new mobo

[vs-ukpyro]

hey guys, im quite new to all this pc buisness, but need a new machine as i play games online, im looking for a new atx board, ive looked at the asus a8n-sli deluxe and the msi k8n-sli diamond so far. are these mobos rated amognst you guys or is there better? as i say i would like it to have all the up to date "accessories" and be able to take atleast amd 64 4000+ cpu as it will need to run with some speed. many thanks guys and any help is greatly appreciated!

[beerbelly]

Hi, and WELCOME!

You've come to the right place. You can get a good start by taking a look at this sticky (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=39018) by saphalline (our resident hardware expert), and this thread (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41267) by hockey man. Both are very good sources of information, for both individual components and complete systems.

[saphalline]

Those are both excellent mobo's. But for a gaming system of any kind, you have to look at the whole picture - mobo, CPU, RAM, vid card, hard drive, etc. What's your budget for this new system? What parts do you have? What new parts do you need?

[vs-ukpyro]

i have a thermaltake swing case, hyper type r 480 psu, western digital 160 gb hard drive and a nvidia 6800gt grapics card. need a board and chip, but looking at the amd 64 4000+. but really need advice on a board. out of the two which do you recomend? or is the premium any better? many thanks

[i an not a nerd]

I would go with the Asus mobo, and the AMD 4000+ is a great cpu. You may want to think of going down the dualcore path though, with that kind of $$$ being spent.

[saphalline]

I assume that hard drive is SATA, and that vid card is PCIe x16? And what about your RAM?

Single-core is good for gaming. Dual-core is good for power users. While dual-core is really awesome, I don't automatically recommend it for everyone. Just because you have the money doesn't mean you should definitely buy a dual-core. It's an option, but not mandatory.

[vs-ukpyro]

sounds good! the graphics card is agp i think? whatever that is! dont mind single or sual core just read in few places that the 4000+ wood be a better gaming platform chip? i really am just confused about mobos! havnt bought ram yet as i was waiting to see what board i bought?

[saphalline]

Ok, first thing you should do is double-check that vid card. You don't want AGP because there is no AGP slot on the latest mobo's. You want a PCIe (PCI Express) x16 vid card. So take care of that first!

Any of the SLI mobo's will work just fine for you. The only things that the "Deluxes" and "Premiums" give you are more bells & whistles. It's not like the cheaper mobo's are worse, they just don't have as many extras (things like dual Ethernet adapters, better audio codec chips, more SATA ports, etc). So you can spend more on the most expensive mobo's if you want, but I'm just saying that you don't have to.

That being said, the Asus A8N-SLI Premium is one of the most feature-rich mobo's out there, without being over-extravagant (like a bathroom-cleaning dongle :p).

For the RAM, start with the basic Corsair ValueSelect 1GB kit (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145440). Awesome performance, excellent quality, good price. If you want more than that, let us know.

[vs-ukpyro]

thanks for your help, still unsure which to get but probably leaning towards the msi-k8n sli diamond. read a few bad things about theasus premium with the heat pipe overheating and dieing etc. if you had to choose guys wood you go

asus a8n-sli Deluxe
asus a8n-sli Premium
msi k8n-sli Diamond

[saphalline]

The MSI Diamond mobo is an excellent choice, but I wouldn't be worried about picking any one of them.

The people who complained about the Asus heatpipe overheating and dying were either OC'ing way too far, or they had inadequate case cooling. My friend has the Asus Deluxe (only slightly OC'ed) and mobo/chipset temp is on par with mine - about 30-32C. This is barely above room temp for us, so the heatpipe seems to be working just fine. Besides, whenever I read a bad review, I can usually tell if the product really is bad, or if the people who wrote the review were just idiots. ;)

[vs-ukpyro]

ok ive been concerted, i figure i might aswell go asus premium, all the extras and the fact it dosnt have a parallel fan next to the chipset helps. so can you just look over this and make sure its all going to get along like a nice family and not squabble! :D

asus a8n-sli premium mobo
hyper type r 480 psu
amd 4000+ chipset
6800gt pci-e card
western digital 160gb hdd
and of course your choice of corrsair ram! ;)

many thanks for everything!

[saphalline]

I say go for a 7800 GT or GTX. It looks well within your budget if you've got a 4000+ in there, and the extra gaming performance would be quite good. If you need to shave off some money to get a 7800 GTX inside your budget, drop your CPU choice down to a 3700+ San Diego. That should shave off about $100, and that $100 will be better spent on your vid card than your CPU at this point.

Other than that, it looks pretty good! :D