Best mobo on the market now?

[Jonny2Bad]

What do you lads think the best mobo is on the market? Or are we all waiting for pcie 2? Are we gonna really use the extra bandwidth? Personally i think we are way ahead of ourslevles for the 1st time, all my games run at max settings, and i've not got the highest spec system available. Just a thought, interested on your veiws.

[wuyanxu]

waiting for Intel X38 to be released in September........

PCI-e2.0 is for the next generation of Dx10 graphics cards, which is a must to get. all first generation graphics cards are **** (eg, FX series' speed compared to Geforce 4Ti series is ****)
rumor has it, 9800GTX will be released Q4 2007, which is PCI-e2.0 with 2 times the speed of 8800GTX :shock:

however, IF Intel delays X38, i will still be happy to buy a p35 motherboard, but probably a cheap Asus P5k. and then get nVidia's new motherboard with 9800GTX when they come out.

[djgandy]

You don't need PCI-E 2.0
Implementation and need are 2 different things. You might aswell buy ddr3...while you are at it. You obviously need it, because 3 is more than 2 and because of that it must be better.

PCI-E 2.0 won't be needed for a good year. The only benefit to gaming i can see is when loading textures to the card. More bandwidth = faster. When you consider how much memory graphics cards have though the difference is tiny. This happens at load too so it's not a per frame thing.

I'm always happy that technology is getting better though. Faster speeds are always a good thing.

This is just typical Intel though. They are releasing DDR3 and PCI-E 2.0 now and will work any kinks out. Then next year Nehalem will come with both DDR3 and PCI-E 2.0.

Nehalem will run for 12 months, they'll release DDR4/PCI-E 3.0.
12 months later they release their next new arch with both of those working nicely.

I'd go for a P35 board. Personally I'd pick Gigabyte, their last series of boards were good value for money and people seem happy with them. Asus are just awful. Packed full of features which break or you never use.

[wuyanxu]

though we don't need PCI-e2.0, it's worth considering future upgrade possibilities.

it's like AGP and PCI-e, nearly 3 years ago, i bought a Sempron computer from Novatech. and didn't think about PCI-e. now im regretting it because the midrange graphics card of 7600GT costs 100 on AGP, but only 60 on PCI-e

[Jonny2Bad]

Well we will all upgrade to it in the end but like i said b4 all my games run at max settings at over 60 fps so im not gonna worry to much just yet or probably for another year or so or until i cant play a game maxed out i guess. I got a gigabyte p35 for my gf had quite a lot of trouble with the audio drivers not over impressed tbh

[djgandy]

though we don't need PCI-e2.0, it's worth considering future upgrade possibilities.

it's like AGP and PCI-e, nearly 3 years ago, i bought a Sempron computer from Novatech. and didn't think about PCI-e. now im regretting it because the midrange graphics card of 7600GT costs 100 on AGP, but only 60 on PCI-e

But you save a lot of money on the board. If they are the same price, sure...why not have the better one. That's not going to be the case though.

AGP is totally different too. PCI-E 2.0 is backward compatible. The fact is that there is plenty of bandwidth in PCI-E. I'd be waiting on penryn rather than PCI-E 2.0.

[wuyanxu]

i bet X38 chipsets won't be much more than £150. which is where most of the top boards are located.

[djgandy]

i bet X38 chipsets won't be much more than £150. which is where most of the top boards are located.

lol 150. See thats a LOT of money. Compared to £90 for a P35 board. Did you stick a £150 board in that semperon system? You are comparing apples and oranges here.

[wuyanxu]

most people who are going for the "Best mobo" will be spending £150 on a CPU anyway. and even more on graphics card.

so for £150 for the centre of one's computer, it'd be better than spending sub-100 when you put £150 CPU and £200 graphics card on it.

the range of products vary greatly. and one cannot buy a high end graphics card and now buy a cheap mobo. that's why in almost all mid-range systems (eg, systems that costs ~800), motherboards are not well chosen.

a side note to Novatech: your new q6600 and e6850 systems seems to be using pictures from Asus Striker Extreme. so why not write on the specification? that's a top of the line motherboard.