To SLI, or not to SLI, that is the question my dear Ophelia.

[spudmurf2k]

Hi all,

I'm moving out for college and have to leave the oul rig at home for the folks, and so I'm putting together a new one. However, I'm in a touch of a quagmire as to which m*board to pick.

I've decided to go with a socket 939 Athlon64 (Opterons are too expensive - so that rules out dual processors ). I see on every top mobo the SLI link that will join two graphics cards by the hip as one almighty beast. However, I don't think I'll be needing such power, as I rarely have enough time for games. What I do want however is good SATA RAID and excellent performance. I'm willing to get an SLI board if it means I'm getting a good board altogether. So the question is, are there any excellent boards out there without SLI, or is it now being built in and I just have to go with the flow?

I've been looking at the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe (is the A8N-SLI Premium better or worse?), ABIT Fatal1ty AN8 SLI and MSI K8N Diamond. Any help, opinions or bashing for not playing games much appreciated.

[jfk]

Try the ASUS A8N-E. It's the non-SLI version of the ASUS board. It has gotten excellent reviews on this site and several others. FWIW.

Joe

[ror_b211]

I've been looking at the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe (is the A8N-SLI Premium better or worse?)

They're virtually the same, theres very little difference.

Also the Abit Fatal1ty is designed almost specifically for overclocking (as are a lot of Abit boards), so if you're not planning to OC, its best to go with Asus.

[kram 2.0]

The Asus A8N-E is a viable option. Whenever possible, do not go SLi - expensive, power-hungry, and the graphics power can only be wielded in certain games.

I've decided to go with a socket 939 Athlon64 (Opterons are too expensive - so that rules out dual processors ).

AMD's dual core processors are AMD Athlon 64 X2 - not Opterons.

kram

[ror_b211]

AMD's dual core processors are AMD Athlon 64 X2 - not Opterons.

He said dual processors, not dual core. A dual opteron system used to be the best gaming setup there was for a short time, until Athlon FX's and higher speed P4 EE's came along.

[spyder003]

Originally Posted by kram8806 and the graphics power can only be wielded in certain games.

Not entirely true. SLi can be run in any game. It's just a matter of whether or not there is an application profile created for it. If nVidia doesn't have one created for it, or you don't like the default rendering mode, you can write your own.

Here is how, in a link originally posted by ric449:

http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzExLDM=

[Force Flow]

Nope, now there's an included interface where you can force SLI rendering on a game, so you don't have to rely entirely on the profiles. You may have to play with it, for not all methods work on all games.

[David M]

Interesting...I play my old games with SLI and they play one hell of a lot faster than my previous non-SLI card. I find it hard to believe that software has to be written specifically for SLI for SLI to work on older games. The green bar that shows the load balance between the two cards indicates the load is balanced equally between the two cards.

[kevinf]

i would just get the a8n-sli premium even if you're not going with sli, i say that because it has firewire ports and most importantly the heat pipe cooler. but thats what i would do though

[spudmurf2k]

Hi guys, I've decided to go with the A8N-SLI premium, its got the 8 SATA channels on 2 RAID controllers, plus the f/wire and 2x t1000 ethernet. I'll be posting the full specs soon to make sure it'll all work in harmony. am thinking about 64-bit winxp pro? should I be thinking that or is it still a version 1.0.0 (ie, stay away from me, im full of bugs!)?

[ror_b211]

64-Bit XP is apparently full of bugs, I would wait until it's service packed or even until Windows Vista for 64-bit.

[allburnintegrated]

And theres hardly any 64-bit driver support for WinXP 64 currently