[jrm20]

Intel brand mobos are fine if you do not want to Overclock otherwise it is a good board.

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Yea I know... Just wanted to make sure everything else fit together! Thanks1

[mcdanielnc89]

Yea I know... Just wanted to make sure everything else fit together! Thanks1

[TM_Skylark]

I'm assuming you're building a gaming rig as all signs seem to point to that option.

My Opinions:

Know that in the gaming world, you will be bottlenecked in two manners. The first way is through your CPU - the other is through your GPU or video card. While it's difficult to determine where these bottlenecks occur, it's usually safe to assume that the bottlenecks tend to be reached first on the video card.

Also, I saw that you were using a Phenom chip. My question to you is: why?

There are two points to note:

1. AMD's architecture as of now is not as advanced as Intel's architecture. Thus pound for pound, in GHz you'll get more from Intel than you do from AMD.

2. For most gamers, a faster dual core system will give you more performance than a slower quad core system. If the quad core system runs at the same speed as the dual core system (or is on the new i7 platform) then it will obviously perform better than the less expensive dual core.

Please note this chart from tomshardware.co.uk - the two points in tandem actually give the Intel E8400 much better benchmarks than the Phenom Black in gaming.

http://www.tomshardw...0x1050,818.html

The E8400 will easily give you a stable gaming platform that will not become obsolete any time soon - recall that the GPU is more of a bottleneck than your CPU is.

My Suggestions:

Find an Intel motherboard which supports SLI, but only purchase one video card at the moment. As time moves on, you can make a cost effective upgrade by simply purchasing a second card and sticking it into your board.

Find an Intel motherboard with socket type 775 and use a Core 2 Duo in it - the E8400 is an excellent model (3.0 GHz dual core). In five years or so when the processor becomes obsolete, simply buy a new motherboard for the i7 - hopefully the price will go down by then.

Good luck, sir! If you need any more help or clarification please do not hesitate to ask.

[Troy]

Actually you haven't read the whole thread, TM_Skylark. If you read post #14, you'll see the OP has picked a Core i7 build now.

Therefore, by the time you finish reading that, you'll realise your post is, in the most part, irrelevant.

Also, I disagree with your suggestion to buy an SLI motherboard now, but the second graphics card later on. This usually doesn't make sense, because by the time you purchase the second card, newer and more powerful cards will have been released. So unless you're going to run SLI all in one hit - don't bother.

Cheers

Troy

[mcdanielnc89]

I just thought of something else. High Definition. Will it support/play high definition videos and such? or would the monitor just need to be high definition?

[Troy]

Every part in the chain will need to be high-def certified.

[mcdanielnc89]

How will I know whether or not it is? Will it tell me or are you just saying everythign WILL be..?

Every part in the chain will need to be high-def certified.

[Troy]

You will need to find information on the manufacturer's support page that states the device is capable of displaying/carrying High Definition content.