Intel 45nm SLI motherboards and me

Judge Joe Brown

So, I've gotten myself a couple EVGA 8800GT graphics cards, and a Q6600 processor. I've got a good upgrade option to a new 45nm intel quad core in a few months, likely one or two steps below the best available at that time.

So I'm looking at picking up an lga775 SLI-ready motherboard. I've got ddr2-1066 ram ready to go, and I'm looking for suggestions. Right now I'm looking at the Asus Striker II platform, which is 780i, supposedly a pretty good platform if I'm going with one of the new quad cores which may be up to 120w TDP.

It absolutely must support the newer quad cores. Tri-SLI is ridiculous and not necessary, but if it's there, whatever (like the Striker II).

I'm not loaded, so price is an issue. Nothing over $300... less would be awesome.

Overclocking is a big plus, looking to get about a 25% oc on the new quad (got my Q6600 at 3.0).

My ram is OCZ Reaper HPC ddr2-8500 (1066mhz) at 5-5-5-15 at stock 2.1 voltage.

Last but not least, I have a Coolermaster Mars CPU heatsink, which is quite large... so if the board has a shit-ton of heatsinks around the processor, it might be an issue. But that's the least of my concerns.

The computer place ordering the board for me can price match any of the major Canadian retailers, so anything on NCIX, Canada Computers, or Tiger Direct is great. Newegg, not so much.

Thanks in advance, I welcome any and all suggestions!

Judge Joe Brown

I'm mostly worried about compatibility with the newer quad cores. I'd love any tips anyone might have regarding what I should be looking for, or careful about, regarding compatibility. I know that some of the best quads are on strange socket types (LOGA-775? E4500? weird). But the power requirements are what worry me. It would be brutal to install the board, then find out it doesn't support the 120+ watt quads I might be upgrading to.

Scrublet

As I understand it, all of the intel core 2 duos (quad and dual core) run off the LGA-775 socket. I'm not aware of those specialized sockets you mentioned. Someone correct me on this if I'm wrong.

wunderbar

all intel chips run off of LGA-775, you just have to make sure you but a motherboard with a chipset that will support the processor you will want. Honestly, I would just wait until you are getting the new processor, and buy the processor and mobo at the same time.

also, it's likely that nahalem will support DDR3 only, so you'll have to throw your DDR 2 ram out if you want it. So really, just wait, and buy everything you need at the same time.