Which SLi Motherboard

[Fresco]

I am in the process of building a new system and wondered what SLi Motherboard people could recommend, or think I should hold on for.

From reading up on this, the main ones are:

Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe (or standard)
Gigabyte K8NXP-SLi Ultra
MSI K8N SLi Diamond
Lanparty UT NF4 SLi-D or Lanparty NF4 SLi-DR (anyone know what the difference is?)

I particularly wanted a SLi based machine as i plan on buying 6800GT now but have the opportunity to buy another one at a later date when they are cheaper.

I also plan on buying a pair of 512Mb Corsair XMS3200XL Pro, an AMD Athlo64 3500+, a single Raptor HD and a suitable PSU.

Im not an expert in overclocking, but want to have some potential there, to experiment and push the system as I become more confident.

From what I have read, the Asus is readily available but has limited overclocking capability, and the Lanparty has much greater OC capabilities, but is not available yet. The other two I have not heard much about.

Any views would be much appreciated.

[xoman]

a8n sli standard is pretty good particularly consider it is cheaper the some ultra boards, however, dun buy it from dabs! i've ordered it since 2/JAN and it still not arrive yet. (and the projected time of arrive is something like 05/FEB!)

[pudds]

Id go for the dfi sli-dr if your into overclocking. Any of the others should be ok if your not. Asus seems the buggiest board (bios updates seem to be fixing some things)but then again there isn't as much info available about the other boards so they may be as bad.

the dfi sli-dr has 2 sata controllers, like most others. The d version just has one.

[Fresco]

Thanks for the replies.

It occurs to me that if i go with the Asus and it has limited ram overclocking in term of max voltage it may not be necessary to go with the expensive XMX3200XL Pro Ram and I could save some money.

Having said that I dont really know how limited the Asus board is, its just from what others have posted.

[nvening]

THe best RAM for your system is 1 Gb (2 x 512 Mb) Corsair TwinX-XL, DDR, PC3200XLPT, Cas 2, Lifetime Warranty £180 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=118550
or for i bit cheaper but still good
1 Gb (2 x 512 Mb) Corsair TwinX, DDR, PC3200C2PT, Cas 2, Lifetime Warranty £130 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...roductID=71473
As for the sli board im not sure.

[Olly1234]

just with regards to the voltage my an8-sli goes up to at least 2.9v for RAM as that's what I have it set at, not sure if it goes higher, will check..However last night I noticed the max ram speed setting had DDR600 so seems to have quite a bit of headroom

[nvening]

but uless you OC ur cpu 3200 is best

[Olly1234]

I haven't begun playing with OC'ing my Sli yet but from what i've read as the PCI & PCIE speeds are locked and you can also lock the RAM speed and just amend the dividers you can just just OC the CPU?

[pudds]

cpu voltage is the main limit , goes up to 1.575 on winchesters

[Steve]

cpu voltage is the main limit , goes up to 1.575 on winchesters

Is that locked by the VID or the BIOS or what? You can tweak the VID if you're brave:

http://www.vr-zone.com.sg/?i=1624&s=1

Only he seems to have done it with a NewCastle.

[Thorsson]

Thanks for the replies.

It occurs to me that if i go with the Asus and it has limited ram overclocking in term of max voltage it may not be necessary to go with the expensive XMX3200XL Pro Ram and I could save some money.

Having said that I dont really know how limited the Asus board is, its just from what others have posted.

It's difficult to know whether people's problems with the ASUS SLI are board-specific or people specific. I've had no significant problems with mine (the one problem I've had is with the firewall and that's prolly down to me).

[Olly1234]

Sitting on my Asus Sli now with the latest beta bios 107 and the max cpu voltage on winchester 3500 is now shown as 1.650

[nur5ey]

How stable is it, have ya done any serious ocing yet?

[Olly1234]

Not as yet, going to be trying that this weekend :-)

[pudds]

Id does say 1.65 but if you set that you get around 1.475v . 1.6375 bives you between 1.57 - 1.59 , varies a lot.
I probably woudn't have sent the board back if the memory slot hadn't burnt out but as i had to id rather wait a few weeks and get the dfi now.

[nur5ey]

Just wondering how hard it was 4 u to setup considering the rest of the hype thats about withthis board. Oh and where did ya get the new beta bioses from?