You are replacing PCI with PCI-e too quickly

[BUFF]

Where all i've seen are £200~250 inc vat EVGA & Asus boards reckon abit will be in same ballpark. (would be nice to be proved wrong, but not holding my breath )

Specialtech, £165 incl. VAT, Tekheads £163.
http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/...cat=169&page=1

[even steven]

Sorry for the noob question, but I thought PCI-E slots were backwards-compatible with PCI cards. Am I mistaken? Only I'm about to buy a new motherboard with only one PCI slot and I will be hoping to use at least 2 PCI cards.

[BUFF]

Sorry for the noob question, but I thought PCI-E slots were backwards-compatible with PCI cards. Am I mistaken?

you are mistaken.
there are PCI-E versions of virtually everything now except sound cards & they have far more bandwidth available than the PCI bus.

[Supershanks]

Thnx Buff will keep my eye on that. had been looking at Abit IN9 32X-MAX NF680i SLIwhich was in line with the Asus Striker @ £251. Whats confusing me are the cheaper models 680i or 650i as described in Nvidia Ships World’s Most Expensive Desktop Core-Logic

[DratUK]

Where all i've seen are £200~250 inc vat EVGA & Asus boards reckon abit will be in same ballpark. (would be nice to be proved wrong, but not holding my breath )

Have a look at
www.aria.co.uk
http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=606628

Sorry my bad forgot to add vat. Still at £162.02 it blows the comps overpriced products away..

[Supershanks]

Thanks DratUK,
I'm quite puzzled, their are definately 2 price points £200~250 & £175.
I can't really see any difference in the specs.

From Nvidia nForce 680i SLI Chipset Review (page 2)

The top-of-the-line solution is nForce 680i SLI, the mainstream chipset is called nForce 650i SLI, and the value chipset in the family will be called nForce 650i Ultra. By artificially disabling some of the nForce 680i SLI features and reducing the number of supported PCI Express lanes they will create better value chipset modifications from the top nForce 680i SLI solution, therefore we will devote our today’s article to this particular product in the first place, because this way we will get a good idea of all three newcomers.

gives the impression that the lower £ mobos would be 650isli, but i read that these aren't being released yet & 20 can't see any diff in specs between the boards.

Scan is showing the same pattern:-Scan Motherboards - Intel P4 - nForce 6 - 775

[DratUK]

Thanks DratUK,
I'm quite puzzled, their are definately 2 price points £200~250 & £175.
I can't really see any difference in the specs.

From Nvidia nForce 680i SLI Chipset Review (page 2)

gives the impression that the lower £ mobos would be 650isli, but i read that these aren't being released yet & 20 can't see any diff in specs between the boards.

Scan is showing the same pattern:-Scan Motherboards - Intel P4 - nForce 6 - 775

New product premium price. Plus Nvidia is charging double for the 680i chip compared to the Intel 975 and 965 chips $120 against £55.00. Its all hype, if you look at the reviews the various tests show marginal performance differences between the Intel and Nvidia chips.
Dont get me wrong I have always used Nvidia chips from NF2 onwards, but this sort of pricing well I am struggling to justify staying with Nvidia. The Abit pricing is more reasonable and I think we have to thank Abit for taking a stance on price. Scan are now showing the ECs at £172, the ECs is the standard Nvidia reference board.

[Supershanks]

Must admit i'm in the same mind as you. Am somewwhat disenchanted with nvidia despite using them in last 3 mobos. Each chipset is more expensive than the last. Nvidia Ships World’s Most Expensive Desktop Core-LogicIt's very difficult looking at newboards which is an improvement & which is just hype(something i must admit nvidia are very good at).

Am not upgrading 4 a month or so, will use the time to see how things develop. The 965 seems to be the best ocing chipset but doesn't offer proper dual card support. There is the Bearlake chipset to come from Intel which in effect is an upgrade of the 975X chipset. From A look at Intel's upcoming moves

The chip is largely identical 965 chipset, except that it supports FSBs of up to 1333MHz instead of 1066MHz

which if it has crossfire support like the current 975x may do 4 me.

But that Abit IN9 32X-MAX NF680i does look nice ............

[DratUK]

Thanks for the link to the bearlake chipset rundown. Well that does it. I have looked over the EVGA forums and it has put me off the Nvidia. Too many issues with the SATA controller and also problems with XFi.
I'll go with 975X as it is a mature chipset then change it to the BearlakeX.
Interesting comment about DDR3 support and surprise surprise possible SLi support.
Going back to the op thread, sorry m8 we were getting diverted, I have to agree PCI-e still has limited support with PCI still predominant so why mobo manufacturers feel its a nessecity to place so many PCI-e slots in at the sacrifice of PCI I dont know.