what motherboard to get
what motherboard to get
hi anyone out there can recommend a good motherboard for gaming?? I'm planning to modify my PC....
1. Buy a motherboard, doesn't matter what brand. Dead or brand new, doesn't matter too.
2. Put it on your desk, and watch closely.
3. Throw your motherboard into the garbage can after 10 years of watching.
My point: You want to upgrade, but you aren't telling us what socket you have, if you have a AGP or PCI-E videocard, how many PCI ports you need?
We can't help you like that, bye.![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)
2. Put it on your desk, and watch closely.
3. Throw your motherboard into the garbage can after 10 years of watching.
My point: You want to upgrade, but you aren't telling us what socket you have, if you have a AGP or PCI-E videocard, how many PCI ports you need?
We can't help you like that, bye.
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)
What ever type your looking for, I highly recommend MSi motherboards.
http://www.msi.com.tw/
The following information will help me provide a recommended model:
Socket Type (if you don't know, what processor have you got?)
and your video card type (pci, agp or pci-express).
It would also be a good idea to measure you're current motherboard and post the dimensions.
If your not sure how to find out what processor and graphics card you have, post and let me know, and i'll be happy to post instructions on how you can find out.
http://www.msi.com.tw/
The following information will help me provide a recommended model:
Socket Type (if you don't know, what processor have you got?)
and your video card type (pci, agp or pci-express).
It would also be a good idea to measure you're current motherboard and post the dimensions.
If your not sure how to find out what processor and graphics card you have, post and let me know, and i'll be happy to post instructions on how you can find out.
running dual gfx cards (AKA SLi mode) will bump the price up considerably.
in order of performance you get Pci (<- lowest), then AGP, then PCI-Express.
After some searching, i can't seem to find any SLi supported 478 boards, Intel isn't my strong point............i'm an AMD person myself, but by the looks of it, it's only socket 775 and up that supports SLi, which means you may need to upgrade your processor aswell.
in order of performance you get Pci (<- lowest), then AGP, then PCI-Express.
After some searching, i can't seem to find any SLi supported 478 boards, Intel isn't my strong point............i'm an AMD person myself, but by the looks of it, it's only socket 775 and up that supports SLi, which means you may need to upgrade your processor aswell.
- donaldgladden
- Professional
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some AGP cards like my BFG 6200 can clock faster than suppose a PCI-express 6600. not many tho. if the AGP card is OCed ten it can be faster. a OCed 6800 Ultra AGP can maybve clock faster than a 7800.viper_gts wrote:running dual gfx cards (AKA SLi mode) will bump the price up considerably.
in order of performance you get Pci (<- lowest), then AGP, then PCI-Express.
After some searching, i can't seem to find any SLi supported 478 boards, Intel isn't my strong point............i'm an AMD person myself, but by the looks of it, it's only socket 775 and up that supports SLi, which means you may need to upgrade your processor aswell.
That made no sense ...donaldgladden wrote:some AGP cards like my BFG 6200 can clock faster than suppose a PCI-express 6600. not many tho. if the AGP card is OCed ten it can be faster. a OCed 6800 Ultra AGP can maybve clock faster than a 7800.viper_gts wrote:running dual gfx cards (AKA SLi mode) will bump the price up considerably.
in order of performance you get Pci (<- lowest), then AGP, then PCI-Express.
After some searching, i can't seem to find any SLi supported 478 boards, Intel isn't my strong point............i'm an AMD person myself, but by the looks of it, it's only socket 775 and up that supports SLi, which means you may need to upgrade your processor aswell.
So what, It's not only about having the most Mhz.donaldgladden wrote:some AGP cards like my BFG 6200 can clock faster than suppose a PCI-express 6600. not many tho. if the AGP card is OCed ten it can be faster. a OCed 6800 Ultra AGP can maybve clock faster than a 7800.viper_gts wrote:running dual gfx cards (AKA SLi mode) will bump the price up considerably.
in order of performance you get Pci (<- lowest), then AGP, then PCI-Express.
After some searching, i can't seem to find any SLi supported 478 boards, Intel isn't my strong point............i'm an AMD person myself, but by the looks of it, it's only socket 775 and up that supports SLi, which means you may need to upgrade your processor aswell.
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
It's also about the Memory Type (DDR1, DDR2, GDDR3) the Memory Interface (64bit, 128bit, 256bit), the amount of pixel-pipelines (4,8,12,16) and the card-slot (PCI, AGP or PCI-Express) also play a key in having a fast graphics card. Your 6200 may have a higher clockspeed than a PCI-Express GeForce 6600 but the 6600 will smoke your 6200 in EVERY benchmark. I'll give you an example: The Ati Radeon 9600XT has a core clock of about 500Mhz while the Ati Radeon 9800Pro has a core clock of 380Mhz, now look what happens in this benchmark:
click
You can probably see that the 9600XT gets smoked by the 9800Pro... why? Faster memory clock speed, better memory interface (256bit instead of 128bit on the 9600), dobule amount of Pixel-Pipelines, etc.
Just wanted to share this with you so you don't start wondering why your graphics card doesn't perform as well as you think it should
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
Fillrate - How quickly the card can fill in the texture on the screen, measured in MegaTexels per Second (Core Clock x Pixel Pipelines x Texel Pipelines).
Memory Bandwidth - How quickly the memory can transfer data, measured in Gigabytes per Second (Memory Clock x Memory Interface). The memory interface is the number of bits transferred per clock cycle.
BFG 6200OC:
Core = 375 MHz * 4 Pixel Pipelines * 1 Texel Pipeline = 1500 MTexels/second
Memory = 550 MHz * 128-bit = 70,400,000,000 bits per second
1 byte = 8 bits
70,400,000,000/8 = 8,800,000,000 bytes (8.8 billion bytes per second)
Reference 6600:
Core: 300 MHz * 8 Pixel Pipelines * 1 Texel Pipeline = 2400 MTexels/second (60% higher Fillrate)
Memory = 550 MHz * 128-bit = 8.8 billion bytes per second
Note: Most manufacturers advertise memory bandwidth in Gigabytes per second when it's actually billions of bytes per second. Remember that 1 GB = 1024 MB, 1 MB = 1024 kB, 1 kB = 1024 bytes, so 1 GB = 1024^3 bytes.
It should also be noted that the 6600 is a notoriously good card for overclocking, while the 6200 is not ...
Memory Bandwidth - How quickly the memory can transfer data, measured in Gigabytes per Second (Memory Clock x Memory Interface). The memory interface is the number of bits transferred per clock cycle.
BFG 6200OC:
Core = 375 MHz * 4 Pixel Pipelines * 1 Texel Pipeline = 1500 MTexels/second
Memory = 550 MHz * 128-bit = 70,400,000,000 bits per second
1 byte = 8 bits
70,400,000,000/8 = 8,800,000,000 bytes (8.8 billion bytes per second)
Reference 6600:
Core: 300 MHz * 8 Pixel Pipelines * 1 Texel Pipeline = 2400 MTexels/second (60% higher Fillrate)
Memory = 550 MHz * 128-bit = 8.8 billion bytes per second
Note: Most manufacturers advertise memory bandwidth in Gigabytes per second when it's actually billions of bytes per second. Remember that 1 GB = 1024 MB, 1 MB = 1024 kB, 1 kB = 1024 bytes, so 1 GB = 1024^3 bytes.
It should also be noted that the 6600 is a notoriously good card for overclocking, while the 6200 is not ...
- prince1142003
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agree with Jmac, AMD is better for almost every use. Not only the processor is cheaper, but also the mainboards are cheaper and have got more features!
Try to find a motherboard with the nForce4 chipset for Socket 754(AMD Sempron64, budget processors) or Socket 939(AMD Athlon64, better but more expensive). nForce 4 motherboards always feature PCI-Express 16x when I'm right...
You can also get boards with VIA chipsets which are less expensive, but I don't know which VIA chipsets feature PCI-Express 16x and which don't so you'll have to look that up by yourself.
Socket 775 is Intel, Intel = expensive and less good for gaming...i've found da NVIDIA NFORCE4 SLI X16 from ASUS n it supports socket 775...
Try to find a motherboard with the nForce4 chipset for Socket 754(AMD Sempron64, budget processors) or Socket 939(AMD Athlon64, better but more expensive). nForce 4 motherboards always feature PCI-Express 16x when I'm right...
You can also get boards with VIA chipsets which are less expensive, but I don't know which VIA chipsets feature PCI-Express 16x and which don't so you'll have to look that up by yourself.
- donaldgladden
- Professional
- Posts: 1905
- Joined: 12 Jun 2004, 21:48
- Location: United States
i guess im outta luck considering i have a 478EuroRacer wrote:agree with Jmac, AMD is better for almost every use. Not only the processor is cheaper, but also the mainboards are cheaper and have got more features!
Socket 775 is Intel, Intel = expensive and less good for gaming...i've found da NVIDIA NFORCE4 SLI X16 from ASUS n it supports socket 775...
Try to find a motherboard with the nForce4 chipset for Socket 754(AMD Sempron64, budget processors) or Socket 939(AMD Athlon64, better but more expensive). nForce 4 motherboards always feature PCI-Express 16x when I'm right...
You can also get boards with VIA chipsets which are less expensive, but I don't know which VIA chipsets feature PCI-Express 16x and which don't so you'll have to look that up by yourself.
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
- prince1142003
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WRONG!EuroRacer wrote:Try to find a motherboard with the nForce4 chipset for Socket 754(AMD Sempron64, budget processors) or Socket 939(AMD Athlon64, better but more expensive). nForce 4 motherboards always feature PCI-Express 16x when I'm right...
AMD Athlon64's come in both Socket 754 and Socket 959. AMD Athlon64 FX only comes in Socket 959.
![Image](http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/1440/threecarsig26ku.png)
Did I say there are no AMD Athlon64's for Socket 754??? I'm just trying to say that if he wants a budget PC he should get a socket 754 mainboard because the Semprons(budget CPU's) are mainly socket 754. There are also Athlon64's for socket 754 but I wouldn't buy those cuz there are newer CPU's with better cores on socket 939, also the good mainboards are mainly made for socket 939.prince1142003 wrote:WRONG!EuroRacer wrote:Try to find a motherboard with the nForce4 chipset for Socket 754(AMD Sempron64, budget processors) or Socket 939(AMD Athlon64, better but more expensive). nForce 4 motherboards always feature PCI-Express 16x when I'm right...
AMD Athlon64's come in both Socket 754 and Socket 959. AMD Athlon64 FX only comes in Socket 959.
What I'm trying to say is: I recommend Socket 754 and Sempron for budget pc's and Socket 939 and Athlon64 for performance pc's.
BTW: WRONG!!! It's socket 939 not 959
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)