asus have a couple of P35 boards with a special chip to allow dual x8 instead of x16 + x4.
However, in about a week the first X38 chipset mobos are due in retail & they are dual x16 for Crossfire.