what motherboard to get

ben_0026 · Post by **ben_0026** » 31 Dec 2005, 16:03

hi anyone out there can recommend a good motherboard for gaming?? I'm planning to modify my PC....

PSZeTa · Post by **PSZeTa** » 31 Dec 2005, 16:16

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.

Post by **viper_gts** » 31 Dec 2005, 17:04

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.

ben_0026 · Post by **ben_0026** » 31 Dec 2005, 18:41

well my current motherboard supports intel socket 478 CPUs n i dun know wad processor i'm using.... about da video card i'm planning to buy a brand new dual nvidia 6600gt... whats da difference with pci n pci-express???

Post by **viper_gts** » 31 Dec 2005, 19:02

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.

Jmac- · Post by **Jmac-** » 31 Dec 2005, 21:18

I don't think you're going to find any Socket 478 boards that support PCI-E ...

donaldgladden · Post by **donaldgladden** » 01 Jan 2006, 00:03

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.

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.

Jmac- · Post by **Jmac-** » 01 Jan 2006, 00:30

donaldgladden wrote:
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.
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.

That made no sense ...

EuroRacer · Post by **EuroRacer** » 01 Jan 2006, 02:32

donaldgladden wrote:
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.
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.

So what, It's not only about having the most Mhz.

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

Jmac- · Post by **Jmac-** » 01 Jan 2006, 05:31

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 ...

ben_0026 · Post by **ben_0026** » 01 Jan 2006, 07:23

i've found da NVIDIA NFORCE4 SLI X16 from ASUS n it supports socket 775... viper_gts says i've got to upgrade my processor aswell what processor would u guys strongly recommend... i have a question to ask whats da difference with da AMD n Intel processors???

korge · Post by **korge** » 01 Jan 2006, 07:40

AMD runs using different(faster and better) cycles to process the same tasks.

Pentiums are usually just beefier (and sometimes hotter).

prince1142003 · Post by **prince1142003** » 01 Jan 2006, 08:20

i switched from pentium to AMD, and i'm loving it. no more heating problems, full support for overclocking w/out special cooling, not to mention the easiness of saying AMD over Pentium =D

skyline101 · Post by **skyline101** » 01 Jan 2006, 09:15

I have a BFG 6200 OC... not the greatest but it takes everything i throw at it without lagging a bit

Jmac- · Post by **Jmac-** » 01 Jan 2006, 10:19

Well, Pentium and Athlon both have their pros and cons, although I'd say the Athlons offer more performance for the dollar ... AMD is definitely a better choice for the average computer user, IMO ...

EuroRacer · Post by **EuroRacer** » 01 Jan 2006, 16:09

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!

i've found da NVIDIA NFORCE4 SLI X16 from ASUS n it supports socket 775...

Socket 775 is Intel, Intel = expensive and less good for gaming...

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 · Post by **donaldgladden** » 02 Jan 2006, 04:00

EuroRacer 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!

i've found da NVIDIA NFORCE4 SLI X16 from ASUS n it supports socket 775...
Socket 775 is Intel, Intel = expensive and less good for gaming...

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.

i guess im outta luck considering i have a 478

prince1142003 · Post by **prince1142003** » 02 Jan 2006, 04:37

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...

WRONG!

AMD Athlon64's come in both Socket 754 and Socket 959. AMD Athlon64 FX only comes in Socket 959.

EuroRacer · Post by **EuroRacer** » 02 Jan 2006, 19:45

prince1142003 wrote:
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...
WRONG!

AMD Athlon64's come in both Socket 754 and Socket 959. AMD Athlon64 FX only comes in Socket 959.

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.

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