Need help choosing CPU and Motherboard for decent gaming rig
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 9:07 pm
Hi guys,
I'm new to the forum and I just signed up today. I'm trying to build my first computer and I been doing research on motherboards and CPU's for 4 months now. I'm trying to build a computer for not-so-hardcore gaming, but sufficient enough to play all the current games and high-end games. So, far I've purchased a case, 2GB Corsair Memory DDR2 PC6400 800MHz, and XFX 8800 GTS 512 Mb xxx Alpha dog edition that is factory OCed. I was only able to purchase these for now because I don't have a lot of money right now, haha. Anyways, can you guys help me choose a decent gaming motherboard that is not too expensive, but at the same time reliable and has SLI support. I'll be using DDR2 memory.
Here are some motherboards I'm trying to decide on:
Intel D975XBX2 or Bad Axe 2
XFX Nforce 680i LT SLI (highly considering this motherboard)
EVGA Nforce 750i FTW (hesitating because of video corruption bug issues)
XFX Nforce 780i (hesitating because of video corruption bug issues)
As far as CPU goes, I heard that for gaming purposes, E8400 is way better than Q6600, because most games out there do not utilize all 4 cores. I'm pretty sure that I won't be doing much video editing, but maybe a little, once in a while. Help me choose a CPU as well:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz or Q6700 2.66GHz?
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz or
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz
And for the rest of the specs, I want RAID support, SATA's and etc. Do you guys know about the NVIDIA Nforce 700's chipsets video corruption bug issues? Do any of you have that? Is it bad time to get a 700 series boards right now? And my video card supports PCI Express 2.0, but if I put it in PCI Express x16 1.1, does it sacrifice performance? or is it the same? Also, do you think it's worth getting DDR3?
thanks.
I'm new to the forum and I just signed up today. I'm trying to build my first computer and I been doing research on motherboards and CPU's for 4 months now. I'm trying to build a computer for not-so-hardcore gaming, but sufficient enough to play all the current games and high-end games. So, far I've purchased a case, 2GB Corsair Memory DDR2 PC6400 800MHz, and XFX 8800 GTS 512 Mb xxx Alpha dog edition that is factory OCed. I was only able to purchase these for now because I don't have a lot of money right now, haha. Anyways, can you guys help me choose a decent gaming motherboard that is not too expensive, but at the same time reliable and has SLI support. I'll be using DDR2 memory.
Here are some motherboards I'm trying to decide on:
Intel D975XBX2 or Bad Axe 2
XFX Nforce 680i LT SLI (highly considering this motherboard)
EVGA Nforce 750i FTW (hesitating because of video corruption bug issues)
XFX Nforce 780i (hesitating because of video corruption bug issues)
As far as CPU goes, I heard that for gaming purposes, E8400 is way better than Q6600, because most games out there do not utilize all 4 cores. I'm pretty sure that I won't be doing much video editing, but maybe a little, once in a while. Help me choose a CPU as well:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz or Q6700 2.66GHz?
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz or
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz
And for the rest of the specs, I want RAID support, SATA's and etc. Do you guys know about the NVIDIA Nforce 700's chipsets video corruption bug issues? Do any of you have that? Is it bad time to get a 700 series boards right now? And my video card supports PCI Express 2.0, but if I put it in PCI Express x16 1.1, does it sacrifice performance? or is it the same? Also, do you think it's worth getting DDR3?
thanks.