[Daniel Taylor]

Hey Guys,

For the first time since Christmas I have a question involving a future build that is actually for ME for once. I have been set upon switching to Intel for months now, more specifically the Core 2 Duo E8400. Now I was originally looking at Gigabyte for one but then I looked in to the future and "Upgradeability". What I realised is that my current 9800GTX+ is SLI compatible. My card although at the moment will take more demanding games like Crysis maxed-out , but, what about GTA IV(plays ~Medium) or the real big question, What about the future release, Crysis 2. I wont be able to afford a high end single card without saving up for long enough for me to have lost patience and played it on low. So I thought longer and saw a Second 9800GTX+ being a viable option. But here's the thing; iv heard and experienced 1st hand that Nvidia Chipsets aren't the best(by that I mean their awfull drivers make them quite unstable compared to others). The P5N-D is based upon the 750i northbridge this supports 2 Graphics cards in SLI at full PCI-E 2.0 x16 speed. But there are a loss of features such as less SATA ports and less Rear USB's. also from what iv heard the reliability and overclockability are questionable. The P5Q on the other hand is based on Intel's P45 Northbridge, i have never heard a single bad comment on these chipsets, besides the lack of SLI, and although it has room for 1 graphics card it has higher Reliability and More headroom for overclocking, it also has a higher quality power circuit for the CPU, RAM and Chipsets.

Now What I would like to ask is; What Should I Go For? Is The Performance From The P45 Noticeable? Is The Overclockability That much Different? and just how much more relyable and cooler do the intel chipsets run?


Regards , Sorry For The Essay

Daniel Taylor