DarkGriffon

Good luck then, starkey. I hope you get what you want, and welcome to the world of high-performance computer building. :smartass:

I mean features, aspects of the MB that you find useful/interesting. Things like SATA 3 support, multiple x16 slots if you want to try SLI+, non-OC support for different RAM speeds, etc. I'm not saying that you HAVE to go with these things, only that as you research there WILL be things that interest you more than others. OCing is only necessary if you want it to be, regardless of the CPU brand you have. BTW, I suck at it too. Too many variables to take into account. :huh:

Pyroflash, if I may ask, what do you think of your X-65f?

Look for reviews AND testimonials and try to balance both. In my experience you can't completly depend on either. Look for longevity perks like Japanese solid polymer caps and multi-phase power. It's always good to have an established, well-used chipset as well, like the X58, but you have to be willing to accept that you may not be getting the latest-and-greatest with this approach. As for price, it's up to you. I haven't spent less than $300 for a MB in a long time, but I haven't had any problems in a long time either. They always survive to be given/sold to friends. Bells-and-whistles are important too. Try to get what you want to avoid feeling rooked later. :thumbup: The last 4 MB's I've owned were ASUS.

Counting crash landings would be wrong, especially taking into account how often I've been sucking dirt. I'm glad you're stable, Villain. :thumbup:

You ARE the minority, at least in this thread. Don't feel bad about it, though. As long as A-10c is running right for you it's all good. Win7U 64bit here.

Sorry, I don't get your meaning here.

IMO, save up. If you buy smart, and don't cheap lick, you can put yourself in a position where you can upgrade FRU's over the medium haul and not have to buy and entirely new rig very often.

There are very few games that require more than 512m of frame buffer ATM. For me, I'll move to some new generation of cards a good while before anything approaching 3gb of VRAM is actually needed for how I run. If saving a bit of cash is important, and I well realize that this isn't true for everyone, GTX 480 SLI is an immense amount of rendering power with a small degree of complication. Disclaimer: You need a strong, modern PSU to run these babies comfortably. :thumbup:

Same MB as you Erich and running two GTX 480's. Performace so far is slick as snot on a doorknob at 1920x1080.

Agree with the OP. This is the first sim I've owned in ages. Quality just drips off of it. :smilewink: