I haven't visited the Intel camp in years. Unsure about what mobo I should get. Been looking at the following: Seasonic SS-650HT C2Q Q6600 Kingston HyperX 4x1GB 1066Mhz Asus P5Q-Pro or Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R Got suggestions? Must have SLI support, socket 775 and not too expensive. Price class should be same as in my choices.
Well if you want SLI support you are screwed with the 2 you selected. They are Intel chipsets, P45, you need an nVidia chipset for SLI, Intel for Crossfire.
Oops. I knew I forgot something. Yes, SLI support is required as Nvidia cards have worked better for me. Had a quick look at my usual store and came up with Asus P5N-D.
So will you be adding another 9800GTX at a later date then? I'd suggest a single higher end graphics card as opposed to two that aren't as high end. As for motherboards, I'm not sure on what's what with nVidia chipsets these days.
...okay, let's set this straight. A Field Guide to Multi-GPU Support on Motherboards with Multiple PCI-Ex16 Slots AMD boards with AMD chipsets (such as the 790FX) work with CROSSFIRE ONLY AMD boards with nVidia chipsets (such as the nForce 780a) work with SLI ONLY Intel Core 2 boards with Intel chipsets (such as the X48) work with CROSSFIRE ONLY Intel Core 2 boards with nVidia chipsets (such as the nForce 780i) work with SLI ONLY Intel Core i* boards (such as the X58 and others to come later) work with BOTH CROSSFIRE AND SLI That is all. - Diosjenin -
Well yeah I know that, (although your last one isn't true for all cases I believe) but I didn't get why mmvr said that CF will only work on a dual PCI-E mobo, that's like saying you can only fit two cars into two car parking spaces, it's a given.
It's because it could be inferred from your first post that you meant you had to have an Intel chipset for Crossfire. Anyway, on topic, I don't know anything about Asus boards, but I can personally vouch for Gigabyte boards, though I'm not sure they sell boards with Nvidia chipsets (required for SLI, unless you have i7). Edit: I lie, Gigabyte do support Nvidia chipsets with Intel775 sockets, however they only have the 650i and 680i. I think there's a new generation of Nvidia chipsets after the 650i and 680i.
@DaveVader: Any 'officially certified' X58 board will be able to run 2-way SLI. It can run 3-way SLI at limited bandwidth by being additionally 'certified' or by adding an nForce 200 chip, which is essentially a bandwidth splitter, but which allows slots 2 and 3 to run at full bandwidth. While it's true that X58 boards don't have to be 'certified' to run SLI, I don't think anybody's released one yet that can't. @pimonserry: There's the 750i (2x PCI-E, DDR2), 780i (3x PCI-E, DDR2), and 790i (3x PCI-E, DDR3). Although those are all a generation behind X58 now. EVGA is actually the most renowned maker of 700i-series nForce boards. They command a slight premium over nForce boards by ASUS, XFX, etc., but they're generally considered well worth it. - Diosjenin -
