Good mobo for AMD x2 3800

[DrCraniax]

Howdy,

I've decided to upgrade recently and the CPU I'm going for is an Athlon 64 x2 3800+. I'm just not sure what motherboard to go with.

I've noticed that most s939 boards have nVidia nForce / SLi etc onboard. I'm not exactly sure what this means - is it just support for dual video cards, or...? I was thinking of buying an ATi card, and I've got no plans for dual cards, but will running an ATi card on an nForce supported board have any impact at all? Would I get more benefit by getting an nVidia card?



Would love to hear any opinions you may have. Thanks!

 

[PUTALE]

it won't effect anything running ati's card on nvidia's board. The nforce/SLI means that it will support sli (dual cards), but it's not required to have both cards/slots filled

If you have no plan to go for SLI whatsoever, then I would suggest you go for nforce4 ultra chipset. I think dfi has good board, so is asus.

What's your budget, is there any special feature that you need for the board?

 

[pathlight]

Would I get more benefit by getting an nVidia card?

I use two different video editing software packages, Sony Vegas and NewTek's VT[4.6], and one 3rd party "film-look" filter package, Magic Bullet Editors v2.

NewTek recommends nVidia. V2 of Magic Bullet Editors has been sped up by up to 17 times, but only for nVidia cards. It'll work with other cards, but doesn't take advantage of them for rendering.

So even though I'm Canadian and would like to see ATI, a Canadian company do well, I'll stick with nVidia for my video work.

So if you'll ever edit video with any of these software packages, I'd suggest nVidia.

 

[blue_dragon]

i would recommend the asus sli-premium if its withing your budget...even if u dont run sli its a great mobo for upgrades
youll be able to have a graphics card running at 16X and another pci-e slot spare
probably in the future im guessing pci-e will also replace the pci slot

 

[DrCraniax]

Thanks guys!

I'm looking at spending around AUD$150ish (USD$120) or thereabouts. I'm just a gamer - I do some audio/video editing but nothing I'd consider high-end. I'd prefer to stay with ATi but there's nowhere near as much Crossfire support as there is SLi at this stage. Since PCIe seems the way to go, I'll want a PCIe x16 for a new video card.

I'm looking at buying in the next month or two - I want to make sure I've got a rig that'll be able to handle games well for the next couple of years. Apparently AMD have a new batch of CPUs coming in the near future so hopefully that'll make my CPU a bit cheaper when I get it...

Thanks again!

 

[PUTALE]

if you plan to have card that will last you for at least a year or more, I would strongly suggest get 7800GT or the newly 1800, as they have more features in them and performs better, and should last a bit longer than the 120ish budget (for 120ish you are actualyl looking for x800GTO or the 6600GT range card)

 

[DrCraniax]

Sorry Putale, I was talking about budget for the motherboard. As for the video card... I'm probably going to wait until games using the Unreal 3 Engine come out to see how they run on current cards, and make my decision from there. I've got a 9800 Pro at the moment but considering all the nVidia support for the AMD boards... I might convert (again). It depends on what they're offering at the time.

 

[PUTALE]

cool. Well, you do realize that your 9800 Pro won't work on the new pci-e board right?

As for your 120ish budget for the mobo, I would sugget get these boards:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136164

or asus's or dfi's board. They are all good brand and produce nice boards.

 

[kenyee]

(for 120ish you are actualyl looking for x800GTO or the 6600GT range card)

And for the GTO, you want one that can be soft modded so it's as fast as an X800XL like the Sapphire one...

 

[Comanche12]

I have to same processor and I an running it on a K8N Neo4 Platinum form MSI. This is the link http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130491. I have a ATI x800XL as a video card and it runs as smooth as silk. The installation was easy and no problems so far knock on wood lol.

 

[DrCraniax]

Great, thanks guys.