Which MOBO for my X2 6400 and SLI cards ?? Building gaming rig Please advise

[patrick21x]

Hey guys, I am upgrading my system and currently have an AMD X2 6400 CPU and 4 gigs DDR2 800 RAM, and (2) Geforce 8800 gts SLI cards.
SCRATCH THIS TOP PART, I WANT TO GO TO AN INTEL ATI SET UP


Last night i took the plunge towards INTEL and purchased an E8500.

What would be a good Mobo for around or under $200 for this to be able to run crossfire? I would like to have (2) PCI 16x slots.


I Am going to sell my 8800 gts's and get ATI cards.

Is it true that one ATI 4870 512MB would out perform my 8800 gt's in SLI

What video card or cards should i get? I have around 400-500 to spend on video cards?


Please advise. Thanks, Patrick

[ShyguyXPC]

Well from your other thread, the 2 8800GTS's you listed are of the older G80 core cards, but are still pretty good performing, The CPU is still pretty good, unless you have a decent budget & trying to substantially improve your systems gaming performance, I'd probably just keep that setup, as for Motherboard, if you did upgrade, make sure to get a AM2+ board, so you can still use your current CPU, and should you decide you want to get one of the Tri or Quad core Phenom's you can still put one in.

RAM, thats transferable to either platform with ease, as long as the board supports DDR2.

PSU, plenty of power.

supposedly AMD is coming out with another all new CPU socket, so might be worth just holding onto this system as is, when that comes out, then do a full system overhaul, well, CPU/Mobo upgrade, maybe GPU's if you have extra cash to do it.

one option if you have enough to do it, would be grab an AMD Crossfire board, sell the GTS's & grab 2 Radeon HD4850's for dual Crossfire..., looking at $300-400 for 2 of those, probably $100-150 for a Mobo (minus whatever you can sell the old cards for)

but as for CPU's if you have a regular AM2 socket board, your about maxed out for CPU's, you'd need an AM2+ for anything higher.

but if your considering upgrading the CPU AND the Mobo, then I'd probably make the move to Intel with a Core 2 series.

or even wait a while till Intels new platform/socket comes out & see if that drives pricing of current chips & boards down a bit.

either way, as far as performance goes, your best bet is Intel.

but for cheapest route right now, to keep things better "future" proof, would be to move to an AM2+ board... which as I mentioned above would allow you to move to a triple or quad core eventually.

really depends on what your total budget is, & how much you'd be able to get for the Old parts, offsetting the costs of upgrades.

[pullmyfoot]

I would get this one. Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-MA790GP-DS4H AM2+/AM2 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards

[ShyguyXPC]

thats a good board, downside is he'd have to switch to Crossfire cards (or for the time being only use one 8800GTS for gaming), which means selling the 2 8800GTS's he has now, but if he's willing to do that & grab 2 HD4850's. his gaming performance & even benchmark scores should increase quite a bit.

Figure what, $140, 2 of these
Newegg.com - HIS Hightech H485F512P Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

for $175 before MIR, $155 After MIR each, looking at a total of about $450 after rebates..., subtract say (estimate) $125 on low end for each of the 640MB 8800GTS's, maybe more like $140-150 on average? hard to say.

but looking at deducting at least $250 from that $450 after rebate total, & that'd bring you to your $200 budget... so yeah, something like that would work, the mobo & vid cards...

so for $200 overall, you'd be getting a newer more upgradeable CPU (support higher speed DDR2, & "newer" AMD CPU's), plus 2x HD4850 cards...

another option would be to wait to see if AMD/ATI does come out with their HD4850x2 card (2x 4850 chips on a single card like the 4870x2, price for the 4850x2 should be the same or close to what it costs for 2 single cards, so still talking in same budget range, add in the fact that down the road should you have the money, you could add a 2nd one for Quad Crossfire... assuming ATI gets some reliable drivers for it, or even grab a single 4850 & run a triple crossfire setup.

Just to show the potential 3Dmark performance of a 640MB 8800GTS, & an SLI setup of those cards, compared to the "Older" HD3850 & 3870, which the newer 4850 & 4870 are even more powerful than...

not sure the rest of the specs of their test system on Toms Hardwares VGA charts, but the 3DMark scores show the potential...

Desktop VGA Charts - Tom's Hardware

The HD38xx series cards shown there aren't even in Crossfire, so shows how good they are, imagine the 4850/4870's?

anyways, its his call, but if he goes for an AMD chipset motherboard, might as well move over to a Crossfire setup then. or even stick with the current Intel Crossfire compatible chipsets.

for SLI, he's stuck with nvidia. limiting choices.

[pullmyfoot]

Oops I completely forgot the Nvidia cards. Get this board then
Newegg.com - ASUS M3N-HD HDMI AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards

[pullmyfoot]

But I would sell everything and get this

Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops
Newegg.com - ASUS P5Q Pro LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100247L Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

You can get another one of those 4850s for crossfire in the future. Or If you have a little more cash to burn now you can just get this 4870. Both these cards are a match for your 8800GTS cards in SLI, even more so if those are the old G80 core versions.

Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100247L Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

[patrick21x]

Originally Posted by pullmyfoot

But I would sell everything and get this

Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

Both these cards are a match for your 8800GTS cards in SLI, even more so if those are the old G80 core versions.

Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100247L Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

OK
I just bought an E8500 for $100. I got just the CPU and it is the SLAPK version. What does the SLAPK mean. Is it realy an E8500 ? Is it the same as any other E8500 ?

Now I need a MOBO for crossfire Dual cards. The one you recommended only had one pci 2.0. I would like bothe slots running at 16x. What would you recomend ?

Are you saying that one 4870 512mb card would outperform or come close to my Dual 8800gts's in SLI ?

If thats the case i am definently going to love runing Dual 4870"s

[pullmyfoot]

Are you sure about that? Was that CPU new or second hand. Because $100 for it is really cheap. Its like, half the street price in fact.

Yeah the 4870 will come close or beat it completely. 2 in corssfire will completely destroy that setup. It will also completely destroy a 280GTX card, though in total it costs less.

[KarmaKiller]

Intel® Core™2 Duo Desktop Processor E8500 - SLAPK
It's a E8500. If you can get another one for $100, LMK please.

For dual 16x bandwidth, you want a X38/X48. Those are the best performing chipsets in CF.
Newegg.com - DFI LANPARTY DK X48-T2RS LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
That would be the board to get IMO.

[ShyguyXPC]

yeah was going to say for the X38/X48 you'd be looking at spending $200-ish for those boards though.

and yeah a 4870 will destroy 2 G80 core 640MB 8800GTS's in SLI easily, 2 320MB models are about around what a single 768MB G80 8800GTX performs, aside from clock speeds between 320MB & 640MB, the 640's will have more frame buffer, but performance shouldn't be that much more, with exception at really high resolutions.

replacement for 8800GTX is the G92 8800GTS & G92 9800GTX/GTX+ models, and the HD4850 is at least as good as those if not wastes them, so the 4870 should easily destroy the old SLI setup. 2x 4850's in Crossfire also would waste it.