Fried my motherboard...

[Super-Medic-Ace]

Last night I installed a new CPU cooler (heatsink/fan) in my Pentium 4 motherboard and AM3 (gaming machine) as well. The Pentium one works great, however... I hate to say it but I somehow shorted my AM3 mobo.
I have the thing on top of a phone book out of the case with the bare essentials and have cleared the CMOS, done everything I know how to - still it won't post. Time to Rest in Peace AMD mobo...

I think it's time for a transition to Intel anyway and I was thinking of buying a new Processor and mobo

Motherboard: EVGA Z68 SLI - $200
CPU: Intel i5-2500 (Socket 1155) - $200

I really would like to spend $400 or less as everything else to my knowledge works great.
Having at least 2 PCI Express x16 or x8 slots and SLI are a must.

I can't find many AMD boards with consistent positive feedback - hence my belief that maybe it is time to move over to Intel again.

I could very well buy an AMD board and save myself some money but, like I said... I can't find any that have an affordable/reliable mark.

Any suggestions or other considerations here?
I pre-ordered BF3 and it looks like I won't be able to get my components ordered in time - darn! (it's my fault too!)

EDIT: Current working components (I think) are:
OS: Win 7 Pro 64 bit
Power Supply: 650 Watts
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 580 1.5GB
Memory: Gskill 8GB DDR3 1333Mhz (2 sticks) - dual channel
**Unused Memory kit: 6GB DDR3 1600 (3 sticks) Triple channel
SSD1: SATA II Vertex 2 60GB
SSD2: SATA II Vertex 2 60GB
HD1: SATA II 7200 RPM - 2TB
Optical Drive 1: SATA Internal Blu ray drive/DVD/CD Burner
Optical Drive 2: SATA Internal DVD/CD Burner
Sound Card: PCI Express x1 Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD
CPU Cooler: Hyper 212 EVO

[MisterPWN]

Ah man that's a bad deal. Strange about it shorting though, have you replaced the cooler with the stock one and tested? Might also check in the socket for anything, dust, TIM?

Definitely a good time to transition to Intel. AMD just dropped their much anticipated Bulldozer chips which have seemingly turned out to be a failure. Very sad. While intel's i5 Sandybridge has been rocking, its about the only way to go at this point.

Other than buying used I don't think you can do much better than ~$200 for the chip. There are small sales occasionally, and Microcenter (if you are near one) sometimes have some good discounts on them. There are several good e-tailers besides Newegg, so if you are set on 1 or 2 components just do some searching and see if they are offered cheaper elsewhere. Amazon has become a good alternative lately, with no tax (if that effects you).

Superbiiz regularly has $10-15 off 100+ coupons, would bring that chip down a bit, http://www.superbiiz.com/query.php?categry=0&s=i5+2500k
Newegg seems to have a $15 off coupon right now for 2500k http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

[Super-Medic-Ace]

I never removed the CPU so i'm hoping it wasn't a dust issue... :-/ ASUS tech support basically said it's defective (fried). Oh well.

Got in touch with one of my friends that works for Intel in Arizona. He gets 50% discounts.
Here is the pricing for processors he can get me...

i7-990X: $495
2nd Generation i7-2600K: $159
i7-2600: $150
i5-2500K: $105.84
i5-2500: $99.50

I'm thinking the i7-2600K will be the best deal here.
Combined with an EVGA board (they have 24/7 tech support with people I can understand).
EVGA Z68 FTW
or EVGA Z68 SLI

[MisterPWN]

Wow, sweet deal on the processors lol.. It's almost too "convenient" that your other potentially died. :P

2600k wouldn't really be needed just for gaming, but if you do any other work, 3d modeling, or video editing, then it could be useful for the hyperthreading. But solely for gaming, or even a good amount of multitasking 2500k is all that is necessary. At THOSE prices though, eh why not? :D

[tinybobdfa]

I was asked by my boss at AMD UK what would you like for your birthday, I told them these specs he just laughed at me, then 3 weeks later a knock at the door and a mega big lot of boxes appeared on my door step, and inside were all these parts LOL!!!!!
I have put up the cost as if I had to play lol!!!


1. MOTHER BOARD
http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=amd+g34&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=QgS&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&channel=s&prmd=imvnsfd&resnum=2&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1920&bih=916&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=4990366524548624839&sa=X&ei=vj6ATpitLIPwsgaD4YRO&ved=0CGgQ8gIwAQ

2. CPU's x4
http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=amd+OPTERON+6100&hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=1442641609085963564&sa=X&ei=pD-ATt78A4zvsgbGn5U5&ved=0CG0Q8wIwAg
(http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=amd+OPTERON+6100&hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=1442641609085963564&sa=X&ei=pD-ATt78A4zvsgbGn5U5&ved=0CG0Q8wIwAg)
3. MEMORY x8 PER CPU
http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=DDR3+memory&hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=9773633387901267768&sa=X&ei=PkGAToyQDsbHtAaQhMUX&ved=0CJEBEPMCMAI
x4 FOR EACH CPU x4 FOR ALL 4 CPU's = 128gb

4. GRAPHICS CARDS x4
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=GEFORCE+GTX+460&hl=en&tbm=shop&aq=f#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&tbm=shop&source=hp&q=QUADRO+FX+6000&pbx=1&oq=QUADRO+FX+6000&aq=f&aqi=&aql=1&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=9129l13133l1l13536l8l8l4l0l0l0l691l1004l0.2 .5-1l7l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=d53a59a0a191ce23&biw=1920&bih=916

5. HARD DRIVES x4
a) http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Hard+Drives/SATA+%28Serial+ATA%29/Over+1TB/3TB+Hitachi+0F12450%2C+7K3000+SATAIII+6Gbps+HDD+HD S723030ALA640+?productId=42910 x3
b) http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Solid+State+Drives/Crucial+m4+256GB+2.5%22+SATA-III+Solid+State+Hard+Drive+?productId=44260 x1

6. DRIVES x4
a) http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Blu-Ray+%2F+DVD+Drives/DVD%C2%B1RW+Dual+Layer+Writers/Pioneer+DVR-S19LBK+24x+Internal+DVD%C2%B1R%2FRW+SATA+Drive+-+Black+?productId=42971 (http://http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Blu-Ray+%2F+DVD+Drives/DVD%C2%B1RW+Dual+Layer+Writers/Pioneer+DVR-S19LBK+24x+Internal+DVD%C2%B1R%2FRW+SATA+Drive+-+Black+?productId=42971) x2
b) http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Blu-Ray+%2F+DVD+Drives/Blu-ray+BD-R+Writers/Pioneer+BDR-206DBK+12x+BluRay+RW+%2F+16x+DVD%C2%B1RW+Drive+-+Black+%28OEM%29+?productId=44561 x2

7. OS
WINDOWS 7


COST
1. APPROX £600
2. APPROX £1,000 EACH x4 TOTAL =£4,000
3. APPROX £36 FOR 2x4gb x16 TOTAL= £580 FOR 128gb OF RAM
4. APPROX £3,600 EACH x4 TOTAL =£14,400 FOR 4
5. a)APPROX £140 EACH x4 TOTAL =£420 FOR 3 + b)SSD x1 =£285
6. a)APPROX £18 EACH x2 TOTAL =£36 + b)APPROX £90 EACH x2 TOTAL =£180
7. APPROX £300

[fe7felix]

hey bob
you can already disconnect the radiators in your living room. the new machine will keep the temp stable over the winter lol

[Super-Medic-Ace]

My jaw hit the floor when I read those specs...

Tinybob, can you benchmark your machine since those are all released products?
I reallllly want to see your system at #1 on the PassMark rating scale. :)
http://www.passmark.com/baselines/top.html

The #1 ranked computer has the following specs:
CPU: (2) Intel Xeon X5690 @ 3.47GHz
RAM: 98GB (type unknown)
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580
OS: Windows XP Professional (64-bit)
29/Mar/2011 (10:47PM)

I think you'll smoke that machine since you'll have 4 graphic cards, twice the amount of CPU power... and even more RAM! crazy...

[Bloo Iggy]

Any luck reviving the AMD, based on my suggestions or is the board just over stressed and bent? I bet the processor is still good if the board crapped out. Don't give up!! If you get a new set up, you might as well make a posting on ebay and see how much broken stuff can sell for. I made quite a few bucks selling broken tech.