{Switchin' ovah} Tired of NV chipset and looking to Crossfire~!

krag

Classifieds Moderator

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Joined

Mar 3, 2002

• Jun 30, 2008

• #1

Welp, I am tired of the NV Intel SLI chipset cold war and am in need of some warmer Crossfire action. I have a Visiontek 4850 on its way to meh and will be replacing mymuch aged eVGA 680i mobo. Its been good and nice and stable yet I am itching for some Intel service.

In the near furture: Nehalem CPU, DDR-3 (has come down nicely in price lately), new mobo.

I will be keeping the 1k wtt Silverstone..(might just get a 2nd PSU incase)
2 x 74g 16mb Rappies
1 x 320 Seagate
1 x ViperJohn special 400w CPU water cooling system


This is the mobo I am currently looking at...ASUS P5E3 PREMIUM/WIFI-AP @n LGA 775 DDR3 Intel X48 ATX

Yeah, the price sucks but...what else is there to equal it?

 

ghost_recon88

Senior Jedi Master

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Joined

Feb 12, 2005

Location

Michigan

• Jul 1, 2008

• #2

If you're gonna be getting Nehalem later on, I would just stick to DDR2 for now. No point in buying 2 super expensive parts now. Get the Asus Rampage Formula and a good clocking DDR2 kit. Then when you transition to Nehalem, the price of DDR3 will have dropped even more.

 

Brolloks

Benching Senior on Siesta, Premium Member #8

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Joined

Dec 26, 2006

Location

Land of Long Horns

• Jul 1, 2008

• #3

If you are going to stay with just the 4850 in x-fire and res < 1920 x 1200 then a P45 will be just fine, Asus P5Q/Pro for around $150 or so.

If you want to go with the bigger brother 4870 you'll need full dual 16 x lanes , so a X38 or X48 board will do the job nicely. I have had both the Asus Maximus Formula and Rampage Formula and they are just great.

Agree with Ghost on the DDR2 vs DDR3, I actually benched DDR2 against DDR2 with a 790i and 780i board and the difference was not that great, did not justify the rather big price difference for sure.

 

OP

krag

Classifieds Moderator

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Joined

Mar 3, 2002

• Jul 1, 2008

• Thread Starter
• #4

Thanks fellas for the feedback . sorry I din'tmention this earlier. I intend to upgrade my X-fire to 2 x 4780x2 to give me 4 GPUs in X-fire...eventually. I like the idea of getting the x48 Asus Rampage due to my 8gigs of Corsair DDR-2 I have here. Is the Rampage 2x2.0 pci-e X-fire (i.e 2 full 16x pci-e lanes)? Do I have it right?

 

Blazing fire

Member

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Joined

Sep 5, 2007

• Jul 1, 2008

• #5

Yes, most X48 support PCI-E 2.0 X16.

 

Anubis_386

Member

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Joined

Apr 20, 2006

Location

England - Where VAT hurts my pocket :(

• Jul 1, 2008

• #6

OoozeSheep said:

The DFI X38 DK and UT as well as the X48 Boards are amazing, attractive women will take their clothes off spontaneously for you if you buy one of those motherboards

Click to expand...

LOL .. What he said .. How much did that CPU Cooler from Viper John cost ya?

 

freeagent

Member

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Joined

Sep 15, 2004

Location

Winnipeg!

• Jul 1, 2008

• #7

the rampage is a good board, one of the only things about it that i dont like, is that i cant really put any fans over my ram useing my u120x. i have an old s939 fan, hanging precariously off the bottom of my gtx with a twist tie in an effort to keep em cool. might have to go with a diff cpu cooler.. or just run low volts to the stix.. but thats no fun

its an awsome board tho

 

OP

krag

Classifieds Moderator

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Joined

Mar 3, 2002

• Jul 1, 2008

• Thread Starter
• #8

Yeah, looks like the Asus Rampage is the one.

BTW, the ViperJohn custom 400w water cooler cost me $600 3 yrs ago. He last told me that he doesn't make them anymore because its costs more in labor to make them. It has servedme well ever since. It was initially designed for one of his SLI 24v TEC volt modded setups. Works killer on a 6700-XE quad

 

wa77ss

Member

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Joined

Jul 5, 2005

Location

Virginia

• Jul 1, 2008

• #9

Dude, why not get one of the new DFI X48 boards? DFI > Asus

 

wa77ss

Member

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Joined

Jul 5, 2005

Location

Virginia

• Jul 1, 2008

• #10

DFI LANPARTY UT X48-T3R


That's a motherboard, even comes with Thermalright chipset cooler.

 

OP

krag

Classifieds Moderator

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Joined

Mar 3, 2002

• Jul 1, 2008

• Thread Starter
• #11

Dang bro...that is a nice looking board!

 

wa77ss

Member

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Joined

Jul 5, 2005

Location

Virginia

• Jul 1, 2008

• #12

Here's a pretty decent look at the board.

http://ocxtreme.org/forumenus/showthread.php?t=3306

 

G

Gautam

Senior Benchmark Addict

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Joined

Feb 4, 2003

Location

SF Bay Area

• Jul 1, 2008

• #13

That's a DDR3 board tho...I think the Rampage is indeed the smartest choice here.

 

wa77ss

Member

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Joined

Jul 5, 2005

Location

Virginia

• Jul 1, 2008

• #14

Gautam said:

That's a DDR3 board tho...I think the Rampage is indeed the smartest choice here.

Click to expand...

krag said:

In the near furture: Nehalem CPU, DDR-3 (has come down nicely in price lately), new mobo.

Click to expand...

 

G

Gautam

Senior Benchmark Addict

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Joined

Feb 4, 2003

Location

SF Bay Area

• Jul 1, 2008

• #15

shrug...I know money's no object for Kraig but since he's got the 8 gigs of DDR2 might as well put it to use while he can.

Also Maxi sorta struggled with the DFI...I think he's still waiting on a new BIOS chip from them since the shipping BIOS got corrupted.

 

OP

krag

Classifieds Moderator

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Joined

Mar 3, 2002

• Jul 2, 2008

• Thread Starter
• #16

Velp, Asus Rampage was just bought from the egg. LOL, looking forward to it! My ATI 4850 should be here tomorrow. Won't get the mobo till Monday...dadgum UPS 3 day service...yeah right!


Come on 4870X2~~~~!

 

IWasHungry

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Joined

Oct 18, 2004

Location

Seattle, WA

• Jul 2, 2008

• #17

You better treat my 4850 nicely Are you using it as a temporary solution until 4870x2s are available?

 

OP

krag

Classifieds Moderator

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Joined

Mar 3, 2002

• Jul 2, 2008

• Thread Starter
• #18

Yes thats exactly what I am planning to do