How upgradable are motherboards right now?

I need a new system because my current one is old, noisy and starting to overheat. However, I've been looking at the high end graphics cards and they don't seem too stunning at the moment.

How viable would it be to buy a good motherboard with integrated graphics and then upgrade to the next generation of cards when they come out in six months time? Likewise, if they turn out to be CPU limited would I be able to add a good CPU to it eighteen months from now?

Basically I'm after a gaming system that'll have playable framrates and settings (low is definitely not playable in some games) on a 24" monitor for the next three to four years for a total budget of about £1000, (not including monitor, mouse, keyboard etc.) and I'm looking for the best way to do that.

Well the graphics cards which are best for handling that sort of resolution range from the 8800GTS 512mb which can do it very nicely right now to the 9800GX2 which I imagine will last you a hell of a long time.

I wouldn't compromise your new motherboard by getting one with an integrated solution. Just get the motherboard you want and spend £20 - £30 on a cheapy card which you can then sell or perhaps just keep as a spare (just in case).

If that £1000 was mine then I would do this.

Intel Q6600 - £140 + Scythe Ninja or alternative -£30
4GB PC6400 DDR2 - £60
Abit IP-35 dark raider - £60
500GB Western Digital AAKS - £60
Optical Drive - £20
Antec Sonata Plus + 550w Modular PSU - £100

Then graphics
£350 on a 9800GX2 if you dont want to upgrade again

or £165 on a 8800GTS followed by an upgrade in a couple of years if you feel the need.

The GX2 route costs about £820, the GTS route costs about £635.

There are also graphics cards which are capable in the middle. The 8800GTX, the new 9800GTX (but only at the right price) and the ATi HD3870X2.

You can spend more if you want a really good overclocking board or a different case/psu but that is a great PC for the money and will last you a long time.

It will also run next to silent if built as above, you will only really hear the graphics card if you keep the stock cooler.

In regards to upgrading the cpu in 18months time. now is a bad time to build because the new intel nehalem prcoessors are coming out end of 2008/early 2009 which will require a whole new socket board.

im in the same boat has u looking to build as well and what im gunna do is get a quad core and PCI e 2.0 mobo as a bare minimum because

1. it will be a long time before a quad core q6600 becomes a bottleneck on a game(right now u can play games while encoding somthing!)

2. i HIGHLY doubt that gpu's will require a whole new socket too ie AGP to PCI E phase.

3. If in some form a of way either 1 or 2 mentioned below happens in less then 3 years from now, just purchase and buy a console such has teh PS4 or xbox 720 when those come out and that will do you fine till your ready again to build

so in terms of gaming a quad core pci 2.0 machine wil last u 3 years at least. by that time nehalem will be much more affordable

Four years is a long time to future proof for especially in this area (desktop computing).

I really don't think you can. Just looking at the evolution of memmory modules as an example, the speed of them means some motherboards on sale even now cannot support the latest memmory modules.

The best way to future proof is not to buy but to lease. Then you can always have the latest and greatest.

Just a thought - Presumably you'll want the possibility of SLI or Crossfire on that rig? The two are currently mutually exclusive so if you get the wrong board now, you're locked in.

For onboard - I can't see anything being satisfactory unless you stick to low resolutions (say 640x480...) / settings and older games. Even the best current onboard chipset, AMD 780G, only pulls about 55FPS, Medium quality in Doom 3, which is getting on a bit now ( DOOM3 benchmark of Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H AMD 780G+SB700 mainboard )

As always - the nearest you can get to future-proof on PC is just getting the best available now. Even if you get a low end CPU and graphics card now think along the lines of what could you upgrade to with your board that's available now.

Having said that - if I was doing what you're proposing, I'd make sure the board has PCI-E 2.0, Crossfire or SLi support (if you want that kind of thing), passive cooling, onboard fan control (you said you didn't like noise) and several PCI-E slots. If you go AMD make sure you get a board with HT3.0. For Intel, a board supporting both DDR2 and DDR3 would be nice. DDR2 now and you can swap to DDR3 when the price drops.

For graphics cards - I agree that the high end is a little underwhelming. SLi 8800GT on a decent motherboard would give almost as good performance as a 9800GX2. As a stop-gap I'd suggest a 2nd hand X1800 or X1900 series or maybe 7800 / 7900 series. Seen a few go on forums and ebay for around £30.

Occasionally you get lucky with these things. My current ASROCK 939Dual-SATA2 board had both AGP 8x and PCI-E 16x, as well as FutureCPU upgrade slot that's let me go from 939 to AM2. It's seen me go from an A64 3000+ and AGP 6600GT, through a few upgrades to my current X2 5000+ Black Edition and 8800GT. At the moment it' looks like Phenom's not supported but a few modders are beavering away trying to fix that (anyone else with this board - don't get your hopes up too much - it looks difficult and most motherboard manufacturers are claiming it's not possible with a 2MBit BIOS). AFAIK, there's nothing on the market offering that kind of futere-proofing / upgradeability at the moment.

yea i would suggest sticking in a 8800gt or 9600 card and wait for the true next gen gpu card to come out and spend £300+ on that because a 9800gx2 is realy not worth the money it is now.

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Originally Posted by kmac

Four years is a long time to future proof for especially in this area (desktop computing).

I really don't think you can. Just looking at the evolution of memmory modules as an example, the speed of them means some motherboards on sale even now cannot support the latest memmory modules.

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I disagree actually. A motherboard can easily last 5 years. CPUs are so much more powerful than they need to be that the only thing you have to upgrade is graphics card. If you go for a PCI-E 2.0 board and a decent power supply then you will be sorted for a long time to come just replacing the graphics card when you need to.

Yep, just take a quad core for example. how many games use even 50% of its load during a game?

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Originally Posted by kalniel

I disagree actually. A motherboard can easily last 5 years. CPUs are so much more powerful than they need to be that the only thing you have to upgrade is graphics card. If you go for a PCI-E 2.0 board and a decent power supply then you will be sorted for a long time to come just replacing the graphics card when you need to.

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I am not saying that he will NEED to upgrade. For example I am still running an Athlon 1400Mhz CPU on an old Asus board as I just don't need any more compute power.

What I am saying is that if you want to have the latest and greatest in terms of CPU, memmory etc, you will typically have to upgrade the mobo as well. You cannot use a mobo from 4 years ago to run CPUs and memmory available today. Whether you need to upgrade or not is a separate issue.

I agree with the future proofing for the next 4 yrs is going to be very tough. But thats if you want a high end system at the end of that time. A system that can still run some games with a gpu upgrade is very much possible though.

A decent motherboard with pci-e 2.0 should be good for at least a yr I think, I haven't heard of a new standard thats going to come in soon. they might say introduce pci-e 3.0 or something like that, but it should still be backwardly compatible with pci-e 1.0 and 2.0. I built my system last summer and the things that have come in since that time are the new core 2 duo/quads which run at a higher fsb and pci-e 2.0. I got my fsb running at 1467 and before that it was on 1556, on that speed its enough to run the latest core 2 duos.

the thing with motherboards is that with a bios update you can, sometimes, extend the life of it by making it compatible with newer hardware.

I bought pretty much all the best components I could find for a budget of £1200, and apart from crysis i can run anything at high settings on a 24" monitor.

A quad probably will be the best route in terms of processor. A motherboard with sli/cross-fire is your decision, I have sli on mine but haven't used it yet. It does give you the added safety that you can add in a same gpu sometime in the future if needs be. But judging by what you're saying a cheapish decent card now and then a upgrade when the real next gen gpus come out will probably be the best bet. Nvidia will probably release their's around the end of this yr or start of next, but bear in mind they'll prob be very expensive as they'll be the first gen cards of a new chipset. Also sli/crossfire don't scale well unless a game/driver supports, so sometimes a single card solution is the best bet.

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

Well the graphics cards which are best for handling that sort of resolution range from the 8800GTS 512mb which can do it very nicely right now to the 9800GX2 which I imagine will last you a hell of a long time.

I wouldn't compromise your new motherboard by getting one with an integrated solution. Just get the motherboard you want and spend £20 - £30 on a cheapy card which you can then sell or perhaps just keep as a spare (just in case).

If that £1000 was mine then I would do this.

Intel Q6600 - £140 + Scythe Ninja or alternative -£30
4GB PC6400 DDR2 - £60
Abit IP-35 dark raider - £60
500GB Western Digital AAKS - £60
Optical Drive - £20
Antec Sonata Plus + 550w Modular PSU - £100

Then graphics
£350 on a 9800GX2 if you dont want to upgrade again

or £165 on a 8800GTS followed by an upgrade in a couple of years if you feel the need.

The GX2 route costs about £820, the GTS route costs about £635.

There are also graphics cards which are capable in the middle. The 8800GTX, the new 9800GTX (but only at the right price) and the ATi HD3870X2.

You can spend more if you want a really good overclocking board or a different case/psu but that is a great PC for the money and will last you a long time.

It will also run next to silent if built as above, you will only really hear the graphics card if you keep the stock cooler.

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I doubt the psu in the sonata would be ok for a GX2!

One thing that you can make sure is capable of upgrades is the Case and PSU so there is no way i wouold go the budget option and pick the sonata. Yes its an ok case and the PSU is competanat but within a budget of 1000 and the specs given i would say a P182 and HX620 are much more sensible options.

as for PCI-E 2.0... we are not even using PCI-E 1 to its full capabilities, cards and boards are going to be backwards compatible for some time. Yes i agree its the best way of 'future proofing' however we all know that such a term cannot really apply to computing

One thing that you can make sure is capable of upgrades is the Case and PSU so there is no way i wouold go the budget option and pick the sonata. Yes its an ok case and the PSU is competanat but within a budget of 1000 and the specs given i would say a P182 and HX620 are much more sensible options.

I would probably go for the P182 corsair (albeit the 520w) route too in the end but that said, I wouldn't call the sonata plus a budget option by any means. It's quite a highly regard PSU from what I've read and the case is fantastic also.

I think you are over estimating the power requirements if you think 550W isn't enough. The 520w corsair will quite happily SLi 2 of the older gen 8800GTS's so I don't see why it wouldn't run a GX2 unless it hasn't been updated with 8pin PCIe connectors which I assume the GX2 uses.

if iw as you i would go for a full tower case so you wont have trouble adding anotehr gpu card for sli/crossfire and trouble adding more hdd's too. somthing like the lian li pc a-71 case will last u a very long time.

anotehr great thing about full tower case is that they have better airflow then mid tower cases due to the sheer size of it and less messy cabling

yes but we are looking of future proofing as much as possible. Graphics cards seem to be going up and up on power requiremtns plus wattage has nothing to do with it. The Corsair is a much stronger power supply all round. If you have ever seen the the PSU in the sonata you would know that its not something worth trusting a £350-400 worth of graphics card on. I definately wouldnt!

I know the corsair is a great PSU, I have one and I recommend them all the time but I can't imagine what would be wrong with the antec PSU.

Antec Neo HE 500 | PSUs | Reviews | Custom PC

thats the 500 not 550w but thats a pretty damn good review imo.

CPUs are going to need a whole new socket within about 2 years... Intel are planning to release their first Nehalem based chips by the end of this year.

so in 2 years time, the new games will require a nehalem has recomended requirement to run a game and not have the cpu the bottleneck?

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Originally Posted by j.o.s.h.1408

so in 2 years time, the new games will require a nehalem has recomended requirement to run a game and not have the cpu the bottleneck?

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I think it was just a general statement about how upgrading will go out the window in a couple of years as RAM will be DDR3, CPU sockets will change etc..

Different people have different idea's about how to tackle this sort of thing. Buy an enthusiast board now and hope it's worth something later to sell, or buy a cheap board now as more or less a throw away and then upgrade when you feel the need.

Personally as I said the IP-35 dark raider makes the most sense to me. For £60 you get all you will need a for a good couple of years and then you can buy the best motherboard for £60 then to :D

there is nothing wrong with it, its still a good psu. Like i said above i just wouldnt trust it with a £350-400 graphics card and i personally think if u held one in your hand you would agree with me.

If i where to build a 1000ish machine tomorrow i would probably go for something liek this:
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s...iteer/1000.jpg

This is just me personally but it should give some insight into what to do. Buy fairly budget on CPU and Motherboard as DDR2 ram is so cheap (4GB PC8500 can probs be found elsewhere much cheaper) and spend the money on getting the GX2 (awesome graphics card, think you must have missed this one when you where looking at them :p) and a decent case and power supply. As the CPU and Mobo will be redundant in 2-3 years due to the new socket type so there is no point in spending there. A good case and modular power supply is a godsend when it comes to building. Having room to route all the cables around etc is deffo worth the money. The case i listed is probs a bit pricey for what it is but there are many other that are much cheaper... the P182 for example. Although bare in mind the GX2 is a large card and will mean you lose one of the hard drive racks in the P182.

On the opinion of cases i forgot to add about 'fututre proofing'. A full tower case would be nice if you're thinking of upgrading, but its also nice having the extra space. With more space you can do sli/crossfire without worrying about whether it will fit in your case or not, but also if there is going to a new '8800 ultra' then you won't have to worry about fitting that in either.

Like i said before i was trying my best to build a system that would last as long as possible. One place i knew i wouldn't skimp on was the case and psu as alot of people have already rightly said. I've got the antec p190 which comes with 2 psus (1200W total)and can take e-atx motherboards as well. like you i was trying to cover my back as much as i could, and within my budget i could afford this case. it is overkill for most people but in terms of a solution for future upgrades i can't fault even though it is one of the most expensive cases you can find.

although the psu setup isn't exactly the most ideally (the 1st psu is hardwired but 2nd is partly modular), you can run triple sli, or even dual 9800gx2 i'm pretty sure. this means you won't have to try and bother figuring out what psu you need!

I think thats taking future proofing to the extreme :D

With the way things are going with power requirements, a decent 500w will pretty much have you covered, 600w if you are worried lol

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...mendoza/pc.jpg

this is a far betetr pc here. q9450, more hdd, pci 2.0 and cheaper too. sorted

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Originally Posted by j.o.s.h.1408

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...mendoza/pc.jpg

this is a far betetr pc here. q9450, more hdd, pci 2.0. sorted

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thats ok but with that build when he upgrades, if he want to keep his performance levels up he will have to upgrade the graphics aswell but i cant see the 9800GX2 being old hat for a long time... at least untill the next GX2!

Yeah I know its kind of extreme. But i had the spare money from my budget, since i didn't want to the premium for a gtx or a quad core at the time as i knew they would drop down in price/better parts would come out.

just means i don't have to worry next time i upgrade! my friend was screaming at me, saying i always go overboard lol

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Originally Posted by Biscuit

thats ok but with that build when he upgrades, if he want to keep his performance levels up he will have to upgrade the graphics aswell but i cant see the 9800GX2 being old hat for a long time... at least untill the next GX2!

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The 9800XXX series is going to be EoL very soon... it's just a stopgap solution for nVidia...

all intel motherboards die as soon as nehalem comes out. That said, if you can live with that, you ought to get a good 2 years out of your system - 3 with a GPU and processor upgrade... any more, and it'll start to fall apart IMO

(by the way, mods, this was an accidental double post)

2 years is definetly reasonable and by that time nehalem will be much more affordable and with many bugs ironed out too nehalem in 2 years time from now will be at its peak as well

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Originally Posted by -iceblade^

The 9800XXX series is going to be EoL very soon... it's just a stopgap solution for nVidia...

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Seconded!

Buy a pre overclocked 8800 GTS, much better value!

Thanks for all the excellent replies!

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

I wouldn't compromise your new motherboard by getting one with an integrated solution. Just get the motherboard you want and spend £20 - £30 on a cheapy card which you can then sell or perhaps just keep as a spare (just in case).

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With the Hybrid Graphics I keep hearing about I thought gamer boards would be quick to adopt integrated graphics, being able to turn off an 9800GX2 when not gaming seems like no small advantage is terms of power consumption and noise (although I hear this generation is reasonable quiet). I appreciate they can't game but for that advantage and logevity I'd be happy to go without some games for a few more months.

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Originally Posted by kmac

Four years is a long time to future proof for especially in this area (desktop computing).

I really don't think you can. Just looking at the evolution of memmory modules as an example, the speed of them means some motherboards on sale even now cannot support the latest memmory modules.

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Well my current system lasted for three and a half years before something came out that wasn't sensibly playable (Gothic 3). I spend about £1000-1200 on that as well and was hoping to get similar this time.

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Originally Posted by Uriel

Just a thought - Presumably you'll want the possibility of SLI or Crossfire on that rig? The two are currently mutually exclusive so if you get the wrong board now, you're locked in.

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If I'm likely to need it, whatever produces the best frame rates for the price is what I'm looking for. If that's Dual SLI, Quad crossfire or Octo puses then so be it :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by rufeo

I agree with the future proofing for the next 4 yrs is going to be very tough. But thats if you want a high end system at the end of that time. A system that can still run some games with a gpu upgrade is very much possible though.

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Oh yes, I don't expect it to be a high end system then. But something that'll play bioshock 2 when it comes out in march 2012 at low settings and 1440x900 would be great.



It sounds like now may not be the best time to buy a single expensive system. If I was to buy a lower end system now and then upgrade it in a couple of years time then would that be a better deal? If so, what would be the best way to split the £1000 total budget. £500 now, £500 upgrade? £700 now, £300 upgrade? £850 now, £150 upgrade? I'd upgrade when the system I buy now strarts to come across games it couldn't play at all.

I think thats a wise decision.
I recently upgraded (as ram is so cheap it was criminal not oo :D)but rather than looking to blitz my old pc as there wasnt really anything wrong with it, i just went for the cheapest option and got a
C2D E4500
Abit IP35-E
2GBOCZ platinum ram

Doing something similar or even getting an E2180 would bring the costs right down for a temporary build

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).

When the next gen appears you can replace the cards you've got with the latest and greatest. Likewise swap out the CPU when the prices drop or something new appears.

On upgradeability - it's worth mentioning that the current AM2+ boards will take AM3 CPUs (so long as they get a BIOS update presumably) so may get a little more mileage than the current S775 boards. At least with intel, though you can guarentee the potential performance. AMD might release something great in the future but I emphasise the word might. If you did decide to go AMD, the 780a motherboards are starting to appear and it might be worth getting one.

Based on currently available products, I'd say go Intel CPU on an nVIDIA SLI board.

you could always wait for nehalem but thats going to be another year till that comes out. where in abit of a picky spot tbh. if you wait one more year, you can have the latest and greatest pc that will guaranteed to last you 3 SOLID years because you would of bought a nehalem in its baby year.

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.

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Originally Posted by Uriel

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).

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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 :p

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

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

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).

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

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 :)

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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).

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

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.

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Originally Posted by Uriel

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).

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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?

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.

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.

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.