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#16
warriorscot

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Most of it is automatic on 99% of boards you do occasionaly have to tweak the Bios in order to get them to run to the best performance, eg aggresive timings auto overclocking stiff like that, you also usually disable unused peripherals to speed your boot time up, they work usually stragiht out the box and are fine they just will work better with tweaking, for most though the extent of bios changes are boot priorities.

Asus get reccomended by a few magazines, but they get working motherboards hand delivered and dont have to fix the problems with them thats left to us, and weve had alot of people with problems with Asus boards.

ATI are the complete opposite in Europe they are at least a good $150USD cheaper than the Nvidias which as well as being faster is a big incentive as to why i like them. ATI are going market to market establishing a base at the moment they are concentrating there effirts in Europe it will be North America or Australasia next so you might get lucky in the next couple of years. Its not all to much difference if ones cheaper than the other go with that ATI are better but the differences arent huge the x1800XL and the 7800GTX are pretty equal on most fronts now with the 6.1 catalysts out.

You could wait for DX10 or you could get your system now, but you could always get your system now and stick a 6800GS in it and wait for DX10 flog the 6800GS when it comes out and get a good DX10 card. You have to make that decision yourself.

The MSI board comes in SLI(Diamond version) but unless you are going to do SLI from the start i wouldnt really bother unless there is something else you want thats in the SLI boards. The MSI boards have one of the highest levels of build quality so they are good on that front and the price is good as well(You also cant beat the nifty red CMOS button, why no one thought of that before i will never know). Also core cell is good they are probablt the best all rounder boards good at a bit of everything really.

On the DFI the extra PCI-e x16 slot is essentially redundant you cant really use it with two gfx cards it was just a way to save money on the boards so they dont have to make SLI and non SLI. They are among the best boards for overclockers if you have good enough cooling to handle them at the high clocks.
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#17
Hammm

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like you said i may get the 6800GS or something cos i heard nVidia is already testing their DX10 card and i'm sure ATI would too. MSI does seem pretty nice to me, it just didn't look as great, i'm getting the SuperLanBoy and you know, it's good to look in and see the DFI. But with the DFI, i could get the 7800GTX and when DX10 is needed, plug that in into the next socket and have 4 monitors, why i don't know but both MSI and the DFI are on the list. But maybe i'll get the 6800GS like you said, no more than 300NZD over here so it's all good. I'll think about it and let you know.

I've been looking at the K8N Neo4, i think it may be better for me now because of the four PCI slots to DFI's two. I'll only be plugging in around two PCI cards so the DFI should be ok. How many fan headers does the K8N have, doesn't say in specs. What do you think for the specs in my system, which mobo will best suite me. It is my frst build but i've done alot of research, any ideas, both boards are good

Edited by Hammm, 06 February 2006 - 05:18 PM.

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#18
warriorscot

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Doesnt quite work like that, as far as i know you cant use two gfx cards in cooperation with each with one of those boards at least not the way you are thinking.

They wont be testing the DX10 cards yet they are still in prototype stage as DX10 itself is still in its final development stages, most of DX10 is done and the major stuff is done but there is alot of little but very important bits still to do. There will be plenty prototype development boards, ATI made tonnes when they developed the 360gfx core, but they dont have anyhting final either in test run stage.
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#19
Hammm

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so how many headers does the Neo4 have, i'm still undecided, both boards are good and some have this and some have that and i can take either features. So how many fan headers does the Neo4 have. Also, is the CNPS 9500 by Zalman better than the 7700 series because the 9500 is a dedicated cooler wheres the 7700 cools the whole board, but then again i have another 2 fans and may add one more for the LanBoy

Edited by Hammm, 07 February 2006 - 09:05 PM.

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#20
Hammm

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i've been doing some more research and i guess the K8N is really suitable. but i read a lot of things on the net and at the DFI website and it says you can plug in two gfx cards with out SLI and have a four way monitor set up. Do you think two 6800GS will do as well as the 7800GTX? because i could up the mobo and get the 6800GS. if things slow down then i could get a SLI setup or ditch the 6800GS if the tech races up, you know, acellerates really fast. so i think the 6800GS is best because i can have SLI(if it's as good as a 7800GTX) or just ditch it for the 8000s
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#21
warriorscot

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Depends two 6800 GS are better than one of the 256Mb 7800s but not quite as good as one 512 but thats close. Why would you want a quad monitor set up like that it would cost you more than the computer two get 4 good monitors to use it on, you usually get a crappy PCI card for your extra monitors if you need them.
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#22
Hammm

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yer, i could hook one up to my 32in LCD and one to my monitor and stuff. i think i will get the GS, it has good chance of decent preformance in SLI form or i could ditch it when things get going with out making me cry!
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