dogsbody

I'm looking for a new PCI-E motherboard that supports an SLi interface. Ideally I'm wanting to put 4 GB of mem on it, in 4x1gb sets.

Ideally wanting to spend no more than 100 for the m/b.

If anyone also has reccomendations for 2 decent price (i.e. not bottom of the range, nor breaking the bank) graphics cards, they would be much apprieciated too

dai

to run 4g of ram you will need to go to a 64x system
you will not find much under 100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813135047
don't know much about video cards
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814133215
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127316
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150258

linderman

The terms SLI and budget dont go together !!


thats why SLI is dying a hasty death



you would be better off getting a decent motherboard for around $140.00 or maybe a squeak less money Like the gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L

and then get 8800GT or if you need cheaper 8600GT


trying to SLi for cheaper than that is just a dream! decent SLI boards are $200.00 and MORE

the really good SLI boards are $300.00 and not worth the investment! especially not when you consider that cards are just coming out with two GPU engines on them! which is like two 8800 GTS's balled up into one card ! that will make SLI a fad of history

linderman

32bit Win XP or 32 bit VISTA dont run 4 gigs of memory well!


you would be better off with 2 x one gig sticks and 2 x 512 sticks and then you will have "dual channel" 3 gig system

Computer_Doctor

For ram, I recommend good brands such as:

1.) Corsair
2.) Crucial
3.) Kingston
4.) Mushkin

Ive also heard great news about patriot, Geil, and OCZ memory though I haven't had any experience with the three brands.

Photog

Would you explain the above further?

I have four one gig sticks installed, running XP Media Center Edition, but it sounds like you're saying I'm not using Dual Channel because the OS doesn't recognize more than a total of 3 gigs. Thanks.

linderman

32bit operating systems dont have enough memory registers to use all four gigs they have enough memory registers to allocate 3.5 gigs


you are most likely running in dual channel / very sure of that


but many systems will run faster with 2 x one gig sticks and two x 512 sticks when compared against a system with 4 x one gig sticks

dogsbody

Can I clear this up a bit please?

I'm only after SLI Motherboard Recommendations. I've got the memory and the gpu's sorted, but need to find a decent board to house them!

linderman

wait for the new 790



if you cant wait / 780; but dont expect the 780 to be better than the 680 but it will have better cpu support

Photog

Why is that?

TheMatt

Less memory to address means the memory will be a bit faster. With less you also will be more likely to achieve lower timings (assuming that the sticks are almost identical except for the sizes).