Vista 64-bit Motherboard Advise, Q9450 2.66GHz 12MB, PCIe2.0 8800GT 1GB SLI

hey guys, its about time for a new computer, so ive decided on my processor and my video card, and since vista 64 bit can adress all the memory it likes, and i have i have no sli experience, ive decided im going to get two of the 8800GT 1GB Palit video cards to tinker with. and 8 gigs of ram along with the Yorkfield Q9450 2.66GHz 12MB.



so im looking to get a p45 or x48 motherboard that has decent power regulation? not sure if thats the right term. but stuff that is along the lines of what this guy is talking about as well as the other considerations one makes for voltage and current regulation

16-phase power design can reach the power efficiency up to 96%+, and dispel heat generated by VRM module effectively, and lower more temperature compared to other VRM solution. With the high quality power components such as low RDS (on) MOSFETs, Ferrite core chokes with lower hysteresis loss and 100% Japan-made high quality conductive polymer capacitors, ASUS 16-phase VRM design also ensure longer component life, minimum power loss, and help to reach the superior overclocking score ever than before.


heres the video card im going to get
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261012


and my processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115042


i also have a nice watercooling setup just sitting here not being used so i was wondering what kind of waterblock would fit the palit? will my present one work

i forget if its the low profile or high profile one but couldnt i use a high profile one on the second card and low one on the first?

http://www.silverprop.com/cyclonefusionhl.aspx
http://www.silverprop.com/cyclonefusionsl.aspx

and i also have a swiftech 6002 for my processor heatsink.

http://www.procooling.com/index.php?func=articles&disp=124&pg=1

my pump is a really nice one too and a have a blackice 3x120 rad so its all just going to waste sitting there. id like to strap it to a nice quad core sli setup



thanks for any input guys i know it was a long post but yeah like i said a nice motherboard that takes all this into consideration would be awesome.

SLI is only on NV based boards, intel based chipsets are CF only. the only intel board to support SLI is the skulltrail that uses server cpus and memory, its lists for $550+.

I wouldnt quiet go SLI with 8800GT's just yet.... the 4800's are looking really good right now. a CF setup with 4850's is out doing a GTX280 and is about $250 cheaper for the cf setup.

If you choose to go CF then either P45 or a X38/X48 board will do just fine. If p45 im starting to fancy the Asus P5Q/P5Q-Pro, mind you i dont have one. if i do go CF the pro is gonna be my board.

for wcing the 1gig 8800's i have seen a WB that shows to support them. if they made them just for that card it isnt going to be cheap...my advice is to wait till the end of this month and then figure out if you want to go CF or SLI.

why wait a month? are those video cards you are talking about coming out? i looked at the benches for the 4850, and they are pretty close to the 8800gt. but i dont see any 4850's with a gb of ram. not that thats the end all beat all or anything, but choosing between to very similar performing cards i like knowing that i have plenty of ram on the card if the card needs it.

i remember when everyone was telling me there was no point in getting the 256 mb versions of the normal 128mb ati 9600 pro i was looking at back in the day and then i ended up getting a 9800pro 128 for my uncle and tried it out in my rig, and even though it was 2 steps up in card processor power my 9600pro was way better in terms of playing the games without a hitch.

so im pretty sure im just going to go with sli cause i like the video card i picked out for the price and the processor as well, i just want a reliable board to put them in that will handle the voltage regulation well.

what NV chipset motherboards would be good for the processor and videocards i picked out? and have pcie 2.0?

EVGA 750i FTW or if you want the 790i FTW. ok so i see the price now for the 2 cards your looking at. the 4850's in cf will be faster then the 2 8800GT's, even with both have 1GB each. 1GB isnt needed unless your running some ungodly res to play games on. i only said wait cause the GTX260 is out soon as well as the ATI 48070 cards... imo would be shooting your self in the foot if for not much more you got either of the those and got more performance per dollar.

i looked at the benches for the 4850, and they are pretty close to the 8800gt. but i dont see any 4850's with a gb of ram. not that thats the end all beat all or anything, but choosing between to very similar performing cards i like knowing that i have plenty of ram on the card if the card needs it.

Click to expand...

The HD 4850s are destroying the 8800GTs and even the 9800GTX, check this review: http://techreport.com/articles.x/14967/1

WorshipMe said:

The HD 4850s are destroying the 8800GTs and even the 9800GTX, check this review: http://techreport.com/articles.x/14967/1

Click to expand...

looked at those benches too, they don't have crossfire vs sli comparisons but they have single card 8800gts vs 4850 and the frame differnce is all of like 1 frame or 2 most times.

but im looking at 8800GT which performs similarly to the 8800GTS and they only cost 150 per card vs 199. and i get 1 gb of ram as well on a card that maybe does what a frame or two less per second? im only doing the whole sli thing to get experience with it. frankly i think sli or cf is a waste unless you have the hdtv type resolution and favorite game to justify needing two cards.


i dont need anything spectacular, im running a 128mb 9600pro (my 9600pro 256 being long since cycled out into another computer build. and replaced with the pcie x600pro AiW in my sig that had a waterblock put on it and has never booted again (along with the rest of the rig ) thus sending us back to the 128mb 9600 pro that used to be in my moms computer.


so yeah, like i said im pretty much going to go with the 1gb cards. especially since eventually imma put it on a new hdtv

but its really all about the motherboard, if the case were that i can spend 150$ on a CFmotherboard vs 250$ on a SLI motherboard that fit the high quality manufacturing materials that i am interested in then id do it

i want something that has say, solid state caps, and 16 phase power... etc, so if someone could comment on what i would want to look for when looking at the motherboards design in order to find the pertinant information im looking for. what keywords should i search. what things should i look for... stuff like that.

1GB on a video card is still a waste, you are going to run out of processing power before you run out of memory.

ou_phidelt said:

1GB on a video card is still a waste, you are going to run out of processing power before you run out of memory.

Click to expand...

yes, so they said about the memory on my 256mb 9600 pro. but i still contend that my 256 is far superior to my 128mb 9600 pro outside of benchmarks from benchmarking sites.


never the less, its all a mute point if i cant find the motherboard to put everything in so lets stay focused

Evilsizer said:

EVGA 750i FTW or if you want the 790i FTW.

Click to expand...

thanks, which boards out of these chipsets have solid state caps and 16 phase power? and whats a good southbridge on these chips?

what are the key points of a quality motherboard when the chipsets and slot features are the same?? aside from the obvious point of good northbridge and southbridge chips.

8 vs 16 phase? which boards have 16 phase?

solid state caps? which have these?


are there any other signifigant points of quality?

there are not real big difference with NV based boards. alot stick to the reference design, boards with 16phase pwm are overkill for quad core ocing. unless your someone does xtreme cooling while benching. 8phase is more then enough for a quad core 45nm cpu. which all the NV based ones will have. solid caps on a board dont reflect quality if anything they just last longer. do you really plan to keep this rig past 2 years, if no then what kind of caps is a mute point.

the only thing that makes 780i difference from 750i is the ablilty for tri-sli. 790i does tri sli as well but is DDR3 only, it also has native support for PCIE 2.0. 750i/780i are tweaked 680's for better 45nm support. pcie 2.0 support is added by a NV media chip, which is right next to the chipset. other then that how much you want to spend on a SLI board?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188026
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188024
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188025

Evilsizer said:

boards with 16phase pwm are overkill for quad core ocing. unless your someone does xtreme cooling while benching.

solid caps on a board dont reflect quality if anything they just last longer. do you really plan to keep this rig past 2 years, if no then what kind of caps is a mute point.

Click to expand...

definatly plan on keeping it longer than 2 years. and arnt people who are spending money on a nice chipset, instead of one that will just work for overclocking, kinda overkill. since many times the person could have taken the 250$ they spent on a Motherboard and bought the next processor line up? and just used a 75$ motherboard. spending the extra 175$ on a better videocard or processor.

thus making the jump to 16 phase makes sense to me in a overkill type of way im not going for the uber extra few mhz, i just want a high quality board. so solid state caps and 16 phase sound good to me, are there any 750's that fit that bill? or 790's?

whats the big performance difference between the non-native support on the 750 and the native on the 790? higher latency ?

ok well the only boards that will have 16phase boards are P45 based ones from asus. no other boards atm have that high a phase regulation for the cpu.

there is not hit really but when the media chip. it makes it harder to get a nice HS combo for a NB cooler. To expand on the cap issue, most people i suggest to dont keep a motherboard longer then 2 years. i only brought that up since i thought you fit that area. standard Can cap last up to 5-6year some 8years, solid caps go up to 10+ years.

sounds good, so ill probly be going with the p45 CF solution then. whats a good board with solid state caps in the p45 - 16 phase pwm area?

the Asus P5Q-DLX...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131297

The P5Q deluxe is the only board to have 16 phases. Most high end boards have 6 or 8 phases.

P5Q-E is also a good board, read a review with a Q6600 hitting 500 fsb on it.

Evilsizer said:

the Asus P5Q-DLX...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131297

Click to expand...

so that pretty much decides what motherboard im getting.

now i gotta re-figure out which videocards im going to get for CF.


i was reading up on the 4870's but i couldnt find a pricepoint or an eta on when they would be sold.

so two 4850's is what i should get huh? i definatly dont want to spend more than 200$ per card. was looking at 150$ per card for those 8800GT 1gb's


is it going to impact performance due to the 16/ 8x CF vs a board that does 16x /16x?



oh yeah and i saw this on asus's P5Q deluxe spec website
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=2257&l1=3&l2=11&l3=709&l4=0

"100% Japan-made Solid Capacitor(5000 hrs VRM)"

5000 hours is roughly 205 days. i wonder what its referring to.

well the 4870's are rumored to be around $300-$400. the 4850's are the best bang per $$ right now, being $200 at newegg. No 16/8 wont be a issue unless your tring to run higher then 1920x1200 on your monitor.

Evilsizer said:

well the 4870's are rumored to be around $300-$400. the 4850's are the best bang per $$ right now, being $200 at newegg. No 16/8 wont be a issue unless your tring to run higher then 1920x1200 on your monitor.

Click to expand...

so then the performance is degradated?


ive read that even though theres no way present single cards can take up all 16 pcie 2.0 lanes bandwidth and that even 8 is more than enough. but that running with all 16 shows a definate improvement over the 8 even though even that couldnt hardly be maxed out by present cards either.

i think thats right. makes sense since while it has plenty of bandwidth, with 2 times the lanes it could send what it needed to twice as fast. and or the card would function like it should. i dont know enough about it to do more than guess. but it seems that if it didnt offer increased performance they wouldnt offer it

so what would my options be in terms of a 16x /16x motherboard? or dont they offer them?


ive found that while people talk about benchmarks and comparisons via those, that the real world experience, when you are in the game, and right when you need it most, whether its a one on one fight with jedi powers in jedi knight II 1.02c or you being in the middle of a one on one firefight in battlefield 2 in the middle of crazy explosions and 64 player maps that it stinks to have it suddenly jitter your framerates down signifigantly.

not that either of those games are really that gpu intense compared to crysis or something. but i want to play crysis, so...

the higher the res the more bandwidth needed... even so there is no motherboard that is 16/16 with 16phase pwm. Get the asus board above and you will be fine..

Evilsizer said:

the higher the res the more bandwidth needed... even so there is no motherboard that is 16/16 with 16phase pwm. Get the asus board above and you will be fine..

Click to expand...

yeah i realized that, was just thinking that im definately going to be running at 1920x1080 in the very near future on a new hdtv.

by the way if i get a 120hz (120fps) hdtv do you think ill be able to run 1920x1080@120Hz? has anyone done that before? or is everyone still stuck at the 60Hz for hdtv's used with computers ?

so if its going to hinder it i would give up the 16 phase pwm for a 16x/16x if it makes a difference. i know you think the p5qdlx is the right way to go. but as you said with higher resolutions it will make a difference. and who knows, since ill be running at high resolutions i may want to sell my cards or stick them as singles into computers and just buy myself some new cards here in a year or two, and i wont want to upgrade my system until they come out with the 8 core processors and quad channel ddr3 that i can afford in 3-4 years.

so having two 16x 16x pcie2.0 slots ready and waiting for 2 cards from two years from now sounds like a good idea to me