Motherboard advice

[robcrowley]

Hi all,

I am going to be building myself a PC in the next couple of weeks (waiting for 8800 GT supplies to sort themselves) and would like some advice on a motherboard. For a CPU I plan on getting the Q6600 so obviously I require an intel based mobo. In addition I would like to have the option of going SLI, for a potential upgrade in 6 months or so. Finally since I don't plan on getting a sound card, a decent onboard sound card would be a good bonus. If the motherboard can come in at around £100, it would allow me to keep inside my budget, although obviously im prepared to pay a bit more if required.

Many thanks

PS. There is another of 8800 GT threads going on at the moment so this is just a quick side note. I want to get one of the decent GT cards - (BFG - EVGA?). I would like to get the computer before Xmas if possible, are either of these cards likely to be available before xmas? Finally should I be aiming to get one of the superclocked versions, with my aim to build a fairly decent Crysis system?

[freddie]

i just had a thought. you can get a good g33 based motherboard, ie board graphics right now. then get the graphics card when they're in stock. i dont know if g33 is sli compatible though.....nvidia equivalent is not available under scan....nor under crossfire. maybe it's a bad idea!

either way i understand nvidia will be short on cards, whereas amd/ati will have boatloads ready and at very competitve prices. so maybe thats worth considering.

[staffsMike]

You have two options at the moment.

The nforce 650i boards and the 680i boards.

The 650i boards easily fit the budget.
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something like that. There is an EVGA equavalent around.

With the 680i you will probably be limited to the LT version which isn't bad but has a cheaper fan based cooling solution.

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If you add £30/£40 quid to the budget you can get the better 680i's like the below

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[robcrowley]

Thanks for the quick reply there guys. staffsMike, all those options look good. Is there any there that you would choose as a preference? As discussed in an earlier thread I plan to spend about 850 on the pc (but I am now going from a GTX to a GT card), I have the extra money to spend in other areas, however if the 130 quid mobo is an overkill I could save myself some money.

[staffsMike]

I think the biggest problem with the LT is those noisey little fans. If thats not a problem it might be the way to go.

I have the evga 680i and am very happy with it but, also has a very noisey little fan lol.

To be perfectly honest the 650i is probably a good way to go.

The only problem with it is, when you use SLi the graphics cards are held back at 8x rather than the 16x which they should be. However, i'm led to believe this counts for about 1% performance loss which is no big deal really.

[robcrowley]

I am planning to build the PC, including monitor with a total cost of £1000. Including the most expensive mobo I still have around 250 to play with - I think the GT I am looking at comes at just under 200.

Case

Antec 900 - Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case with 200m Top Fan w/o PSU

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£67.79

Power Supply Unit

520W Corsair HX Series Modular PSU, ATX, EPS12V, whisper quiet, 5 year warranty

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£63.62

Cooler

Scythe Mini Ninja Heatpipe CPU Cooler S478/LAG775, AMD S754/939/940/AM2

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£27.01

CPU

Intel Core 2 Quad-Core Q6600 G0 SLACR, 95W, S775, 2.40 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 8MB Cache, OEM

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£156.15

Hard Drive

500 GB Samsung HD501LJ Spinpoint T166, SATA II, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ

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£61.09

Memory

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC)

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC)

£41.11 – x 2

Motherboard

EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 NF680i SLI, S775, PCI-E(x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX

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£139.83

Monitor

20" Samsung SM206BW Black Widescreen LCD, 1680x1050, 3000:1, 300cd/m2, 2ms

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£179.18

TOTAL

£776.89 - excluding graphics card

How is the motherboard I select with overclocking? This is something I am not 100% sure if I will do yet, however I believe the CPU I am planning on getting can certainly get a fair bit of extra juice out of it.

Is this the graphics card to get, if / when it becomes available?

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[Blitzen]

For a CPU I plan on getting the Q6600 so obviously I require an intel based mobo

If like you say you are purchasing in a 'few' weeks, then forget about the Q6600 as the next Gen Quads should be here before Xmas and the Q6600, along with the next gen's will get alot cheaper than they are now i should think.

[Webby]

If like you say you are purchasing in a 'few' weeks, then forget about the Q6600 as the next Gen Quads should be here before Xmas and the Q6600, along with the next gen's will get alot cheaper than they are now i should think.

Not necessarily take the E6700 and the E6750 cost ~£190 the other ~£115 not sure the E6700 dropped that much on the launch of the E6750, I do agree though that the new chips may come in cheaper than the Q6600 so it could be worth the wait if the system isn't required this very minute!

[robcrowley]

My plan is to get the rest of the parts as soon as the 8800 GT comes in. However as you say this my coincide with the release of new chips, so I will have to see.