Help with Motherboard and Processor

[spacesurfer]

My old computer died and I want to replace my it with a new motherboard and CPU.

I want an ASUS motherboard. The one I'm looking at is this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131142. However, I wasn't sure about nVidia chipset as I don't have experience with them. My current working mobo is an Intel chipset. What are advantages of nVidia vs Intel? Should I look for Intel Chipset?

Here is the processor I'm looking at: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115030.

Your thoughts appreciated.

My budget is $350 for processor/mobo.

[DL.]

You can get a faster CPU for the same price, for example the E6750.

The link for the mainboard doesn't work, but I found the board (P5N-E SLI) anyway.

Mainboards with an nVidia chipset is according to a test I read recently (I don't know where) faster when using RAID.

nVidia based boards have SLI support.

The Intel chipset (P35) has official support for DDR2-1066, some even have DDR3 support (which is too expensive and not noticeably faster at present).

[nitroshift]

As read on various places on the net, current Asus p35 boards are quite buggy, not sure if a future BIOS update will solve this issue. Why are you so fond of Asus anyway? I got a P35 based mobo last week (see my signature) and it runs smoothly and most important, COLD!

[spacesurfer]

I'm not a gamer and I don't need advanced graphics.

What is SLI? Do I need it if I don't game?

DL, can you give me a link to E6750 that is the same price as the one I was looking at, please? Thanks.

Nitroshift, you say P35 is buggy but yours is stable? Can you give me some links to the buggy claims. I would like to read for myself.

Thanks.

[puntoMX]

What is SLI? Do I need it if I don't game?

2 VGA cards that "work" together simply said, but since you don’t use more then 2 screens and don’t play games I would leave the SLI what it is. SLI is a standard made by nVidia by the way, if it was ATI made his own Crossfire technology and HP uses there VooDoo chip to combine the 2 technologies.

DL, can you give me a link to E6750 that is the same price as the one I was looking at, please? Thanks.

Lookhere, at this moment, d.d. 10 Sep. 2007, it’s 200 US$.

Nitroshift, you say P35 is buggy but yours is stable? Can you give me some links to the buggy claims. I would like to read for myself.

With an update of the BIOS, all will be fine, even Native Command Queuing (NCQ) for hard disks will work. It was NOT ASUS fault, but they wrote something on there site to warn customers who could have problems. ASUS just disabled some options to avoid these problems until iNTEL cleared things up.

I would check out the GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L and the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 together for 380 US$ (+ tax) + shipping .

[spacesurfer]

Thanks for link PuntoMX. DL said it's the same price but it's actually $25 more. (Every penny counts, of course.)

On the other hand, how about this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115031.

It's not as fast but I don't need blazing speed. It's a Conroe rather than Allendale.

What is the difference between Conroe and Allendale?

[puntoMX]

Only difference that you see between the E6xx0 series and the E4xx0 or Pentium 21x0 is the FSB, 1333/1066MHz vs. 800MHz, and the cache size, 2/4MB vs. 2MB vs. 1MB. So, if you REALY are on a budged, then skip the E4xx0 line and go directly for a Pentium 2180 CPU, those will be out very soon and work on 2GHz for sub 100 US$.

By the way, you didn’t like my advice?:

I would check out the GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L and the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 together for 380 US$ (+ tax) + shipping.

[spacesurfer]

Let me research for about the Gigabyte board. I haven't had any boards other than ASUS and they've worked for me. That's why I'm fond of them.

One of my requirements for the board is a eSATA, firewire on the back panel. I'm sure most boards today have DDR2 support, SATA, giga lan, PCIe, USB 2.0, etc so I don't need to mention these.

[DL.]

DL said it's the same price but it's actually $25 more. (Every penny counts, of course.)

I'm absolutely (100%) certain both of those CPU:s were at 199.99$ (I double checked it since I thought it was a bit odd!), they must've changed it or it was shown incorrectly for some reason.

You won't notice much of a difference in any way when working with them between ASUS and for example GIGABYTE boards.

[spacesurfer]

I'm absolutely (100%) certain both of those CPU:s were at 199.99$ (I double checked it since I thought it was a bit odd!), they must've changed it or it was shown incorrectly for some reason.

Yeah, I thought the 6550 was much cheaper than that as well and now the price is higher. I was going to post that one until they fooled me.

Anyway, based on DL and Nitroshift, I think I'm now considering a P35 chipset board. I looked at the Gigabyte and it doesn't have an eSATA port on back. I think I will be making use of eSATA enough to pass Gigabyte. I couldn't find a gigabyte board with one for the price range I checked.

I'm particularly looking at the P5K and the P5KC. The difference seems to be P5KC supports DDR3. I'm not sure if I'll upgrade to DDR3 in future so I'm may go with P5K. It's $134 right now.

Edited September 10, 2007 by spacesurfer

[spacesurfer]

I would check out the GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L and the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 together for 380 US$ (+ tax) + shipping

puntoMX, I almost passed this up. I now see the Gigabyte p35 board was an invaluable advice for one reason: ASUS boards of the P35 chipset tend to overheat according to Extremetech.com compared to Gigabyte. I think it's wiser to run a cooler system for longevity.

I'm torn with options though. I could spend $60 more and get P35-DS3P for $160, which has firewire and eSATA (which I really want) and sacrifice on processing speed for lower price to keep my budget.

Or, go with the one you mentioned (the $99 P35-DS3:) and get a faster processor. I can add a PCI firewire card later.

Hmmm?

[nitroshift]

[...]Or, go with the one you mentioned (the $99 P35-DS3:) and get a faster processor. I can add a PCI firewire card later.

Hmmm?

I can't tell you anything about the ds3p, but as I own the ds3 rev.2.0 I can tell you that it runs colder than my previous Gigabyte 8I915P Duo-Pro... All the rest of my rig is the same.

[spacesurfer]

Is hyperthreading worth looking at? Is that for gaming?

[DL.]

Is hyperthreading worth looking at? Is that for gaming?

Hyperthreading is old stuff, replaced entirely by dual core. Try searching for it...

It doesn't do much for gaming performance (unless the game has support for it), but regular multitasking is noticeably quicker when using HT compared to non-HT.

[spacesurfer]

I went ahead a bought a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L and E6550 C2D processor with Corsair memory 2 Gb. Total $330. I'll get back $25 in rebates.

Anyway, I'm planning on using my old ATX case which has a 400 W power supply. Does this seem good enough?