Anyone know a motherboard that will work for this build? Not happy with one I picked.

[mattmga]

This is the plan so far, its somewhat rough but as of this moment these are the components that I'm looking at putting into my build, initially I had a M/B in mind for this build, but I decided I would prefer something with 1 or 2 extra PCIe slots for possible future expansion. Anyone have any suggestions I could look at? Money is not an issue on this build.

Case: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16811119225
Coolermaster HAF X 432

PSU: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16817171055
CoolerMaster Silent Pro Gold Series 1200Watt

CPU: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16819103849
AMD Phenom II x6 3.2GHz

RAM: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16820231289
G.SKILL Trident + Turbulence 4GB

SSD: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16820231375

HDD: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD6000HLHX 600GB 10000 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

GPU(S): 2X - http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16814130551
EVGA GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) SuperClocked 1536MB

[newtekie1]

Why are you getting a triple channel memory kit with an AMD build?

They only have 2 memory channels, so you want a dual-channel kit.

[mattmga]

Oversight. This is my first AMD build. Gonna take a look-see and pick out an alternative. Thanks for the pointer

[Kantastic]

If you want a quality AM3 board with your system, you're going to have to get new GPU'S as pretty much all enthusiast AM3 boards don't support SLI.

[TheLaughingMan]

SLI with AMD with AM3 brings you down to 2 choices.

MSI NF980-G65 AM3 NVIDIA nForce 980a SLI HDMI ATX ...

ASUS M4N98TD EVO AM3 NVIDIA nForce 980a SLI ATX AM...

Now, $1000 worth of GPU power is complete pointless. You are better off dropping 1 card and getting a larger SSD around 200 GB as a system drive. Performance increase will be effect in all aspects of your computer usage including boot speed, program load, game load, in game loading, encoding, converting files, etc. etc because it will be more than Boot Drive. Boot drives are pointless if the system is still slow once it starts. This will also provide the ability to get a much larger storage drive in the 2 or 3 TB range.

In an extreme case you can give up SLI all together and better a better quality board with an AMD chipset. Or switch to an HD 5970 as your GPU (if you are not a folder).

[mattmga]

Don't have the GPUs yet. So I'm better off going with Radeons in crossfire? or AMD boards just don't really support either very well? Or am I better off just switching altogether to an Intel build? Like I said, everything is just roughly planned out for now so there's alot of room to play around still.

[francis511]

If you go i5 or i7 the boards will usually support either xfire or sli.

[GENTLEMEN]

I'd suggest that you stick to a 1 card solution (the HD58xx or the newer 68xx) for now, and get other parts to speed up everything else (SSD for boot drive, more HDDs, a better CPU, max out your ram, etc). And, either AMD or Intel is good, depending on what you plan to do with your system.

EDIT: If $$$ is not "too much" of an issue, I say go i5 or i7, SSD for boot, more HDDs, but stick to one card.

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Kantastic

If you want a quality AM3 board with your system, you're going to have to get new GPU'S as pretty much all enthusiast AM3 boards don't support SLI.

He could always use the SLi hack. Erocker seems to have had success with it using his AMD setup.

[rickss69]

This mb has proven to be a winner... GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD5 AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s US...

[TheLaughingMan]

Originally Posted by mattmga

Don't have the GPUs yet. So I'm better off going with Radeons in crossfire? or AMD boards just don't really support either very well? Or am I better off just switching altogether to an Intel build? Like I said, everything is just roughly planned out for now so there's alot of room to play around still.

AMD supports crossfire well because it is their tech. Nvidia required payment for the use of their code and AMD did not accept. As a result, the only way to get SLI on an AMD board is with an Nvidia chipset (the GeForce 980a in this case).

What we are saying is no game will need or require that much graphical power unless you are running 2+ monitors with a 2560 x 1600 resolution or higher. In a single monitor configuration, no matter how high the resolution, a single HD 5970 or GTX 480 will be more than enough to take care of business.

Also scaling for crossfire has been improved with the last generation of cards (6000 series), so you may want to wait a little while and see what the 6900's will be like before you start your build.

I guess what we need to know is what is your computer's primary function? Do you fold? Are you a heavy A/V editor or professional PhotoShop user? Do you burn a lot of DVD's? If you are a gamer, what are 2 or 3 titles you are playing right now; and 2 titles you plan to play in the future?