ATI chipset + ATI GPU _or_ nForce chipset + nVidia GPU -- Which combination performs better?

[andrew.gullans]

I'm about to lay down some money on building a gaming rig.

Which is the *best* combination?

A motherboard with an ATI-chipset with a Radeon?

A motherboard with an nForce chipset with an nVidia graphics card?

By all means, please commence discussion and provide suggestions.

 

[peter]

How about an Nforce 4Chipset with the newest ATI graphics card...the 1900??
You realize of course that most chipsets run about the same...give or take a
MHz.
So it really comes down to $$$$$$$$$$$$$..........can you afford 2 7800GTX
to run in SLI mode???
peter

 

[John Lewis]

How about an Nforce 4Chipset with the newest ATI graphics card...the 1900??
You realize of course that most chipsets run about the same...give or take a
MHz.

Not quite. Avoid one with the current ATi Southbridge SB480. Poor
USB2.0 performance; no support for 3.0GBit SATA.

John Lewis

 

[Thomas]

Not quite. Avoid one with the current ATi Southbridge SB480. Poor
USB2.0 performance; no support for 3.0GBit SATA.

Yes, this WAS the case. But now Asus has launched the A8R-MVP. It has the
Crossfire chipset, but now combined with the ULi M1575 southbridge!! Check
it out here:

http://www.asus.com/products3.aspx?l1=3&l2=15&l3=236&slname=ATI Radeon® Xpress 200 CrossFire™

This mainboard is the highest overclocker at Anandtech, check out this text:
" The most important thing that the Asus A8R-MVP brings us, however, is not
the competitive USB and SATA2 capabilities - they are just icing on the
cake. The A8R-MVP is a monster of an overclocker "

The whole article:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2617

This board has switched me over from looking just at SLI mainboards. It's
twice cheaper than the top-of-the-line SLI's, but overclocks better...
DROOL!

I'm just trying to figure out Crossfire. The first reports were that you
could combine any two PCI-Express cards, but this doesnt work, i think.

 

[RzR]

Not quite. Avoid one with the current ATi Southbridge SB480. Poor
USB2.0 performance; no support for 3.0GBit SATA.

yeah which means soooooo much in real-world usage

 

[GlassVial]

I'm about to lay down some money on building a gaming rig.

Which is the *best* combination?

A motherboard with an ATI-chipset with a Radeon?

A motherboard with an nForce chipset with an nVidia graphics card?

By all means, please commence discussion and provide suggestions.

Speaking from experience I've had compatibility issues with NForce
chipsets (both memory and drivers). I haven't worked on many ATI
chipset boards, however.

-GV

 

[Daniel]

And the built in ethernet controller on nforce 4 causes a major headache for
many! Short of exchanging motherboard I've had to use a separate pci card
for ethernet. The ethernet drivers and specifically the firewall drivers
BSOD the computer. From searching the web it seems to be a very common
problem.

Dan

 

[kony]

Speaking from experience I've had compatibility issues with NForce
chipsets (both memory and drivers). I haven't worked on many ATI
chipset boards, however.

-GV

Everyone hopes for the "perfect" trouble-free motherboard,
and it's not going to happen. One person may use board X
chipset Y fine but another won't. We can selectively bash
all the chipsets but it's easier to just recognize the
specific needs rather than think any particular board is
going to have 100% of the features perfect. The industry
moves forward way too fast to spend enough time debugging
and it's unfortunate but it also allows more rapid adoption
of newer tech and lower prices.

 

[GlassVial]

Everyone hopes for the "perfect" trouble-free motherboard,

and it's not going to happen. One person may use board X
chipset Y fine but another won't. We can selectively bash
all the chipsets but it's easier to just recognize the
specific needs rather than think any particular board is
going to have 100% of the features perfect. The industry
moves forward way too fast to spend enough time debugging
and it's unfortunate but it also allows more rapid adoption
of newer tech and lower prices.

I will say that I haven't had any issues with a VIA chipset based
board in a long, long time

-GV

 

[kony]

I will say that I haven't had any issues with a VIA chipset based
board in a long, long time

-GV

I haven't either but some people never forget.

 

[gold fingers]

Abit will be releasing their ATI RD580 chipset motherboard in Febuary /
March. Their RD480 motherboard (AT8) is an integrated graphics chipset
motherboard. The ATI RD580 chipset is a Discrete Graphics chipset. Put
that with ATI's new X1900 series GPUs (currently the fastest GPUs on
the planet). Most mainboard manufacturers are going back to providing
Discrete Graphics chipset mainboards, which will make it easier for
consumers to upgrade their graphics requirements at a reasonable cost
(which is what I read somewhere on some forum, doin't quite remember
what forum). I checked out the new X1900 series on the ATI Web Site and
contacted mainboard techs to ask them about the RD580 chipset
mainboards. The ATI RD580 chipset with an X1900 series GPU will be the
fastest combination on the planet!!!