Need to upgrade motherboards... Need some advice

[bennoculus]

Hey guys,

My specs are all in my sig, so that's what I'll be referring to.

My motherboard was definetly a budget motherboard, I went cheap on it and I knew I shouldn't of. I might be running into some money here soon and would love to upgrade.

Currently, my MSI board has one PCI-Express slot, which holds my 460GTX. I have another, that's just lying around. I need to find a motherboard that has the capability to run AM3 socket, an SLI setup, and has more room for expansion.

My MSI board has limited overclocking abilities. It only supports up to 95W of a CPU, and my CPU is just that, 95W. I managed to get a decent overclock going (2.8 stock to 3.6 OC'd), but I have very limited options. I can't raise my voltage, and some options are just plain limited (memory timings, HT link speed, etc.)

I found this board and was wondering if it can do what I need: SLI, better overclock, better chipset
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131636

Would I be able to push my Phenom 925 further with this board? I have watercooling and my temps don't rise above 35C on load.
I know I'd have to upgrade memory but I found some good deals on DDR3.

Any input would be great, thanks!

 

[QuietIce]

I think that board is about the best you can hope for with the SLI requirement.


PS
I'm pretty sure you'll have many more overclocking options in BIOS but just to see you can always go to the ASUS site and download the manual.

 

[trents]

The best overclocking boards have AMD chipsets and would be Crossfire capable instead of SLI.

 

[bennoculus]

The best overclocking boards have AMD chipsets and would be Crossfire capable instead of SLI.

QuietIce pointed this out to me in a different thread. I'm not looking to go absolutely insane on this processor; all I want is to be able to push it a little further, and have less limitations of this low-end board.

I already have my two GTX's, otherwise I'd go with an AMD chipset.

This is the latest nVidia chipset as far as I know, some of the earlier ones are cheaper. Does the chipset really matter? I just searched around for a 980a board and this is what I found, plus two other MSI boards.

Also, my storage drives are a few years old. Is SATA 6Gb/s backwards compatible with 3Gb/s?

 

[trents]

Yes, the newest SATA standard is backward compatible.