Is this a good gaming mobo?

[Big Mountain]

Is this a good gaming mobo?
EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

[Hyperion]

I have a 680i motherboard and it works very well, The BFI version.

You have room for two PCI-E cards, 4 DDR2 memory slots. Its a solid board with good overclocking tools, not sure I like the ones you use from windows, they work by increasing the clockspeed till the PC crashes and then dropping back a bit....

If you have extra cash you may want to look at the 780 boards with 3 PCI-E slots for overkill, or if you only want one the 650i boards should suffice.

[LiL T]

I have one and it works great (EVGA version), be sure if you are installing a new system, you have a floppy drive, if its going to be an winxp system. You need to install the hardisk controlers from a floppy at winxp setup, by pressing F6 to install third party Raid devices what ever its called... Failing to do this causes windows setup to fail. You probably already know this
but worth a meantion, it can't be a usb floppy drive cos winxp is gay like that :rolleyes:

[Hyperion]

I have one and it works great (EVGA version), be sure if you are installing a new system, you have a floppy drive, if its going to be an winxp system. You need to install the hardisk controlers from a floppy at winxp setup, by pressing F6 to install third party Raid devices what ever its called... Failing to do this causes windows setup to fail. You probably already know this
but worth a meantion, it can't be a usb floppy drive cos winxp is gay like that :rolleyes:

Ah, if its XP, with or without the service pack you only need drivers from a floppy if you are installing on to a raid array.
If you are not using raid, it isnt a problem and installs smooth. Just make sure you install on the primary hard drive, the one booting from. For some reason windows doesnt like installing on to a Sata drive that isnt the primary one to boot from. Dont ask how I found that out.

Raid is not worth the hassle, it really isnt.

[LiL T]

Ah, if its XP, with or without the service pack you only need drivers from a floppy if you are installing on to a raid array.
If you are not using raid, it isnt a problem and installs smooth. Just make sure you install on the primary hard drive, the one booting from. For some reason windows doesnt like installing on to a Sata drive that isnt the primary one to boot from. Dont ask how I found that out.

Raid is not worth the hassle, it really isnt.

I'm not setup on a raid but I still need them drivers to make winxp setup understand how to use my mobo and Sata disk, yes its the primary disk and no i don't have any other hard disks.

I think your wrong about raid is not worth the hassle, my understanding is its very easy to setup and the performance gains are well worth it. The only down side is, if one of the drives in the array fails you will lose everything.

[Hyperion]

Depends how your using raid.
However I installed XP SP 2 on a sata drive and Vista on a sata drive without requiring drivers.

Seeing as Raid can have multiple configurations it really depends what you are doing.
If its striping, using two hard drives as one, so you get data from one then the other, to speed up data transfer, then the actual speed benefits over say a Raptor arent as much as you would imagine. Well unless things really changed since I last read up on them.

However if your just making sure you have a continous backup, then if one drive dies, you still have all your data on the second drive. Your PC should continue to work fine when you take the faulty one out.

[Avoch]

Got that exact mobo, it's decent :)

Only thing is that the NB/SB cooling isn't great, and with an 8800 GTX in the case its impossible to replace the SB with anything, at least until I find a small enough waterblock for it. I kept shorting the board using a fan on the SB as it was in contact with my GTX.

[LiL T]

Got that board also same manufacture and its uber but I'm already looking to upgrade for when I buy a copy of vista. The 3 way SLI board humm, now if I buy the full retail version of vista, could install it on this system and then later change boards without needing to reactivate windows? If I buy the full version with all the bells and whistles i'd least hope it to last me for the next 6 - 10 years for each new system I build.

[Avoch]

If you change motherboards you can use the same copy of Vista with the same key, but I'd recommend reinstalling it as Vista can be a bit funny with switching major hardware components.