Recommend a board

[blindartist]

Hey guys,

Im looking to put together a new system, but im rather poor and cant afford to get anything extravagent. Been looking through some boards and have a couple in mind but I wanted to get your opinions, im looking for a decent socket am2+ board thats around the 100$ mark. Any suggestions?

Thanks guys

[AfterLife]

Gigabyte/MSI/Asus 780GX

[Unixlord]

That would be either 790GX or 780G? I don't know of any 780GX.
Anyway, is onboard or anything else in particular a requirement? What kind of work are you expecting to do with it?

[IModIntel]

Whatever you do, stay away from the ASUS M3A and the Nvidia chipsets.

[blindartist]

yea i definetly dont want a nforce board, was looking at the 780's and the 790's but 790s seem to be a little exepnsive still.

Onboard is not a requierment, actually almost perfer no onboard as i will be putting in my own vid and sound cards.

[Unixlord]

What CPU/GPU do you plan on using with it? Have they already been purchased?

[blindartist]

havent bought anything yet, gonna plan it mostly around the board i get but i would like a board that will support pretty much any current and preferably future amd processor, or atleast for as long as they are gonna stick with am2

My big thing is upgradeability, I dont want to be limited in the future, i need this largely for my graphical work so i need a powerful processor for rendering, that said i know intel has more cojones right now but they make new sockets for pretty much every new processor they come out with so I was thinking going amd would yeild much more future potentail

Crossfire isnt totaly necissary, i know im not gonna find a crossfire board in my price range, so just a single pcie16x/2.0 would suffice

[Dyre Straits]

Originally Posted by blindartist

havent bought anything yet, gonna plan it mostly around the board i get but i would like a board that will support pretty much any current and preferably future amd processor, or atleast for as long as they are gonna stick with am2

My big thing is upgradeability, I dont want to be limited in the future, i need this largely for my graphical work so i need a powerful processor for rendering, that said i know intel has more cojones right now but they make new sockets for pretty much every new processor they come out with so I was thinking going amd would yeild much more future potentail

Crossfire isnt totaly necissary, i know im not gonna find a crossfire board in my price range, so just a single pcie16x/2.0 would suffice

For the past few years, the 775 socket has been the same as far as the Intel CPUs are concerned. I do know they are changing the socket for the upcoming processors. But, on face value, your statement isn't entirely true. From my viewpoint, AMDs been more inclined to change sockets recently than has Intel. Just in the past 4 years AMD has gone from 754 -> 939 -> 940 -> AM2 ->AM2+ and projected -> AM3 later this year.

Here's a little history....

http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/Sockets.htm

I still have a 939 AMD system here that runs very well using a 4800+ processor and 2 GB of DDR2 RAM. I have my Radeon X1950 Pro in it and it's still a decent gaming rig.

[Unixlord]

Well for graphical work, baring lifespan in mind, the requirement for PCIE 2.0 (although any gain is currently negligible with single gpu setups) and keeping under $100 you can get a good P43 chipset motherboard from either Asus, Gigabyte or MSI.

Pair that with any cpu within your budget (for rendering the cheaper than phenom Q6600 comes in to mind), overclocking is optional and it'll burn anything AMD can currently offer and still be upgradable for longer than it would matter.

Nehalem requires DDR3 and that won't be "mainstream" for some time. By the time you'll want to upgrade to DDR3 you'd have to have changed motherboard anyway and you'll be deciding between deneb and nehalem, there's no doubt that nehalem has this one in the bag too.

[blindartist]

Thanks unix, perhaps I will have to bite my pride and switch to an intel for the time being, are there any specific boards you would recomend? and can the p43 chipset handle even the latest intel processors (probably a stupid question but i havent looked into intel for a while)