Which Motherboard?

[telstar1]

I'm trying to decide which motherboard I should go with to complete my components for my next build. I'm not a HUGE gamer, but do play games from time to time. That said, I'm not going to worry too much if my game is a few FPS slower than my competition. I bought the Q9450 because I did want to take advantage of its multiple cores for video processing, and other CPU-intensive tasks.

What IS important to me is that I will eventually be adding a 30" LCD to my system. At that point, I'm planning on having a 30" LCD as my primary monitor ... with 19" LCDs on either side ... so the ability to have more than one video card is a requirement.

I believe this leaves me in either the 780i, X38 or X48 camp. The four boards I've been considering are the EVGA 780i, or the Asus Striker II Formula, the Asus Rampage Formula, or the Asus P5E3 Deluxe. Running in SLI isn't as important to me as having 2 cards to be able to run 3 LCDs (including the eventual 30").

Any suggestions? Thanks very much.

 

[nman729]

how much money do you have?

first of all, you cant have sli or corss fire with more than one screen i think. dont quote me on that. do you want to overclock the q9450? if so, get the rampage formula. if your not interested in overclocking then get the sli board, you choose good gpu or good overclocking.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

crossfire allows you to have multiple monitors, alternatively you could use multiple Nvidia OR multiple ATi cards to drive different monitors. So technically you could add another 8800GT and disable SLi or whatever on a 750i chipset to make it work.

 

[telstar1]

Sounds like the Rampage Formula is the better choice. I was thinking about going with the 780i since it'd provide the multiple video card slots ... but it seems like it's a board more geared towards gaming than what I need.

I may tinker around with overclocking the Q9450, but it's not a top priority. And since I'm not gaming much, the multi-monitors wouldn't be used for gaming. I'd just like the screen-space for when I do video editing, or work on photos. How is the Rampage Formula as an overclocker? It's a pricey board, but if it's the best for my situation, I'm willing to pay for it.

 

[telstar1]

Originally posted by: BlueAcolyte
crossfire allows you to have multiple monitors, alternatively you could use multiple Nvidia OR multiple ATi cards to drive different monitors. So technically you could add another 8800GT and disable SLi or whatever on a 750i chipset to make it work.

That's kinda what I was thinking. Use the multiple slots, but ignore the SLI capabilities. Not sure if it's worth doing though since I can just get another multi-PCI-X board instead.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Yea, if you want something more affordable, something like a P35 chipset with Q9450 support or a cheap X38/750i board would work.

 

[happy medium]

I like the 750i here. 164.00$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813130159