SLI Motherboard Roundup

[stryder256]

I am trying to find an article that has a review of all the SLI boards currently available with 1333 FSB for the new Dual Cores (I'm looking at the 8400). I'm having trouble finding an article that tests the recent Intel chips.

Anyone have any articles they can point me to? Your help is much appreciated!

 

[RLymburner]

To avoid reposting the same question, can someone tell me if the 780i chipset with PCI Express 2.0 x16 double the bandwidth for my existing 8800GTX by virtue of wider bandwidth than a 680? If not, is there any reason I shouldn't just find a good 680? I believe the 790 will require new RAM (mine no good?) and I already dumped a load into RAM that is SLI-certified and rather not drop any more $$$.

__________________

| Intel D975XBX2 | Intel E6600 w/Zalman 9500 | 4 GB Patriot DDR2 800 (PDC22G6400LLK) | EVGA 8800 GTX |
| Thermaltake Toughpower 850W | WD 250 GB SATA-II (3 in RAID 5) | Antec P180 | OS: Vista |

 

[theYipster]

Stryder,

No roundup to my knowledge exists. Here's mine in one paragraph. Basically, you have the reference boards (evga & xfx) and the non reference boards (ASUS P5-NT, ASUS Striker II Formula, and the MSI P7N Diamond.) In my experience, the P7N Diamond is the best high end SLI board money can buy. In brief, the basic issue with SLI boards is that the reference boards can usually OC easily and quite well, yet suffer from long-term reliability problems, especially with NB and RAM burnout. Conversely, the non-reference boards use better components (like solid stake caps and an advanced PWM design) and therefore do not have such reliability issues. However, most are known to be temperamental to work with and are poor OCers. The P7N Diamond is the first board I've seen and experienced which doesn't compromise. It has better components for better reliability, and OCs quite well. Still, there is less community support around the P7N and the BIOS it uses is a bit cryptic around voltages, so OCing will take a bit more work than on the reference boards. However, I think it's well worth the extra bit of work up front for the security that your board won't die in 3 months.

RLymburner,

Putting a GTX card in a PCI-E 2.0 does not double the bandwidth of your card. What PCI-E 2.0 does provide is more bandwidth for cards that can use it. Since a GTX or Ultra can't even saturate a PCI-E 1.1 x16 slot, the extra bandwidth provided by PCI-E 2.0 will go unused. Your GTX card will not perform any better.

You are correct that the 790i will require DDR3 RAM.

 

[RLymburner]

Excellent response Yipster, just what I was looking for. Based on your response to Stryder, I'll look at the P7N Diamond board. I've been suffering for a year with an Intel BadAxe2 board and I long for some stability ... any stability!

 

[theYipster]

Glad to be of help RLymburner. However, do keep in mind that regardless of the board it sits on, the 780i chipset likely won't be winning any stability awards any time soon. Granted, no one knows for sure whether the less than stellar history of the 680i and 780i are due to the chipsets or the boards, but given that so many boards have had one issue or another, most would correctly advise not to pursue an SLI chipset unless you plan to run two GeForce cards in SLI. That said, if you do plan to run SLI, the P7N is an excellent choice, as it will OC well and should be a great deal more stable than the reference boards.

 

[RLymburner]

Good stuff ... long term goal is to extend the life of my computer by adding a 2nd 8800GTX to it via SLI. In general (being a former Intel-chipset bigot) what has been the most stable and somewhat overclockable 680i? I know the Striker had hit or miss issues but was the P5 really much more stable? (as a general consensus?)

 

[theYipster]

In general, P35 wins hands down over the 680i in stability. The Striker Extreme doesn't have the NB and RAM burnout issues experienced with the reference boards. However, it had (or has) a whole other host of issues. It's very picky about what RAM it'll work with, BIOSes are known to be very tempermental, and very few Striker Extremes have been successful OCers. If you are going to go with a high end SLI board, there is no reason to choose a 680i board over a 780i board. Both are looked warily upon by many, but the 780i is at least newer and is known to have fewer issues than its predecessor.

If you're looking to save money, consider a 750i board as an alternative. Since all x8 lanes on the 750i are PCI-E 2.0, you won't actually be loosing any bandwidth with your GTX. Your only 750i options at the moment are the ASUS P5N-D and the MSI P7N Platinum. I don't have any experience with the Platinum, but I would easily recommend it given the successes with the P7N Diamond.

 

[Owls]

Not all 780i boards suck for stability. The worst offender is the P5N-T which I think until recently with the 903 bios finally became stable for most people. I'd still avoid that board (I had it and returned it for an EVGA).

previews of 790i boards are indeed very good with one showing a 570MHz bus as its max. Comparitively on my EVGA 780i my max stable was 519MHz. However, with DDR3 being so expensive it really is not worth it one bit.

XFX, EVGA, and MSI are fine choices for 780i boards

 

[RLymburner]

Thanks Owls ... I dropped a message on the Patriot Memory support board to see which of those boards the memory is most likely to be stable on.

 

[lopri]

OP: What is the biggest deal when you choose a board? On most counts, 780i is preferred over 680i if price is not an object. I would even pick a 750i board over 680i when there are more choices become available. For overclocking, keep in mind that there still are FSB holes with NV boards. Active cooling for NB and/or SB is recommended for long-term stability as well.

 

[stryder256]

Hmm... thanks for all the info, especially Yipster. I am especially concerned with stability, as I run ProTools LE and that program is a little bitch when it comes to stability, even on a normal motherboard. It's funny how damn much information one has to procure in order to build a computer. I guess I'll just stick to the non-SLI boards. Or maybe I'll just wait until a normal computer can play Crysis without choking...ugh