I'm going to upgrade my system from an old P4 processor & AGP set up to one based round a nice sparkly core 2 duo and PCI-Express.

I was just wondering for about £80-100 which mobo would you recommend (ideally it would be SLi compatible so future upgrades could be less wallet damaging).

I plan on doing a bit of overclocking to the memory and the cpu too.

Any suggestions would be great.

I was thinking

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =MB-221-AS

Or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... subcat=205

But i dont have much of a clue really.

Thanks in advance guys.

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Couldn't think of anything to write in this bit so i wrote this tripe!!

if it were my money id buy the asus as ive read that there has been a lot of trouble with the abit fatality

go crossfire instead

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To get full 2x 16x SLI you need to get the 680i motherboards which are way over your price range. I have the 650i which suppots SLI but only in 2x 8x mode as the second full size slot only runs at 8x when the first slot is populated.

It says on my 8800GTS that it needs the full 16 lanes to work properly do it kinda isnt right to use 2 of these cards in this type of motherboard although I havr heard it does work with some tweaking.

I have the ASUS P5N-E SLI which cost about £75 which barring some early teething problems has been quite stable. The FSB goes up to 500Mhz but I have only taken it as far as 420. Haven't done too much memory overclocking because I went for cheaper Ram and concluded the gains wouldn't make that much difference to overall system performace.

The memory and FSB can be overclocked independantly but this seems to be buggy. The current BIOS isnt all it could be according to the asus forums but for what I need out of it it is running along quite happily

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Just been reading about them on the forums and i think the Asus P5N-E SLI is the one to go for although i don't think there'll be much difference between the two as i wont be overclocking the new system to death (not in the 1st week any way).

Anyone else got that mobo and is it any good?

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Couldn't think of anything to write in this bit so i wrote this tripe!!

The only worrying thing is how hot the chipset get. the passive cooler gets too hot to touch and I have aimed a fan at it to help with cooling.

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if your gonna oc then invest in a good cpu cooler.


http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =HS-000-SB

ive got one of these and they are awsome

Personally I'd recommend anything ASUS or Gigabyte, they are both great types of motherboards which I trust. But thats me and others may disagree.

If you weren't so bothered about the SLi feature, I'd say go with the GA-965P-DS3. Btw, if you don't already have a sufficient enough PSU (500W say?), you'll more than likely need a new one for SLi. Correct me if I'm wrong. o.o

EDIT: Also, if you wanna overclock your CPU, get a decent cooler like a Sythe. I'm using an E6400 @2848MHz (356MHzx8) at the moment on a Zalman 9500. But case airflow does have a large factor to play, so if your overclocking and don't have a watercooling system or phasechanger (or similar) then you may wanna think about buying a good case with decent airflow or chopping one you have already to pieces and fitting fans to it.

Lastly, the GA-965P-DS3 doesn't seem to have many problems with overclocking, I've overclocked my CPU, RAM and changed voltages. Has a passive heatsink on northbridge, but I did upgrade the bios to F10. No problems for me, only problem with this board is it's a 1x PCI-e channel.

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unless you want to wank over the hardware sli is a joke

1 card is enough - spend 120 on a sli mobo - 300 on top of the range card - ill get the second card when the price is better

anyone who gets top of the range is stupid - its only 10% better than stuff thats miles cheaper

in 2 years regardless of what you by - single gfx / sli it wont help with the games then cause ur card / cpu will simply be underpowerd

save ur self alot of money and get a decent pro and get laid
its more fun
eyecandy only last for the first few seconds - once engrossed u dont in action you doont see it

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Agreed. Only reason I bought this 8800GTS was because it wasn't anywhere near as expensive at the GTX and it was on offer.

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I've plumped for the ASUS mobo with a core 2 duo E6600 and an AC Freezer 7 pro.

It'll beat my current Gigabyte mobo and my 2.6 mhz P4 which i've had for about 4 years now, decided it was time to upgrade now i've got some spare cash.

Gotta say though that my P4 has done really well lasting so long without dying. It's been overclocked to 3.24 mhz for just about 4 years now. Lets hope my new core 2 duo can take up the reigns!

Just waiting for my G8800 GTS to arrive! The it will get 'interesting'

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Couldn't think of anything to write in this bit so i wrote this tripe!!

an AC Freezer 7 pro earlier today

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m
mmmmYou sir, are a swaggering addlepated jackanapes!
m

still play on a p4 2.6...
the planes on DC dont fly anyfaster with better chips...

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Went to a zoo, they only had one animal there, a dog............. It was a shitzu....



I’z leakin… bring amberlamps

Dude, I've given away a complete system with a chip faster than that. But you right they don't and I am stupid.

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Don't worry Sony, I'll just cancel my date of birth and get a new one.

How do you know you never played DC

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