What high spec. motherboard?

[hga777]

Hi all,

Im currently building a pc for a client. Im not really a hardware guy but i have some experience building pc's. The client has already bought an amd64 FX-60 cpu and MSI X1900 XTX graphics card. Now i will purchase the rest of the components and build it for him.

My question is:

what motherboard do you recommend for such a high spec cpu/video card?

and,

When assuming SLI motherboards, Does that mean that they MUST have 2 graphics cards? or will the SLI motherboard perform just as good with a single good quality graphics card? Reason im asking this is do i have to look for non-SLI motherboards for the MSI X1900 XTX?!

Let me know your thoughts. Any help would be appreciated :)

Thanks

[Bonham]

ASUS A8N-E, amazing performance and reasonable cost.

[-=CrAnSwIcK=-]

will your client be overclocking that fx-60?? And with a CPU that cost over a 1000$ CAD and a graphics card not too far behind....they might as well get some top notch RAM and a motherboard that'll cost them their other arm and leg...DFI would be the way to go i think with that kinda budget...don't get SLi though, cause he's got an X1900xtx...and i thought i read about people having alot of problems with those ASUS boards and the new ATI cards...

Go DFI...they have the best overclocking options....hell if he can afford all that, why not buy another x1900 and get the DFI lanparty crossfire board...

[omga14]

if the system is to be held onto for a while and they plan on going 2 vid cards later on then check out this mobo: DFI RDX200 (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/dfi-lanparty-utrdx200cf-dr.html) . also as mentioned above your client really won't need 2 cards unless he's using high resolutions like 1600x1200 and above. that's where these new gen cards really begin to show thier power over the last generation. if he has a high res monitor or plans on getting one later then this is where SLI and Crossfire make sense.

[lazyrunner50]

No, if you get a SLI motherboard, you don't have to get two video cards. If you are looking for the best performance you would want to do that though. I have a system that is about a notch below the one you are building (see my specs below), and I chose not to go SLI though I have a SLI motherboard. The thing is, usually the high end motherboards (the ones that have the best quality parts) would be the SLI ones. Keep in mind that if you want to go SLI with the video card you have, you would have to get an ATI Crossfire motherboard like the one Omga suggested. Problem is ATI was a little late to the game, so there aren't nearly as many Crossfire motherboards as regular SLI ones. That said, you can still use that video card on any good Ol' SLI motherboard, just not in SLI mode...

[yahooadam]

as said

SLI is a NVidia only technology

You client has an ATI Card

ATI's version is Crossfire, however there are few motherboards out there with it

DFI is a good way to go, especially with a proccesor like the FX60

You can run 1 card in a SLI or Crossfire motherboard

they support 2, but work just as well with 1 (infact you dont get as much of a performance boost from your second card)

Edit
BTW this isnt your client is it ? http://forum.pcstats.com/showthread.php?t=35174

[therealwesty]

With top shelf components like that you'd want to grab a top shelf board to go with it. Something like the Asus A8R32-MVP. Using the Radeon Xpress 200 chipset this board will enable you to run a Crossfire set up with two of the X1900 series cards if you are interested in that. The board uses full 32-lane PCI Express and the 8-phase power system to keep the CPU running happily.

If you aren't interested is using two videocards than the A8N32-SLI Deluxe would be a good alternative. The Deluxe boards by Asus are always packed full of features. This board uses the nForce4 chipset with 32-lane PCI Express and uses the 8-phase power as well.

[lazyrunner50]

Probably not yahoo...look at the video card.

[yahooadam]

Probably not yahoo...look at the video card.
MSI X1900 XTX

.... thats ATI .....

[lazyrunner50]

Oops...<img src="images/icons/icon11.gif"> didn't pay attention to who was posting, and just glanced at the specs.

DFI Lanparty UT SLI-DR Expert
AMD FX-60 Duel Core
2 GBs of OCZ 3200 Ram
1 Sata WD Raptor Drive
1 Sata 3.0g Seagate 250gb
XFX GTX 7800 256mb
Sony DVD-RW

[hga777]

Thanks for all the replies

Ok...been doing some seriouse research over the past week. With that and the comments mentioned here, I decided not to go with 2 cards.Single card should be enough (x1900xtx), and that i will go with an SLi mobo (even though im not gonna use SLi).

Just to confirm, I already purchased the fx60 AND x1900xtx.

Was deciding between the following mobos:

DFI's RDX200 Lanparty (no SATAII, slow usb, loads of problems, bad reviews, . Maybe latest version better but dont care! Dont want crossfire anyway)

Asus A8N32-SLi Deluxe (good, but DFI SLi better me think)

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (non-SLi, built with it before using amd64 3200+, great mobo for average user)

DFI LANParty UT NF4 SLI-DR (The best s939 mobo ever. So they say!)

As you can tell, im going with the DFI LANParty UT NF4 SLI-DR. Rated 97% here

All I need to do now is learn how to over-clock! Hopefully you guys wont let me down when I come back with some noob questions :)

[flybye11]

the new crossfire will be out soon wait if u can cause rdx200 has slow usb chip 450 sux but then again usb storage device speed may not matter and the board still overclocks good like all dfi boards

[chris000001]

No need for Crossfire or SLi...
just go with the single card solution and the DFI NF4 sli expert and OC the crap outta that FX

that combined with the x1900xtx will be a sweet set up!

[yahooadam]

http://forum.pcstats.com/showpost.php?p=301541&postcount=19

youve posted this somewhere else too ;)

please try to keep issues to one topic

[hga777]

sorry :o But decided to get the same parts as the guy im building the system for.