I thought I knew which MB to but.....

[Miller]

I am goint to build a new pc for my son, and read various reviews etc. He will use it for gaming, web, mp3 etc.

I had mind my mind up on the mb, the Asus P5N32-E-SLI as it had good reviews and he could go down the sli route with another graphics card if he so wished at a later time, and read that Asus make quality mb.

However having just spent the last hour trawling through this bit of the forum and going on Asus web site, now I'm not so sure.

There's several different chipsets, P35, nforce4 sli as well as the 680 I previously chose. I sort of understand that the P35 is for the newer DDR3, but I wonder if the 680 is the more stable? Can someone point me in the right direction?

[Time]

The P35 is Intels current mainstream/performance chipset which can support DDR2 or DDR3 but not both at the same time, it's a great overclocker, runs cool but doesn't have SLI.

The 680i is NVIDIAs current flagship chipset the difference in SLI performance between it and the 650i SLI is minimal, it runs hot and I don't think it overclocks too well.

Neither is more stable.

[booyaka]

Originally Posted by Miller

I am goint to build a new pc for my son, and read various reviews etc. He will use it for gaming, web, mp3 etc.

I had mind my mind up on the mb, the Asus P5N32-E-SLI as it had good reviews and he could go down the sli route with another graphics card if he so wished at a later time, and read that Asus make quality mb.

However having just spent the last hour trawling through this bit of the forum and going on Asus web site, now I'm not so sure.

There's several different chipsets, P35, nforce4 sli as well as the 680 I previously chose. I sort of understand that the P35 is for the newer DDR3, but I wonder if the 680 is the more stable? Can someone point me in the right direction?

what cpu are you considering using?

[Miller]

Originally Posted by booyaka

what cpu are you considering using?

Budget at the moment is going to run to a Core Duo E6550,... the rest will be some 2gb Crucial or Corsair PC2 6400 with just a Nvid 7600GT
gpu for the time being.

[tinners]

The 680 boards have had mixed reviews but with the newer BIOSs they're probably fine now. They will support the E6550 OK with a newer BIOS.
The P35 is the latest chipset but doesnt support SLI
The upcoming X38 boards could support SLI in the future but they won't be available for a while

[Miller]

Okay thanks, I think I'll stick with my first choice of the P5N32-E-SLI.