Still looking for the best Mainboard & CPU.

[Spongebob]

I got busy and never ordered the rest of the parts for my new system that I wanted to build late last year, but now the time has finally come very close to do it.
Whats the current best mainboard and CPU to get? I'm thinking about spending between $150 to $250(US) for the mainboard and around $250 to $400(US) for the CPU.
This system will be used for video games and general purposes, it will be replacing my current main system that has a 3ghz P4 CPU at stock thats overclocked 15% and I'm using one of the 2 BFG GeForce 7800GT video cards that will be going into the new system for SLI. I want something that will run circles around what I already have. I'm also considering water cooling the CPU but I'm not going to spend much over $200 to do it and perferably less. I'm new to water cooling so I don't know what to use or even what the price ranges are.

[casecutter]

Re: Still looking for the best Mainboard & CPU.

Personally, I would get the MSI Diamond Plus motherboard, especially for SLI. It is a wonderful option packed board and even allows high Vdimm up to 4V. Plus as an added bonus, it has onboard SoundBlaster Audigy. As for the CPU, I would get a 4200+ X2. For me, I like the higher divider of 11X for low HTT overclocking. You could get an 3800+ X2 and most likely overclock as far, but I still would get the 4200+ if it was my money. A system based on those two components and 7800GT SLI would destroy your current hardware in a big way.

[Spongebob]

Re: Still looking for the best Mainboard & CPU.

Thanks, looks like a great board. Sounds like space might be a concern when I SLI and maybe water cool from reading the reviews, maybe nothing to worry about but its possible that heat could become an issue if things are really close together. I don't really use PCI slots anymore anyway, so that doesn't discourage me much. The onboard quality sound does appeal to me a little though.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130037

[casecutter]

Re: Still looking for the best Mainboard & CPU.

That board has better spacing than most boards since it runs 2 slots between the video cards instead of one like most. It is a very tight squeeze on this DFI board. The reviews on Newegg seem to concentrate on the lack of space for PCI cards, not the video cards. If you are not running any PCI cards, you will have tons of room. Plus the chipset cooling is far superior to the previous generation nF4 boards. I plan on getting this board this summer myself.

[matm347]

Re: Still looking for the best Mainboard & CPU.

That MSI is a nice board, but also check out the Asus A832-SLI, it costs about the same, has similar heat pipe cooling, similar PCIe spacing, but has full bandwidth slots when running SLI. It also has 8 phase regulators, which will give cleaner/more stable voltage which will yield better overclocks. The tweakability is insane as well. The downside is that it does not have the Audigy sound.
Corsair just released a watercooling kit, their Nautilus 500 has some decent specs and kept an overclocked 4000+ under 50C at full load. Not bad for a complete kit for ~$150.

[Spongebob]

Re: Still looking for the best Mainboard & CPU.

That MSI is a nice board, but also check out the Asus A832-SLI, it costs about the same, has similar heat pipe cooling, similar PCIe spacing, but has full bandwidth slots when running SLI. It also has 8 phase regulators, which will give cleaner/more stable voltage which will yield better overclocks. The tweakability is insane as well. The downside is that it does not have the Audigy sound.
Corsair just released a watercooling kit, their Nautilus 500 has some decent specs and kept an overclocked 4000+ under 50C at full load. Not bad for a complete kit for ~$150.

I'll keep an eye on that board, looks like maybe a better option for me. The quality sound would be nice but its not necessary since I can always buy a quality sound card as a future upgrade if I feel the need.

Thanks for the heads up on the new water cooling system. I think I'll wait to get my system when this unit becomes available, atleast I haven't found anywhere that sells it as of now, but it sounds like it'll be available soon enough for me. http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4751 Looks very clean & simple to install.