Looking for a good computer board

[moody07747]

Im looking for a computer board to help me decide on what to get for a new Audio/video editing/Gaming computer.

any suggestions?

thanks

 

[stizzswizz]

Personally I recomend DFI. I have a DFI Lanparty SLI-DR and the board to loaded with goodies and very stable. Also there is a great **broken link removed** and tons of options in the BIOS!

Some people also like ASUS but I have found that some of there parts lack quality compared to DFI.

 

[Styx]

what CPU? what budget?, what GFX card (and are you wanting to go SLI/Xfire)

these three things will pretty much define what you want

IF budget isn't really a problem (ie would go for a mobo upto £180) then ASUS n Abit are two of the best high-end mobo makers there are

if you are looking around £100 then you start coming into the MSI, Gigabit's and such


Then you start getting into what you want to hook up to it

 

[moody07747]

im trying to stay at about $1,000 for this computer

i was looking into building compared to buying and im going to build because its one of those things where i can get a faster computer out of it with different parts

Im trying to run Microsoft Flight Simulator with maxed out graphics

gamespot game boards suggest either a 8800GTX or a 8800GTS graphics card.

i think ill go with the GTX as its better but the price might be a little too high for me to get that

 

[Sig239]

im trying to stay at about $1,000 for this computer

i was looking into building compared to buying and im going to build because its one of those things where i can get a faster computer out of it with different parts

Im trying to run Microsoft Flight Simulator with maxed out graphics

gamespot game boards suggest either a 8800GTX or a 8800GTS graphics card.

i think ill go with the GTX as its better but the price might be a little too high for me to get that

You should either rethink your budget, or rethink your expected performance. Nearly, or even more than half will be spent on the video card alone. $1000 seems like a low budget for a high performance machine.
Check out Newegg.com . I would recommend choosing a motherboard with the preffered features (chipsets), then write down and price average sized/performance/speed parts to populate the rest of the computer with. Next, identify performance bottlenecks and "upgrade" different parts until you reach your price cap. If you haven't built a computer before then it is likely that you will go a bit over budget on all the little things that are taken for granted. All the little things add up very quickly.


If budget isn't a concern then it will be a great learning experience, but if your budget is tight then you may end up with a slow, unstable computer with no support and a great video card...lol This is only meant to keep things in perspective not to dissuade you from building it.

 

[dknguyen]

Normally, I would go with $1000 for the bare bones stuff, with an extra $1000 for "pimping it up". I find it cheaper to buy one from a place that puts it together for you the way you want it (not Dell or London Drugs or any big name place like that)...but then again I don't like to put together computers.

 

[Styx]

im trying to stay at about $1,000 for this computer

i was looking into building compared to buying and im going to build because its one of those things where i can get a faster computer out of it with different parts

Im trying to run Microsoft Flight Simulator with maxed out graphics

gamespot game boards suggest either a 8800GTX or a 8800GTS graphics card.

i think ill go with the GTX as its better but the price might be a little too high for me to get that

top qual gaming machine for $1000, not gonna happen. If you want to pay that amount of money (~£500) then get an Xbox-360 or a PS3.

I recently built a PC pretty much for gaming (but specced so I could ssh in from work and run simulations on it as well). I came in ~£1000 (so that is ~$2000)


it is good you are asking abt the mobo since you should ALWAYS build your machine around the mobo (esp in making sure abt expansion and future-proofness).

A transition is happening atm w.r.t. mobo chipsets
1) iCH8 is being deployed (deals with USB,SATA...)
2) i975X is being deployed (deals with RAM,PCIe...)

problem is EVERY board (esp ASUS) that has gone for the major upgrade of both are having issues, this is new tech and drivers/build arn't there yet.
The bigger problem out of the two is the iCH8 chipset
Why? because it basically is an SATA-only controller and to ensure that peoples PATA Harddrives/Optical drives still are usuable all mobo manufactures have dropped down a JMicron PATA controller chip (and their drivers are buggy-as!!!!)

#2 is of an issue mor to do with driver-support and isn't too bad

I have a MSI-platinum board and it has a iCH7 controller and a i975X chipset and it is very good (bar a few memory issues - downto i975 issues)



Basically you need to make a simple choice out of AMD or Intel. Personally I would choose Intel, more sepcifically the Core2 CPU - it is AMAZING!!!!. This machine at present gets used for gaming, Gentoo-Linux building and Matlab:Simulink sims and it just tears through it all (I did alot of benchmarking of CPU's a while back!)
But it is yr choice.

Once you have decided on brand (and sub-familiy) it is then downto GFX card make: nVidia or ATi (I went nVidia purely because of Linux-support). You seem to be leaning nVidia from yr selection (more on that later) so again that has narrowed you choice down again


and that is the jists of it. then just go through and read what each mobo from ~6makers provide (NOTE on PCI/PCIe slot counts - they are dwindling)
(~£120 for decent mobo)

luckly RAM is alot easier, you will be wanting DDR2 and prob 2Gigs worth (do not go lower then 1Gig). GeiL do FANTASTIC RAM and very cheap (them or G.Skill are equally good) - big named RAM like Crucial are a waste of money... (~£150 for 2Gig)

Next issue, you are going to need some power and at least 500W to handle the peak (due to the GFX card) esp with such a big re-build and hte new connectors that are around, you cannot skimp on the PSU cause if u do you can damage other stuff. FSP do some exelent (and very efficient PSU) - (~£100 for new PSU)

That is already almost £400 (~$800) on the base-system even before the GFX card!!! (and that is assuming you are re-using monitor,keyboard,mouse,snd card... - which I did)

you may want some SATA HD (£100 for some 250Gig), maybe a SATA DVD-burner (£50) and other stuff (basing of my build)


Now the GFX card. There are a number of issues with yr pre-selection of the G80 series and I will attack them each

1) Cost
these cards alone cost £400 which is pretty much the budget you set and that just for the card!!!!
2) New tech
The G70 chipset was a refinement of the G60 which was a refinement of the G50 which was the last MAJOR change to the chipset that nVidia did and the G50 was rubbish.
The G80 is in some ways like the G50 as in it is complete change (might not be rubbish?) - it is a complete change because it is a "DX10 card"

The DX9 capability of the card is the best on the market, but this card doesn't exist to be a DX9 card (an overclocked 7950GT will equal the 8800) it exists to be a DX10 card and that is the problem.
THAT hasn't been proven. The G50 was a fantastic DX8-base, but once the DX9 titles started comming out its weaknesses showed (the problem of being a tech-leader) there is every chance the same could happen to these (Only) DX10 cards.

DX10 is completely unproves in practice or in acceptance. To have DX10 you need 3 things
a) the hardware
b) the OS/runtime libs (ONLY Vista will be DX10, so add another £400 to yr build)
c) Application (will get onto this)

prev DX have been to some extent backwards compatable, DX10 breaks this mold and required new everything (so complete upgrade as opose to modular upgrade)

which brings me onto
3) Use
To actually make full use of the G80 chipset those 3 req I mentioned above must be satified. The biggest unproven thing in that list is Vista. Only a Fool or a Os-enthusiast Uses a Microsft operating system pre-SP1 (MS have Vista's first SP schedualed for ~Aug 07) so unless you want all the pain of poor drivers there is no point

Then it comes downto applications, DX9 is pretty much the standard for games now (although a few DX8/7 are flying around and majority of games do the 3D is OpenGL), it has taken 5years for that to occur, it will take a good few years before DX10 Could become the norm (remember Vista has to suceed - business's are not snapping it up). Even though Vista is due out in Jan07 there are no DX10-Only games being released in 07, there are 4games (late in year) that will DX9 and will run in DX10 (to take advantage of a small bit of DX10 new stuff, lighting), these are:
Flightsim 07
Crysis
UT2007
??? forgot

even really late 07games are all DX9 only (with no patch for DX10 mentioned)


The point? since you have set a VERY tight budget it might be worth dropping to a nVidia-7950 simply because it is a fantastic DX9/GL2 card and that will server you well into 2008 (at which point you prob would upgrade card anyway)..


This brings me onto the final point and that is Frames-per-second
the 7950 with the most demanding game will easily it 150fps,, ooo E-peen must be getting big... is there any point? NO!

24fps is all that is needed to fool the brain that an animation works, the human eye/brain can easily detect fast-changing edges of ~100fps BUT the problem is monitors... LCD's tend to have a maximum vert freq of ~75Hz (or 75fps) so you end up aliasing all those frames anyway


I am packing a nVidia-7900GTO and in CSS I can hit 130FPS constant, but my monitor is at 75fps so I can only see 75fps, so my card is actually over-specced for what I play (now it is perfect for Quakewars in March)


which brings me back to teh justification for going for a G70 card again, a G80 will chuck out silly-frames for a DX9 game, but they are wasted so why waste the money?


just my thoughts

 

[Sig239]

Styx....Wow great post and spot on!!! It's all about identifying and eliminating the bottlenecks. It's a waste to try to "max" out any one piece of hardware because that piece usually ceases to be a bottlneck long before it is "maxed out". You could try to get the best (not quite the newest) bit of hardware one piece at a time as money permits , but then by the time you "upgrade" your computer to the best of its' abilities, those abilities are long outdated by newer, faster technology.