Gamers Mobo

[Enzo]

I'm fairly new here but I'm going to build a computer I believe very soon. I was wondering what some of the highend Gamer Motherboards are.
Also can anyone answer me on what are the key components of a computer to running a game really well? Thank you for your time.

[Zephik]

Running a game really well? A good graphics card usually does the trick.

Well, a good processor, good ram, and the least important is a good hard drive. If it is online gaming, dual lan is supposed to be great for that as I understand it.

Processor: Conroe (Core 2 Duo)
RAM: DDR2 800 (or higher)
HDD: 7200RPM (or higher)

Everything else depends on your price range really. But I would say that those are the basics for a good gaming rig. Are you looking to buy or looking for knowledge?

-SnowFire

[Ronyx]

Gaming rig eh? High end eh? It seems like you've come knocking on my door =]

Like Snow said, it's basically all in the video card, processor and RAM.
CPU: Core 2 Duo
RAM: Corsair TWINX series
GFX: nVIDIA cards

I'm going with the seagate 7200.10 320gig HDD =]

Oh and if you want a high end mobo. Go with either the Asus Striker Extreme or the Asus P5N32 SLI Se Deluxe. Those are the two top motherboards for the core 2 duo CPU's. I was gonna go with the P5N32 SLI Se Deluxe, but then the Striker was announced. Now i'm waiting til Jan 12th.

[Cevinzol]

If the game you play does a lot of zone loading then a fast HDD is good.

this 32G flash drive from samsung looks like fun to me. Its not big but its wicked fast and stable as hell.

[Ronyx]

if you really want performance. go with the Gigabyte iRam. But you need a lot of ram and a lot of money lolz. Way too expensive for now... It acts lika a HDD on your RAM =P I think it's like around 130mb/s constant speed.

[AKA_RA]

If the game you play does a lot of zone loading then a fast HDD is good.

this 32G flash drive from samsung looks like fun to me. Its not big but its wicked fast and stable as hell.

now that is something i gotta have. imagine a nice raid array built out of those things. who would have guessed ATA66 could kick so much ass

as for motherboard, you have a lot of options. anything high end from ASUS, Abit, MSI, DFI, or the likes will serve you well. all of them vary so little in performance, it really just comes down to price and features. I'm an AMD kinda guy myself, but Intel's Core 2 Duo seem to be the way to go right now.

I suggest, for gaming, a Core 2 Duo, good brand name motherboard, at least 1gig of decent ram(preferably low latency), and for an intel systen, any of nVidias 7series card(8800 is you want bragging rights)

i dont see a reason to get SLI unless youve got money to burn. youre better off running one powerful high end card as opposed to 2 mid range cards in SLI. this also leaves the door open for a nice upgrade later on, since its easier to buy one matching card and run the 2 in SLI instead of replacing 2 aged cards

[Ronyx]

any of nVidias 7series card(8800 is you want bragging rights)

i love bragging rights. me and DaJe might be the first ones on these forums to get them ..... sweet

[bartvandenberg]

if you really want performance. go with the Gigabyte iRam. But you need a lot of ram and a lot of money lolz. Way too expensive for now... It acts lika a HDD on your RAM =P I think it's like around 130mb/s constant speed.

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...cture=Gigabyte

lookin at like 150 bucks for the iram module, and then you will prob want at least a good 2 gigs of ram on it, so.. another few hundred bucks.

but its like twice the speed of a raptor.

NOTE: when buyin ram, low latency ram is good, but.. not worth the money. benchmark my ram (kingston valueram 2.5-3-3-7)against some corsair low latency stuff, (2-2-2-6) and you'd be lucky to get a 1 or 2% increase in framerates.

but.. like others said. its mostly video card. all motherboards are relatively the same, even when they are sold as "gaming motherboards". its most often a sales pitch. But, you need to look at chipsets, because thats what sets a good board apart from garbage. if you're building am2, stick to a nforce 570 or 590 chipset.

you buy a motherboard for options and quality. if i could make one suggestion, stay far away from a motherboard with chipset fans. stick to the new heatpipe designs. those fans are notorious for being annoyingly loud.

when lookin into buyin a gamer comp, you essentially have to look at this.
15% CPU
35% Ram
50% GPU

[Ronyx]

i'm getting 4-4-4-12 latency RAM and i KNOW that it's gonna be good even tho people say to get around 3-3-3-8. Latency doesn't influence all that much but it doesn't mean you should disregard it. It's more of a guide for getting good RAM.

[Silenced_Coyote]

You have to look at latency in respect to frequency. Here is a nice page that I found that explains what I'm saying. Just stick with DDR2-800 with a CAS latency of 4. Go with 5 if you want to save a bit more money.

Don't forget to get a really good monitor to display all the eye candy. I'm getting the Dell 2007WFP (20" widescreen). It is a pretty good monitor and it is at price I am willing to pay.

... GeForce 8800 GTX cards in SLI with a quad-core Intel QX6700 at the helm are only going to look as good as the screen that is displaying their output.

For a motherboard, I would go with a nForce 690i chipset on it since Core 2 Duo is hot right now. Depending on your budget, you could go with the 650i chipset.

What is your budget anyways?