How upgradable are motherboards right now?

[Uriel]

BTW: The reason I suggested 780i or 780a chipsets is for the Extra PCI-E 16x lanes on the PCI-E 2.0 bus. It's not really a bottleneck now though. Most lower end chipsets have x8 or even x4 for the 2nd graphics slot.

[staffsMike]

I'd say, get a SLI board with PCI-E 2.0. Say 780i chipset. Stick a cheap C2D CPU in it and maybe a 9600GT or 8800GT (not 256MB version). See how it performs. If it's not good enough for you add another identical graphics card in SLI (or do the same a few months down the line).

I think the problem is, with boards like the IP-35 dark raider floating around for £60 you end up spending nearly £100 extra on the motherboard which might has well have just gone or a decent graphics card in the first place. The motherboard differences will be negligable but the graphics difference could be huge depending on the resolution.

My comments about the integrated graphics solution board is more along the lines of the actual boards you can get are a compromise compared to boards without. They don't have all the features, or they are built cheaper or they don't overclock well etc.. Sure if hybrid graphics are implimented on any it would nice to save power but the idle draw on something like a 9600GT (or even the 8800GT/GTS) won't cause too many power bill problems. We're talking under 150w Idle

As for your splitting the budget Idea, I like it very much and my original build will lend itself well to it £600 now and I'll give you a bet (gentlemans) that you don't feel the need to change for 2 years minimum. Especially if you give the Q6600 a tickle up to 3.0GHz.

My original build idea will also run next to silent which is a nice touch

£300 - £400 might get you something pretty basic which will play games nicely for a year or so.. maybe more..

[j.o.s.h.1408]

yea spend 600-700 now and you will be happy for a while. no point spending lots amount of money on dead wood as nehalem and the true next gen gpu's will come out soon.

i might go with your idea to split the money now so instead of suffering with this piss poor age old p4 agp system, tomorrow i could be having fun on a 8800gt +q6600 system

[Uriel]

The thing is - I don't believe that an 8800GTS, 9800GTX or 9800GX2 would see you happy for two years. Crysis (accoriding to HardOCP - they weren't even satisfied with 9800GX2 SLI) or Call of Juarez (I'm guessing, given how it runs on my 8800GT) with all the DX10 bells and whistles are not playable at 1920x1200 on those cards. Either way, GPU is an easy upgrade. CPU is an easy upgrade (if you don't use a cooler requiring the motherboard to be removed). Apart from Supreme Commander - what other games benefit from quad core enough to determine whether they're playable or not?

9800GX2 performance can be had from most dual 8x SLI boards running 2x8800GTS for less money.

The motherboard StaffsMike suggested is a great choice if you don't want to use SLI (edit: but it's not got PCI-E 2.0 - who knows how long before that'll be an issue).

[EndlessWaves]

My comments about the integrated graphics solution board is more along the lines of the actual boards you can get are a compromise compared to boards without. They don't have all the features, or they are built cheaper or they don't overclock well etc.. Sure if hybrid graphics are implimented on any it would nice to save power but the idle draw on something like a 9600GT (or even the 8800GT/GTS) won't cause too many power bill problems. We're talking under 150w Idle

Yes, it's not needed for the more efficient gaming cards but as the high end cards should be able to benefit and it's already taken over the low end then I wouldn't be surprised if it starts colonising inward in the next few years until it's a standard feature on all motherboards (unless intel's x86 GPU plans disrupt it).

As for your splitting the budget Idea, I like it very much and my original build will lend itself well to it £600 now and I'll give you a bet (gentlemans) that you don't feel the need to change for 2 years minimum. Especially if you give the Q6600 a tickle up to 3.0GHz.

Apart from Supreme Commander - what other games benefit from quad core enough to determine whether they're playable or not?

The motherboard StaffsMike suggested is a great choice if you don't want to use SLI (edit: but it's not got PCI-E 2.0 - who knows how long before that'll be an issue).

I was under the impression that core 2 duo was faster at the moment but is my perception slightly out of date? And speaking of core I'm a big fan of TA so supreme commander is pretty high up my list of games to get for this system. Do you reckon the Q6600 is the way to go for a two year system over something like the E8400?

Also, a quick look around shows the IP35 dark raider starts at around £70 new, while the IP35-E is £60. I don't need RAID or firewire and the E is rated for 333FSB for the 3Ghz Quad so it seem to be functionally the same, is the dark raider worth the extra tenner?

[staffsMike]

The dark raider is £60 pretty much every other day on scans today only page. If you aren't going to use raid or firewire then it's probably not worth £10 extra. It has slightly better chipset cooling but again if you aren't going to go over 333MHz on the FSB then there is little use for that.

I would wait for it to be on today only and get it then.

Duo can provide higher overall clocks, it will push 4.0GHz I suppose but 3.0GHz on the quad will last over 2 years imo. Supreme commander I believe is one of the few games that can utilise quad core's at the moment so it would be in your best interest to get one lol

For me persoannly I would get the quad which is why I recommend them. I wouldn't bother with a dual as I like a lot of system flexability. It's nice to know you have the power to have things going on in the background and you can still have a gaming running unaffected.

[Biscuit]

As far as i know the only other differences are sata ports. There is more on the dark raider and they are AHCI controlled. As for the cooling performancewise on the IP35s... makes no difference. My flatmate has the dark raider and i have the E and the differences are negligable.

[Uriel]

Overclocking Benchmark, Continued : Overclocking Intel's Wolfdale E8000

Toms have got some benchies in Supreme Commander of the CPUs you're considering - gameplay too rather than canned. There is a benefit from extra cores but the Wolfdales are still near the top of the table. Looks like they're faster, even for a multithreaded title like that.

Woudn't surprise me if the Q6600 pulls ahead in something that's better optimised for multi-core.