out of the loop on mobo's need some advice

[rjk]

hi guys

in a few months i will be upgrading my rig
i have had a 'stop-gap' asrock motherboard for longer than the 'stop-gap' label i give it should allow.

i think i will be going for an intel q6600 because of the £/performance

and im not overly enthused by AMD spider platform/phenom etc

so i guess im looking at an intel board
i havent been paying attention to motherboards for a few months now so i need some advice

was thinking of budgeting £80-£130 max for the board itself

it needs to run quadcore obviously
would prefer something with an ok featureset the better.

no mad overclocks - i tend to stay fairly modest and only raise it a bit
[although i have heard the q6600 oc's extremely well]

prefer nvidia cards so may appreciate sli option?

basically just dont understand the jargon on intel boards so need some pros and cons weighing up

thanks in advance for any advice

 

[rjk]

anyone?

 

[Space Monkey]

Is SLI something you really want? I ask only because it is a lot more expensive for not too much gain. Depends on your budget but I would advise just getting a better single GFX card and saving the extra towards something else.

I was in your position until recently and have decided after many hours searching the web.

I've now got the Abit IP35 Pro motherboard, the Quad Q6600 CPU you mentioned and a BGF 8800GTS 512 (G92) graphics card and I'm really happy with it all.

You should easily get a 3ghz overclock on the CPU (so a mild overclock), get some low latency fast ram say 2-4GB of PC2-6400 and you'll have a decent PC.

If you must get SLI then its only the Nvidia mobos that'll do it and they are normally more expensive and according to a lot of people on the web they dont clock quads too well.

Hope some of this helps?

Peace

 

[rubberduck]

Hi

Why not try this?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-243-AS

If you want to make your board last a while it should be a good choice. It will be compatible with the future 45nm intel cpus and can also support DDR2 and DDR3.

Not sure if it has got all the features you are looking for but it should provide excellent overclockability. Obviously there is no SLI option but unless you are an extreme enthusiast I would advise staying away to be honest. The price is pretty good too! Save the extra £40 and put it towards a future upgrade or some nice memory.

 

[rjk]

cheers guys
im not mad keen on sli
just thought it might be an option [shows how much i know]
pretty happy with my 512gt tbh

i already have 4gb of geil ultra that i plan on keeping hold of


was only going to go for a 3ghz oc on the cpu
mainly because i learned my lesson with overzealous clocking
[hence why i am stuck with an ass-rock board atm]