cheap good mobo

[ghoul]

ok i need some hlep in picking out a new mobo.

i want one for around 200$au give or take a bit

but im not sure whats good atm, and really need an upgrade.

what i would like in a mobo
is 2 or 3 pci slots
2 or 3 pci-e x16 slots
some good cooling!
775 socket (thats a pretty given though)
and proubly ddr3 surport so i can upgrade later

optional: sli, sli capabilty would be a nice adition to but its not needed.

so can anyone help me?
and am i maybe better off saving up for a really good mobo?

[Spawn-Inc]

ok while i can't give any specific models as i'm not really looking myself so i don't want to recommend a bad board by mistake i will tell you what chipsets, and companys to check out.

Single video card/CrossFire setups.
look for the p35 or X38 chipsets for single and cross fire cards. some of them also support DDR3.
good brands for it are Abit, Gigabyte, i believe asus too, but mainly the first two.

SLI
look for the 680i chipset if you want things now and don't care about quad core support for the new 45nm intels, it will support the 65nm quads (q6600, etc)
eVGA, asus. also the 680i boards that i know of don't support DDR3
if you want the new quads (45nm) then you can wait for the 7xx series, it will support it with pci 2.0 as well. i am guessing they will be out in 2-3 months, but thats just a guess.

again sorry i didn't list any specific boards but that should get you in the right direction.

[D1337]

wait till the new 780i's come out roughly this December (at most February) then snag a 680i for a reduced price

[ghoul]

any idea how much the 7xx series will be?

hmm looks like i might wait a bit but i really wanted a new mobo so i could get a new ghz card (mine only has agp slot) and play ut3

[NightrainSrt4]

Unless he wants to have to buy another motherboard when he decides to upgrade to a new cpu, I wouldn't go with the 680i boards as they do not support the new 45nm quads as you mentioned above. It sucks because they said it would and now there like "ummm ya, its not gonna work...sorry."

For the specs he mentions in what he wants I'd go with an x38 board, but your not gonna find one now for the price that hes looking for.

P35 boards are great boards. My P35-DS3R is a great board. Great overclocker as well. But no DDR3 support (as far as I can remember), and only one pci-e x16 which means no sli.

After using sli I don't really recommend it anyway. I guess if you were rich it is nice, but on a budget I learned it really isn't worth it.

If you list the specs for your current pc we can try and show you some upgrades that would help you get to play UT3.

[Spawn-Inc]

Unless he wants to have to buy another motherboard when he decides to upgrade to a new cpu, I wouldn't go with the 680i boards as they do not support the new 45nm quads as you mentioned above. It sucks because they said it would and now there like "ummm ya, its not gonna work...sorry."

it was friggin intel's fualt on that one. but it will support the duo's but who the hell wants a dual core?!?!?!?

[ghoul]

well my specs atm arnt that great there were pretty good when i got it but.

cpu: intel core2 duo 6300 1.9ghz
ghz: geforce 7600 gs 512
ram: 2 gigs ddr2

i dont know the model of the mob but it only has a vga slot and 3 pci slots, thats why i need a new one as i was planning on getting a 8800 gt.

i dont have a big budget and as i am upgradeing id like to future prooth it abit so i dont have to upgrade again soon or so i cna add on and upgrade.

sli as i said is only optial a mobo with jsut 2 pci-e slots will do to cause then ill jsut run two cards so big deal.

i was jsut gonna get watercooling and overclock a bunch but i tihnk upgradeing will be a better option

[Ap1thy]

650sli based chipset would be your best bet, but do some research as the 6 series arent always the most reliable chipset

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130082

its an msi board, obviously youd have to find a different retailer unless you wanted to bay a ton for shipping

[NightrainSrt4]

Ghoul,

An mobo upgrade and a graphics card update may do you some good. Your system isn't to far off what mine was.

E6300 @ 2.3Ghz
Asus p5nsli
2gb DDR2-667
2 x 7600GS (SLI)

I upgraded my Mobo, Ram, and GPU (using the old parts for Project: Alb), and added water cooling.

E6300 @ 3.325Ghz
Gigabyte P35-DS3R (Great motherboard)
2gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 @ 950
8800GTS 320mb Superclocked

You don't need to upgrade your cpu, atleast in my opinion, less you are running some serious multithreaded apps, or a ton of apps. The e6300 is a great CPU. I was going to upgrade to a Q6600 but the e6300 is a great cpu. I got it to boot into windows and run cpu only Orthos tests at 3.7Ghz+ easy. My memory couldn't handle it (but thats because you cant unlink the memory on the P35 chipset), but thats another story.

The 650i chipset is a decent chipset for sli, and at a decent price. If you can find a 650i for a decent price its def not a bad chipset. Don't know how well they overclock, but probably not too bad I would think.

[cured]

What does SLI mean?