Crossfire is not for Overclocking, don't know where you got that information from, its the ability to use Multiple GPU's on one system together for increased gaming performance. using one or more Radeon cards, if thats what your planning, but for a Budget rig I'm assuming not.
if this is really a budget rig forget about boards with Crossfire support.
base your decision on the feature set of each board (number of SATA ports, USB, future component upgrade support features, OCing feature set, etc)
any of the ones listed are good brands, many have the same features, as they're all P45 chipsets, the only real limitations may be BIOS feature sets really. may be some small differences, but most will have the same core features.
16GB max RAM will be better for down the road than 8GB, but even now, as it stands, 8GB is many times overkill for anything today, as far as any gaming goes.
I'd go for whatever is the cheapest & has the features that you think are more values to you.
for me, out of the 3 there, I'd go for the Gigabyte, most features are pretty much the same for all three, except the P5Q-E has a different sound chip, probably better than the others, but not 100% sure of that. it also has a physical 16x PCIE slot that runs at a 4x Electrical interface, not too many if any real peripherals to use on that, but at least can be used for 1x PCIE devices as well. which makes it a pointless feature (except for those of us running Folding@Home & using GPU's for processing), making the other boards Three 1x PCIE slots more reasonable.
the Gigabyte board has one trick up its sleeve so to speak, its got 8 USB 2.0 ports in the rear with 2 more (4x more ports total) connections onboard. the other boards only have 6 in rear & 3 ports (6 more connections) onboard. all of them can total 12 ports, but the gigabyte is more convenient with the 2 extra rear, with out having to worry about connecting the internals up to an expansion slot bracket or whatever, if your case has USB ports on it, they'll take up on onboard & should you install a Flash Media reader, that'll take another, leaving no more internal ports, which can be a downside for the Gigabyte, but for me & my preferences, the 2 extra in rear make it worth it.
although the P5Q-E has an eSATA port on the rear, which can be quite useful for an External Storage device, enabling much faster speeds than USB 2.0 can provide.
also that board & the Gigabyte also have an Optical out in rear for the Audio, which can be nice if a Home Theater is being used for sound/speakers.
but the crossfire support aside the board Karma linked to I would agree would be the best choice.
this is a Budget gaming rig, the more money you can save in one area the more can be used for a better video card... I'd go with that suggestion on the board & grab at least a 9800GT as he suggested, the 8600GTS is "outdated" & we're on in the geforce 9 & GT200 series now, the 9500GT replaces both the 8600GT & GTS... but all 3 can't compare to the 9800GT, if pricing is a concern, grab a Geforce 9600GSO or GT, those should be at least twice the 8600GTS in performance, possibly even 3 times its performance. the 9800GT will be a bit beyond that still, and of course the 9800GTX/GTX+ & Radeon HD 4850 will be even further ahead.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kenny536  ...Also - here a couple of combos from some users on Newegg. Haven't looked at these very carefully yet.
-EVGA 512-P3-N980-AR GeForce 9800 GT Hybrid
-GIGABYTE GA-EP43-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel
-Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB
-G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
-LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model
-Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
-Rosewill RCX-Z300 92mm Ball CPU Cooler
-RAIDMAX SMILODON ATX-612WBP Black 1.0mm SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Foldout MB Computer Case With 500W Power **this box was not the best choice**
-Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit
1.This mobo Gigabyte EP45
2.Intel E8500 C2D...OCed@3.9Ghz/1644mhz FSB
3.GTX260(MSI)Oced 702/2406/1467 GPU(just 1)
4.DDR2 1000@822mhz 5-4-4-12 1:1 (gskill)2x2=4gb
5.X-Fi gamer's edition audio
6.(optional) Asus PhysiX card-takes load off GPU
7. 750watt 4x12v rail PS(Zalman)or better
8. Antec 300 or 900 (depending on your budget)case
9. 22"lcd or bigger with 2ms 10000:1 (LG)or samsung
10. any of the THX Logitec speakers are good! Z series
Let me know if I forgot to mention anything. I would appreciate it if you would please let me know what you think, thanks a lot. |