Best socket 754 motherboard with PCI express?

2StepSteve · 2 May 2006 at 16:23

Ah i see hmm! Thats very mad, im gonna need at least 3 of them.

The search goes on.... Shame that Asus isnt recommended as that would do me... could get it all from OC

clemenzina · 2 May 2006 at 17:11

2StepSteve said:
...gonna need at least 3 of them.

What do you need them for, Steve? I'm not being sarky, just curious

Apparently the sound on some of these new boards is very good, and LAN is built in, and there's plenty of USB connections... so I'm wondering what PCI cards you need. I need to know, I'm burstin'

clemenzina

2StepSteve · 2 May 2006 at 17:18

clemenzina said:
What do you need them for, Steve? I'm not being sarky, just curious

Apparently the sound on some of these new boards is very good, and LAN is built in, and there's plenty of USB connections... so I'm wondering what PCI cards you need. I need to know, I'm burstin'

clemenzina

hehe the suspence

well I need one for soundcard dont like onboard stuff! One for SATA (need two sata ports) if the mobo doesnt have it built in... and an extra IDE controller for the hard drives I have

pastymuncher · 2 May 2006 at 19:41

Hang on a minute. The Epox has 4 sata 2 ports built in. Don't forget sata 2 is backwards compatiable. It also has 2x ide controllers for 4 drives. Check out the boards web page here.

2StepSteve · 2 May 2006 at 20:13

ah yeah so it does opps!

But will there be enough space for me to use them 2 PCI slots?... or would the vid card get in the way... Im also looking to get the x1800XT. If so then im tempted by this epox then and the Abit NV8. Im guessing the epox would OC better? This isn't easy at all when theres not much choice with 754 boards with PCI E.

pastymuncher · 3 May 2006 at 10:06

If you are only using a X1800XT in the top slot then there will be no problems with using both the pci slots. The problems start when you use two Nvidia dual slot cards in Sli that then block one of the pci slots.

Be warned though. The Epox is a good overclocker and you can put 3.3v through the Vdimm BUT only +0.05v extra though the cpu. Aside from that there are millions of overclocking options for the memory in the bios and i have'nt sussed most of them out yet.

The NV8 is an excellent board and overclocks very well.

2StepSteve · 3 May 2006 at 23:26

I just caved and purchased...

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-121-SP)

Abit NV8 nForce4 4X (Socket 754) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-080-AB)

Ahhh haha ah well... I wasn't planning on going out much this month anyway! lol.... I'll sell my 6800GT so wont be too out of pocket. Thanks for your help everyone, hope i'll be happy

clemenzina · 4 May 2006 at 00:01

Well done, I hope you'll be very happy together, Steve

Anyway, this is me on me new rfurbished EPoX - couldn't get the onboard sound to work but it's OK cos I've put my old Hercules sound card in and that's actually fairly good.

Now I've just got to return that Biostar *quake*.

clemenzina

2StepSteve · 4 May 2006 at 02:02

hehe thanks I think we will be okkies together

Thats cool... previous experience im not a fan of on board sound myself...less things have changed a lot, ** prob better off with the Hercules