Help Motherboard advice

[WPKenny]

Ever since my upgrade a while ago I've been living in limbo.

I've got some half decent DDR2 ram (2gb 400mhz) and a C2D o/c to 2.7ish but I'm on a crappy Asrock 4Core type motherboard.

The reason for this was I had little money but wanted an upgrade, so I went for an AGP/PCI Express motherboard so I could keep my 7800GS for a while longer.

So 8800GT's are under 100 quid now so I was going to grab one of them but was thinking I need a newer motherboard to take advantage of the rest of my kit.

Will a 4x PCI Express do the 8800GT justice or will I notice a big difference by upgrading to a mobo that can do the full 16x?

My budget's not huge.... 60 - 70 quid. Is there a chance to get a second 8800GT after a while to give it a further performance boost?

Thanks in advance...


p.s. This will hopefully be my last upgrade for at least a year or so when I hope to replace the whole thing with a spangly new system instead of upgrading a bit at a time.

 

[inactionman]

A 4x slot is really going to cripple any decent graphics card.

There's not much point in getting a 8800GT now, as the ATI 4850's are out and they perform better, plus there's a better selection of motherboards for them. Although there's a bit of a price premium at the moment, it should calm down next month, especially when Nvidia do the changes they need to keep competitive (kill the 8800GT, move the 9800GTX to it's price, and introduce a faster and relatively cheap 9800GTX+ to compete with the 4850).

My advice, hold on until towards the end of july, and see where the price/performance sweet spots are then.

 

[inactionman]

Oh, completely forgot to talk about motherboards.

Basically it depends on where you want to go with your graphics cards, if you go Nvidia and you are looking at getting SLI, you'll need a SLI board (750i SLI chipset probably, as 650i SLI are pretty much end of line).

If you are looking at ATI, and thinking of crossfire, you'll need something with either an intel P45 or a X38 chipset. They are a bit pricey, slightly above your budget for a P45 with crossfire, way above it for a new X38 (although you may get a good deal second hand), but should come down in cost soon, particularly the P45's as they are pretty new. The X38 is sort of end of line, but not really as the replacement (X48) is just cherry picked X38's.

 

[Kryten]

Aye, to embelish a little on what's already been said the X series are just meant for the endless money pit users who want to eek that last bit of overclock and juice from their system.
P45 is the way to go (Asus P5Q being the board of choice currently) but the basic one with only a single graphics slot is £80, the dual boards are well clear of £100 currently.
You won't lose out massively using an older generation P35 board, they're still rock solid performers and you'll find a decent one for a pair of cards at very little money. To echo what I've been saying for what feels like the past year, the Gigabyte P35-DS3R and Abit P5K-E series are both around £70, maybe a tad less, and are still featureful with plenty of room for upgrade.

That is of course assuming you take inactionmans sage advice and look at the ATI 4850, although you are going to be paying around £130 for one of those currently. There is a lot of performance difference though.

If you decide the budget is still playing against you, I'd probably cut your losses a little and go half way. I've not looked on eBay, but with the release of the new card I've little doubt that 8800GT's will be on there and plenty of them at a decent price. You'll need an nVidia motherboard to suit.

Ignoring the 7xx series motherboards which will cost you a fair chunk, from memory there are a couple of places on ebay selling nforce 650i motherboards for around £40 quid new. For a couple of quid more it'll be better to source a second hand 680i chipset board which gives you near identical upgrade paths to the P35 chipset boards.

I'd probably estimate you might find a 680i board go for around £60 second hand, £80 for a second hand 8800GT (may as well spend 20 more and buy new though, but this price will drop with the new cards coming out and more people upgrade their GT's) and you can easily add another one later down the line.

 

[WPKenny]

Cheers for the advice guys. I can wait a month I guess if it means things being a bit cheaper. I'm in no desperate rush but would like to make the most of my C2D while it's still relatively current.

 

[MYstIC G]

Wait the year tbh & put the extra cash towards the new setup.