Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe for Gaming

AngusM · 13 Oct 2006 at 09:42

Hi,
I am building a gaming system and thinking about using the following:
Asustek M2N32-SLI Deluxe (AM2 nForce 590)
Corsair Memory TWIN2X1024A-6400 2x512MB 240-Pin DIMM XMS2-6400
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800 Socket AM2 2GHz 1MB 1000FSB
...and possibly with a Radeon X1900GT.
Any thoughts about whether this is a well matched system? I want to achieve reasonably high performance, but without paying for the latest and greatest. On the other hand, no point in having some good components in their with something else acting as a bottleneck.
I also read some comments about the M2N32 being very fussy with memory - is this still the case?
I was also thinking about a trio of SATA disks in a RAID-5 configuration - is it worth it to get the extra performance or should I just get one or two large disks?

Thanks in advance for comments!

MeatLoaf · 13 Oct 2006 at 11:28

It looks ok mate, but for a very similar price you could swap the motherboard and cpu for core 2 duo insteead, everything else should work finew with it.

Tetras · 13 Oct 2006 at 13:19

Your also spending money on an SLI board and then buying an ATI card :confused:

You might as well just get something like:
MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550
£55 (inc VAT)

But as already said a cheap Core 2 Duo board and E6300 makes a whole lot more sense performance and money wise.

This for example if you want dual card capability for that X1900 GT:
Asrock ConroeXFire-eSATA2 LGA775 Core 2
£63.44 (inc VAT)

AngusM · 14 Oct 2006 at 21:10

Hey!
That's good advice about the Core Duo.
I suppose that over the past years I have become biased towards AMD as the best price/performance and was thinking only AM2 BUT I see from the PC-Pro that dropped through my letterbox this morning that Core Duo has changed all that. Looks like E6300 and E6400 are both great value for money with only the AMD 3800+ doing better at rather lower performance. So maybe I should switch to :
Foxconn Mobo P9657AA-8EKRS2H (Pc-Pro A-list) ...but I like nvidia chipsets...
Corsair Memory TWIN2X1024A-6400 2x512MB 240-Pin DIMM XMS2-6400
+should I stick with this memory with Intel+ ?
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 or E6400
Still need to decide on the graphics card though - maybe I'll do another post in that forum unless anyone here has recommendations about this mobo with either ATI X1900 or the Nvidia 7900GT
...and what about RAID 5 - I guess I should do another post.

MeatLoaf · 14 Oct 2006 at 22:35

Over the past 6 years ive only ever had amd. But thats because they were better at the time.

Now things have changed and i had no hestitation changing to core 2 duo