Ok, so i recently bought a core 2 quad q6700 and two 9800gtx+'s, only to find that my mobo does not support the new processor and the PCIE slots (marketed as x16) are actually x8, so now im in the market for a new mobo, i was considering the nvidia 790i, but i need to know if it supports DDR2 RAM, does anybody know? and any suggestions for a mobo other than the 790i?
Thanks
It looks like it takes DDR3 memory. The specifications aren't very clear on that, but I dug around in the knowledge base and that's what I came up with. I think that it kinda makes sense for a top-end board to use the latest generation of memory technology.
Thanks Marvin i was afraid of that, does anybody know a board that supports both ddr2 and ddr3 and a q6700? ddr3 seems to have very little performance gain for the price and after buying two new graphics cards and a new processor i dont want to spend more money unless it is necessary
doesn't do ddr3 but works for everything else and the price is reasonable
LINK
You want the 780i if you're going to use DDR2.
on the flip side,
I think I would seriously consider the 790 AND the RAM upgrade.
things to consider - what OS are your running? Are you on 64bit or planning to go 64bit? If not you should seriously consider it.
DDR2 could become a bottleneck for that CPU and SLI'd 9800's
you can get decent 3 or 6G kits of DDR3 for $100-200, but in order to ultilize 6G you'll need to be on a 64bit OS.
A 64 bit OS is something i have been considering, but ive been dreading hunting down all the 64 bit drivers if i make the upgrade. Im stuck with the motherboard descision because a 790i with 2 gigs of ddr3 RAM is about $250 and a 780i with my current RAM is about $160, but if i go with the 780i in a year when i want ddr3 i'll need to uprgrade again. I heard that the intel x48 supports both ddr2 and ddr3, but the nvidia board seems to have better feautures for what i will be doing with it, any thoughts on the x48 over the 790i?
ok, i've decided to stop procrastinating an get the 790i with 2 gigs of ddr3 1333 from super talent.
Should i get the Asus striker II 790i? or the EVGA 790i? the asus one is about $20 more expensive and they seem identical other than the price
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-STKR2-N
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-YWE180A
If you're VISTA, I think a motherboard change means you need to buy an OS again.
no vista, im still rocking xp haha
why would you need to buy vista again due to a mobo change? i've swapped mobo's numerous times and have never had to buy vista again.
The worst thing that can happen with Vista and a mobo change is the activation will pop up. If it does, you just need to call and explain you got a new mobo. I had to do it once, and it took less than 10 minutes.
forget ASUS....ASUS is not doing to well the last few years they are no longer the top dog. it got so bad at one point a couple years ago that they almost merged with Gigabyte, lots of details but one of which that killed the deal was Gigabyte demanded 51% to take controlling interest, which would have meant Gigabyte called the shots.
the Striker II is not getting very good reviews, check some here also though there are not a lot of review on that page, look at the percentages of each egg rating, also look around newegg at other ASUS board reviews, you will find that most of them are only pulling 3 maybe 4 eggs (stars).
I was actually going to suggest Gigabyte but it looks like they don't have a 790i board, after the 600 series they moved on to intel chipsets.
so with that I would suggest the EVGA board. by comparison here are the reviews on it MUCH better. 75% 5 eggs vs 43% on the Striker II. and by the same token if you look around your will find that EVGA,Gigabyte and a few others are pulling mostly 4 and 5 stars.
make sure the RAM you get is Dual Channel as that is what the board supports, some DDR3 boards are triple channel and you have to run a minimum of 3 sticks hence the 3 or 6G kits.
you also may want to consider bumping the RAM to 4G, I know you don't need it now and won't use it all on XP, but consider if you are planning on moving to a 64bit OS. at that point you will want it. you can always add 2 more sticks to go up, but the price diff between 2x1G stick and 2x2G is not much and will save you in the long run moving to 4G. the other reason I suggest 2x2G is that the more sticks you run the harder is it to keep them stable, alot of RAM or Mainboards become unstable when running all dimm slots full, especially if you try to overclock the RAM.
might I suggest this OCZ Reaper DDR3 CAS 6 for your RAM. I'm running 3 sets of the DDR2 800 version in 3 differenet machines and love it. 2 sets are CAS 4 and my set is CAS 3. I also like Corsair and Mushkin RAM.
Yeah, those reviews for the ASUS board arent very good... but i am buying these off of superbiiz.com and it says the ASUS board includes a lot of stuff, and for the EVGA board, that section is missing, soooo im not sure if the evga board has these or not
P.S. i dont not care that the ASUS board comes with all the cables, and optional fans and stuff, i have plenty of those, but it comes with a user's manual, which i may need for installation (never replaced a motherboard before)
Is this RAM dual channel? i cant find the specs on that
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=W1333UX2GM
it should be, I cannot find the specs on it either, can't even find the part # on Super Talents site (probably a discontiued model) however the fact that it is a 2x1G kit means it should be dual channel, triple channel is sold in kits of 3 sticks
on the mainboard/manual thing....do not worry about a manual, the EVGA board WILL have one, maybe just not pictured or listed on the website you looked at. It will come with everything you need. such as here is the contents of a slightly different version of the board you looked at.
you are looking at the EVGA 132-YW-E180-A1, the contents I linked come with the 132-YW-E179-TR. both EVGA boards probably come with the same extras.
The ASUS board has the extra fans and LCD poster. I WOULD NOT allow this to make your decision.you already said you don't need the fans, and the LCD poster is nothing more than a digital display of BIOS POST processes and warnings, such as when you here a single beep during boot, that basically means PowerOnSelfTest (POST) is good. there are other codes that mean various things like DRAM error ect... this LCD poster is a digital display of these codes.
As I said before ASUS boards have been hit or miss the last few yrs, you got about a 50/50 chance of getting a flawless board vs a DOA/faulty board. The last ASUS board I saw personally was one a friend bought, he had to RMA the board 2 times before he actually got a good board, and it was NOT user error, he has been building computers for 15 years, the last ASUS board I had died after 18 months, Personally I will not buy ASUS products again unless/until I see better quality and reviews.
and finally, unless your an EXTREME overclocker you are NOT going to use the ability of the ASUS Striker. it costs more partly because it has more overclocking features in the BIOS. most of which will also be available on the EVGA board as they are determined by the chipset and what the manufacturer chooses to enable the end user access to in the BIOS.
my personal choice for mainboards are Gigabyte, EVGA, MSI, and Abit.
Thanks blackcurtain, i've decided to go with the EVGA board and a slightly different version of the ram (with a heatsink instead of without) and i have experimented with overclocking, but im sure that for the games i run, supcom, sins, bioshock, mass effect, which all run fairly well on my system now, i won't need to overclock that much. Mobos and RAM is precisely where my knowledge of computers stops, everything else i've replaced and upgraded, thanks for the help
+2
This is for CaptainAnderson!!
I Agree with blackcurtain about the striker I owned one!
Which smoked shortly, the LCD poster fried first I returned it and went with Evga from their 680i!
The Evga 780i is in my rig now running my QX9650 Extreme nicely!.
Stable at 4.0 GHZ FSB 1600 OCZ RAM nothing nancy, it does the business thats all I care about! .
If you value" Customer service & Tech support" as well as, a great upgrade program, check em out, I have no connection with Evga other than I use their hardware!
Good luck CaptainAnderson!
granted, the striker has not been a huge success for asus but don't slam the company due to one bad board. gigabyte, dfi, evga, and others have all manufactured a lemon or two in the day, as has asus. i've used nothing but asus and dfi boards for the past few years. out of 8 or 9 asus boards thru the years, i've had issues with one and it was replaced very quickly by asus. the dfi lanparty boards were great, too. frank wong of dfi was great to talkk to concerning overclocking, also. frank knows those dfi boards inside and out! the only gigabyte board i've owned was a hassle from day one. the replacement they sent me was screwed up, too. i found their customer service to be lacking, also. i put them right down there with epox customer service. it's too bad epox and abit are gone. they both made some quality units. actually, that can be said about almost any mobo manufacturer. they all have quality units and they've all made a few lemons.
Asus has been having issues, it's not just the striker. They've got a lot of under performing, over priced stuff these last few years, with a bad record of burn outs on the video cards. I've got an Asus mobo myself, but it's one of the last really nice ones they've put out.
it's definately NOT about one board. it IS about ASUS having problems for the last few years. it is truely hit or miss as to whether you get a good or faulty board. QC is in the shitter!!!!!!!!!
it is about the FACT that of the last 6 ASUS boards that myself or a friend owned 2-5yrs ago died prematurely (6-18 months) or as I said in a prior post 1 board was RMA'd TWICE, yes 2 times, a third board delivered before he atually got a working board. it was from the M2N32 series a couple yrs ago. I've had 2 - k8 series boards take a dumb with 18 months of purchase between 3 and 5 yrs ago.
I am happy for you that you have had good luck with ASUS boards, seriously I am, at least someone is getting what they paid for.
I swore by ASUS in the early 2000's and would by nothing but. however my own experience as well as seeing THOUSANDS of reviews on line with ASUS boards overall getting an average 3 star rating from those who buy them...no thanks, you can do your part to keep ASUS afloat if you wish, I will not and as such my consience will not allow me to recommend them to others.
do you realize that ASUS was about a hairs width close to being under the control of Gigabyte 2 years ago??? ASUS was struggling for a while, Gigabyte was looking to expand, and the 2 were talking about a merger and were about ready to sign, one of the big deal killers...Gigabyte knew the condition of ASUS and its recent quality and demanded 51% of the company, which means GB would be the controlling interest, basically ASUS denied the merger in the end because they knew Gigabyte would not allow them to continue to operate the way they had been. ASUS was not willing to give up controlling interest and its going to bite them in the but if they don't change things.
out of curiosity...when was the last time you had a Gigabyte board? years ago they were kind of the bottom of the barrel, the last 5 yrs they have stepped it up. I have owned or used in build for others 5 Gigabyte boards in the last 2 or 3 yrs (since the 570 chipset) with no problems.
ok, got the board and RAM, put it in, everything seems fine, except on startup during POST, i get an Floppy Disks Failed error, it seems to run fine if i tell it to continue past this error, but does anyone know what it means? and my q6700 seems to be running fairly hot, even for a quad (67 degrees c on idle) with my arctic cooling freezer 7 pro, any ideas?
well, guys, i'm sorry you've had such horrible luck with asus boards. i don't know what to tell you about your poor fortunes. all i can say is asus boards go in 75 to 80 percent of the rigs i build for clients and i can think of only 2 that have been sent back for replacement. granted, i only build 2 or 3 rigs a week since i do not own a store-front business but 2 to 3 per week on average for the past 6 years isn't bad for a town of 13,000. the remaining rigs use either gigabyte, asrock, and on rare occasions dfi. i've sent maybe 5 gigabyte boards back. based on my experience, i highly recommend asus boards. i dont' claim to know everything about building rigs or the products that go into them but i do use a lot of them. heck, i've been known to ask yrag for help on occasion.
but, this basically boils down to personal preference. i like asus and others don't. i don't have a problem with that. the way i look at it, if you like the components in your rig, you're happy with them, and they perform as they should, everything is fine and dandy. right? anyway, have a great day, everyone.
captain, i hope whatever you buy or have bought works well and you're happy with your decison.
captain, do you have a floppy drive installed? if not, go into the bios and disable the floppy controller.
Ok, everything is ironed out now, except for one thing and its picky. In the BIOS the option to set FSB and RAM frequency is blanked out, my RAM is listed as "overclocker's RAM" on the website and it seems odd that i can adjust the CPU multiplier, but not set the FSB. But It's a small thing since everything runs fine on normal settings
I had this with my Asus Commando board once, just needed a bios reset (clear cmos). That is ofc if you have all the settings on manual not auto OC... check that first.
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