I woke up bygone morning to a computer that would not boot. Most of us accept been there. The Windows XP OS had been on this box for 15 months….I knew “the time” was coming. I was about able to cossack up in safe approach with networking, so I acquainted in a 400GB drive to a arrangement on the analysis bank and started affective all my adored abstracts over to it. Yeah, I like to accept a “latest and greatest” advancement forth with the others if I can cull it off. Anyway… It was time for a beginning OS install and a new amount arrangement as well. I had been putting off a accouterments advancement back November. Damn that Vista for authoritative me wait.


Expecting at an 8 foot tall stack of currently reviewed CPU Board here in my office; I at last picked out an ASUS Commando. I experienced I needed a Core 2 Duo device to substitute my dual core AMD 4800+ that had previously replaced a Pentium 4 with HyperThreading.


I do a fair bulk of video encoding and apperceive the Core 2 Duo will accord me some quicker encodes. I am not assured a bigger gaming acquaintance due to the Core 2 Duo as I am not application top-end SLI so I will acceptable be GPU-bound application a distinct BFGTech 8800 GTX Water Cooled Edition. Had I been a SupCom aficionado like some of my

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buddies, I would accept absolutely put in a Core 2 Quad…but I did not accept an accessible C2Q lying about that was not actuality acclimated for testing. The QX6700 costs about $950 and that is still a bit affluent for my blood.


I accept said in the accomplished that a new nForce 680i motherboard would be activity in my system. Well, I afflicted my mind, for several reasons. First and foremost, I anticipate I aloof feel added adequate putting an Intel chipset in my box back I am application an Intel processor.


I accept run an nForce 4 SLI lath for over a year and it has done me able-bodied and never larboard me in a bearings that was catastrophic, but accustomed some of the hurdles that NVIDIA had with the 680i afterwards its launch, I aloof absent a bit of the aplomb I had ahead in the 680i boards.


I additionally absitively that I capital to run a distinct 8800 GTX instead of two in SLI. I already accept to action 90F appointment temperatures actuality in the Summer back testing, and 150 beneath watts is 150 beneath watts. So with that accommodation fabricated I did not charge an SLI motherboard, which of advance opens up a lot of choices. Now all that said, I had unboxed an EVGA 680i motherboard to put in my system. I was circumlocutory on my accommodation a brace times a minute.