Looking at motherboards

[blueonblack]

I'm looking to upgrade my MB and wondered what features I should look for for a good gaming rig? The one I'm looking at supports my CPU (of course), has 4 DIMM slots with a purported max memory of 8GB (don't believe it), 1 PCIe 2.0 slot, plenty of PCI, SATA and USB slots, just wondering if there is some less-well-known-to-the-initiate features I should be looking for?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138106



By the way, what do the Northbridge and Southbridge chips do? Been wondering that for years... :think:
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[Fuganater]

Personally I'm not an AMD fan.. but thats me. Gaming rights deal with 3 things: RAM, CPU, Video Card. As long as you have 3 good ones, thats your foundation. You'll be set from there.

The board you picked isn't bad as far as I can tell. DDR2 800, AM2+ 2600MHz FSB, and PCI Express 2.0. My only problem is the 4 SATAs. I use more but thats me.

North Bridge and South Bridge manage your components of your computer. Here is a very very simple diagram of what the north bridge and south bridge do. http://www.rtcmagazine.com/archive_images/rtc0504tc_xil1.gif I don't belive that it matters in a gaming rig. Jut check your specs for the 3 items listed above and you should be good.

Anything else let us know

-Fuga

[blueonblack]

Personally I'm not an AMD fan.. but thats me. Gaming rights deal with 3 things: RAM, CPU, Video Card. As long as you have 3 good ones, thats your foundation. You'll be set from there.

The board you picked isn't bad as far as I can tell. DDR2 800, AM2+ 2600MHz FSB, and PCI Express 2.0. My only problem is the 4 SATAs. I use more but thats me.

North Bridge and South Bridge manage your components of your computer. Here is a very very simple diagram of what the north bridge and south bridge do. http://www.rtcmagazine.com/archive_images/rtc0504tc_xil1.gif I don't belive that it matters in a gaming rig. Jut check your specs for the 3 items listed above and you should be good.

Anything else let us know

-Fuga



Excellent and thorough response, +rep and thanks!
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[Fuganater]

Glad to help :D

[Ap1thy]

I would reccomend eithe this gigabyte

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128081

or this abit

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813127046

Both also utilize the 770 chipset, but are more geared towards the enthusiast market while that biostar is geared towards budget.