Needing a new board

[Liam_Drien]

So I've got currently a phenom 9500 quad core and I'm needing a board that will support it, my 4 sticks of ddr2 memory and my 2 video cards I've got. My video cards are both Geforce gts 250's 1gb cards and I need sli besides those requirements I don't have any others I would like to keep it under $200 if at all possible. Thanks for the help.

 

[trents]

Lots of good choices for under $200. You'll want and AM2+ board for the processor (not an AM3 which would require an AM3 CPU and DDR3 memory) and an Nvidia chipset that supports SLI. A good place to start is NewEgg to see what boards fit those criteria. NewEgg has a guided search tool that will help you eliminate the boards you don't want. The reviews of other customers will help you sort out which boards are reliable from those that are giving lots of problems. My advice is to not choose a board that is a brand new product with only a few reviews to go off of. Choose one that has at least 20 reviews. Boards that have been around for several months also often have gone through a revision and some of the bugs have been fixed. Hope this helps. For SLI you want the Nvidia 700 Nortbridge series. Here's the link:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N=2010200022 107192495&name=NVIDIA nForce 700

Note that some of these boards will not support 16-bit PCI-E transfer rates when two video cards are used at once, as in SLI configuration. Most people feel that 8-bit does not really bottleneck the cards anyway, however, and the dual 16-bit cards are more expensive.

Hope this helps.

 

[Liam_Drien]

It sure does. Thank you for the help. I will check Newegg and see if I can narrow it down to the best couple boards and see about getting opinions on them. Alright I think I've got it narrowed down to 2 motherboards I need some opinions on both. Perhaps from someone who owns one or the other. I've had good experience with Asus boards but I haven't heard anything about FoxConn boards. This is the first one I found:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186152
The other board is:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131343
The dual ethernet would be nice but I doubt it would help me much as our phone company sucks anyways.

 

[trents]

Personally, I think both those boards would be overkill for me but I"m not you. One concern I have with both of them is that in the NewEgg CPU compatibility description neither one lists Phenom IIs. Although you don't have a Phenom II now in the near future you might want to upgrade your CPU. I suggest you go to both manufacturers' web sites and check if later bios versions include PII support. My guess is they will but I would check. The Foxconn board got better reviews. Foxconn has been around for a long time as a supplier of OEM boards and has more recently invested in the aftermarket sector. They are an up and coming company. I do not agree with some reviewers who said their tech support was unresponsive. I have found them to be the most responsive of the several companies I have dealt with. Also, recently they have been working on improving the speed of their web site and its much snappier than it used to be. We have a Foxconn board in one of our computers and I'm very impressed with it. Also, their bios updating utility is certainly not difficult to use as one reviewer claimed. You need to realize that some reviewers on NewEgg rate themselves "high" in their tech level experience when the fact is they would have trouble taking the case side panel off their computer without help.

 

[Liam_Drien]

I can't find anything on Phenom 2 compatibility for either board but what's interesting is the Foxconn has a bios upgrade for am3 cpus... Which makes me still lean more towards the Foxconn board... I'm also more impressed with the accessories the Foxconn board comes with so I think that's going to be the one I go with. Thanks for the help Trent

 

[trents]

Here's the link to the Asus board's CPU compatibility list:

http://www.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=ka4Zc9Wj4y1RINc4&content=specifications

The Asus site has more complete info in this case.

All the PII processors are AM3 but downwardly compatible with socket AM2+ boards. It's just a matter of you would not be able to use DDR3 memory if you use an AM3 CPU on an AM2+ board.

 

[Liam_Drien]

I saw the list but didn't realize it scrolled down...doh heh seems it does support the phenom 2's for sure. I don't much care about ddr3 memory as I currently have those 4 2gig sticks of ddr2 1066 memory and wasn't planning on changing those out. Even with Asus confirming it supports the phenom 2 cpu's I'm still liking the foxconn board better...found the foxconn cpu support list it supports the phenom 2 cpu's.

 

[trents]

Foxconn's web site is better than it was but it still needs some work. It's not the most intuitive thing I've seen. The key to finding the CPU compatibility list it seems is to not go to their USA/America web site but to their Global/English web site where you can select the model "Destroyer" with a guided search.

 

[Liam_Drien]

I did a google search for Foxconn Destroyer cpu support and this page popped up
http://www.foxconnsupport.com/cpusupportlist.aspx?type=mb&model=Destroyer&cputype=
Which says that it supports the phenom 2 so that's the one I'm planning on getting. It's pretty much future proof from what I saw at least besides the dd3 memory which I don't really need anyways....

 

[trents]

Hey, let me know how it works out, okay?

 

[Liam_Drien]

Alright I will. I ordered it this morning so hopefully it will be here by the end of the week. Then I will update.