the best least pricy SLI ready motherboard?

Question

for AMD
i'm putting at least a AMD athlon 64 x2 5200 2.6 GHz CPU

im planning to only put one videocard then upgrading later

Answer 1

Personally, I would go for the Intel Dual Core 2 Duo, but to each their own.

I would look at the nForce 590 series. You could save about $30 and go for the 570 series, but I think that you would appreciate the extra power of the 590. I have sourced two that I found at Newegg, one for $120 after rebate, and one for $85 after rebate.

Answer 2

If you already have two matching cards, fine.

But if you plan on buying two cards I would hope your getting AT LEAST two of the 8800GTS 320mb.

SLi is a wasted if you use two cards lower than top tier, as one top tier card will out perform two mid range cards.

What display are you using, as in how many pixels? That's what determines if you need SLi. A 1080p display could use two 8000 series Nvidias to produce maximum detail levels.

If you're using a standard 19-20" monitor SLi is kind of pointless, as an 8800gts 640mb will play all games at max levels at those resolutions.

Two 8800s will also require tons of power and produce tons of heat (I hope you have an aluminum case).

BTW, even the AMD FX-72/74 chokes the data flow to two 8800s. Look for a comparo of a Core 2 vs X2 on high-end SLi gaming and the X2 system loses every round to the Core 2. And new games will be even more CPU intensive.

An e4300 ($114) with a $40 copper cooler overclocked to 2.8ghz will outperform ALL AMD chips.

Not to mention that Crysis and a few other DX10 games are multi-threaded, meaning they'll take advantage of multi-cores. Intel supposedly has a $266 quad core due out this summer. Prices will fall further that, especially if AMD delivers with their new chip. Six months from now a $150 quad core would be a great upgrade from an e4300.

Answer 3

None really , if you cheap out you may get something like integrated real-tek audio, which is crap.

Answer 4

for amd or intel???