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MOBO for college student/ gamer first build

Forum Motherboard & Memory : Asus - MOBO for college student/ gamer first build

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pen360guin   12-23-2007 at 08:07:05 AM

Hey i really need help choosing a new motherboard. I have a friend who pushed me ASUS so thats primarily what I have been looking at. For on one my problem is i i cant pick between Intel and AMD i hear AMD is good but their not doing so well fiscally. Here are the main things I am looking for in a motherboard.

The case will hold ATX or extended ATX. its the cooler master cosmos case.

64 bit cable(i heard i should look into it. should it matter?)
6 x Serial ATA
SLI or would Crossfire be better.
at least 4g of ram
I dont know if wanting to put in an HD dvd or blu ray drive will affect anything
The case will fit 7 PCI cards and i would like no less than 7

I am currently a student in college and im into gaming. I plan on using a vizio 32 inch LCD tv as the monitor as well so i dont have to go buy a new one. I would prefer not to spend over $300 which seems to be the range of most.

By the way this will be the first computer i will build

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Noya   12-23-2007 at 10:05:41 AM
- 0 +

Answer these questions first.

1. What is your budget for the whole PC?

2. What is this PC going to honestly be used for? (gaming, pRon, video edit, etc.)

Reply to Noya
pen360guin   12-23-2007 at 07:44:08 PM
- 0 +

1.) I would liek to keep the rest of the PC punder $1000 I bought a WD 1TB HDD for it already. I can go over this budget if it needs to.

Im looking at Cooler Master 1000w power supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817171022


2.) Im a CS major and i would like to go into designing programs probably working for a company though not too much on my own PC. I would love to get into designing websites which would be using Flash.
I also want to use it for gaming. I plan also using this to back up my dvds and other media on. I would like it to be able to fully use HD. Also a concern of mine is if its practical to hook it up to the TV i mentioned before. I doesnt have a DVI slot but it does have an HDMI and supports 1080p.

Reply to pen360guin
pen360guin   12-24-2007 at 10:13:54 AM
- 0 +

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131013

would that be a bad board? someone mentioned checking out the new NVIDIA 780 boards because they support 3GPUS but i wonder if thats not excess. Also that board doesnt have an eSATA port.

Reply to pen360guin
amberion2dp   12-24-2007 at 02:26:11 PM
- 0 +

1000w is extreme overkill unless you wanna do triple SLI, which you won't be able to manage with a 1k budget. 550-600w should be sufficient for your budget.

Reply to amberion2dp
pen360guin   12-24-2007 at 08:09:42 PM
- 0 +

Tne budget is for right now just to put it together as time goes on i plain on adding more 1tb harddrive as they fill. I will bebacking up my dvd collection on this box. would that still be too much power? The drives are WD's greendrives and im trying to be as low power as i can but i wanted to makes sure I have enough power for the future. Triple SLI is only on the new NVidia boards right?

Reply to pen360guin
chuckm   12-26-2007 at 01:23:31 AM
- 0 +

You will get more "bang for your buck" by staying away from the boards that do SLI. I would stick with a P35 motherboard and a 8800GT gpu. This power supply should be all you need;

http://www.buy.com/prod/corsair-52 [...] 70716.html


Message edited by chuckm on 12-26-2007 at 01:24:29 AM
Reply to chuckm
cisco   04-23-2008 at 12:11:06 AM
- 0 +

Corsair is a decent power supply but it's not in the same league as PC Power & Cooling. This model is one of the best for the money. Even Maximum PC used it in their $1,500 build a month ago or so. A single 12v rail is better than multiple 12v rails.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817703005


Message edited by cisco on 04-23-2008 at 12:12:00 AM
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