650i Motherboards

[Lucio]

Does anyone know if these offer a reasonable value for money? It looks like that even when my court date is over and I have my cash, the wedding next year is going to soak up all the funds.

I was thinking of getting one of these and a 320MB 8800GTX paired with a 19" widescreen monitor. Can these cope with the new 1333FSB chips or would be I be better off spending a little more for say a Q6600 or one of the older model C2D's?

[ackrite26]

Get a P35 if on a budget, much better than a 650i chipset.

EDIT: Unless you want to so go SLi

[Lucio]

TBH SLI is my main worry, in a year or two's time when I want more power from my PC, I don't want to have to sell up, migrate all my data etc just to be able to play the latest games.

My only concern with a 650i mobo is whether or not I'll be able to use the chips like the E6550 which run at 1333FSB as they're far better value for money than the older C2D's.

[staffsMike]

650i only has 8x PCIe for SLi so it will not be that great of an upgrade if the cards are 16x

[Lucio]

650i only has 8x PCIe for SLi so it will not be that great of an upgrade if the cards are 16x

Is a 320MB card even capable of filling a x8 slot's worth of bandwidth?

[BUFF]

TBH SLI is my main worry, in a year or two's time when I want more power from my PC, I don't want to have to sell up, migrate all my data etc just to be able to play the latest games.

My only concern with a 650i mobo is whether or not I'll be able to use the chips like the E6550 which run at 1333FSB as they're far better value for money than the older C2D's.

in 2 years time there will be a single GPU that will beat 2 of your current GPU in SLI.
650i can run 1333fsb CPUs.