Gaming MB's vs CPU's

i want to upgrade my current system with new MB, CPU, Graphics card. now ive been researching and reading posts and have narrowed it down to 2 MB's. Asus formula and Asus maximus extreme gamers. A Radeon 4850 or 4870 or GTX 9800 graphic card.

The CPU i havent a clue, no experience with them, although i have read some good things about Intel core 2.

So my questions are: what is best out of these selections for gaming? Are they compatiable?

What would a decent cpu be for these MB's.

keep in mind im on a strict budget of $1000.00

It may sound crazy to some of u but i mainly want to be able to play WOW and some other online games without lag and slow frame rates.

Core 2 Duo is your best choice... speed is up to you
ASUS listed are good boards, but come with less instruction than some other models by other makers...
Spend most of your money on a good graphics card. CPU can be less than perfect. Motherboard is critical... but not as critical as the graphics card.

What is your current system?

You may not even need to upgrade your CPU or motherboard.
Most likely, you will have to upgrade your graphics card, and a supporting powersupply.

The 4850 and 4870 are both great choices, the (I assume you mean) 9800gtx is also a good card, but perhaps not quite as good as 4870.

My current system is a Neo 2 Platium MB, Intel Dual core 2.4 ghz, Graphics card is a PNYGeForce 7600 ddr2 512MB AGP card. new BFG GS-650 500w PSU 20amp per rail. 2GB Ram

Your processor is fine, except...i think your motherboard is an AMD motherboard...?

Is it this one:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3169&p=3

Or this one:
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=k8n_neo2_platinum

The prior is the intel p35, but has no AGP slots.
The latter is an AMD board, and has only AGP slots.


What do you mean new 8600gs?
If you know what brand your powersupply is, that could help, but it looks good enough.

MB is MSI 865PE Neo2-P designed for intel Pentium 4 Northwood/Prescott (socket 478) processos. MS-6728 ATX MainBoard

the othe ting i was refering to was geforce 9800gtx graphic card. Oh yea i almost forgot my onboard usb ports burnt out a while back. I mean u could actually smell it, so its got to go!

I want a decent gaming system. Smoothe running, No lagging, fast frame rates, great graphics! something thats up to date

Do you know if you have 2 six pin power connectors for your powersupply, or what brand it is?


If the motherboard is burnt out, i suppose you should replace it. So you have a pentium processor?

I would recommend the ASUS P5Q SE PLUS LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

and an Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 Wolfdale 2.8GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E7400 - Retail

or an Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E8500 - Retail


You should be able to use a 4850, or 4870, i think.

Yea the PSU is a BFG Tech GS-650 and it has 2 6 pin connectors

Heres what i got and i hope its all compatible and has super gaming abiity.

IIntel 3 GHz Core 2 Duo E8400 Processor Type / Form Factor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Compatible Processor Socket: LGA775 Socket

Cant make up my mind which MB i should get. I was wondering if you had any input?

Rampage Formula Republic of Gamers Series ATX Motherboard. Form Factor: ATX Chipset Type: Intel X48 Express / Intel ICH9R Processor Socket: LGA775 Socket. Supported RAM Technology DDR2 SDRAM Supported RAM Integrity Check Non-ECC, ECC RAM Installed ( Max ) 0 MB / 8 GB (max)
Supported RAM Speed PC2-6400, PC2-5300, PC2-9600, PC2-8500 RAM Features Unbuffered, two DDR channels

Maximus Extreme Republic of Gamers ATX LGA775 Intel Processor Motherboard. Supported RAM Technology DDR3 SDRAM Supported RAM Integrity Check Non-ECC RAM Installed ( Max ) 0 MB / 8 GB (max) Supported RAM Speed PC3-8500, PC3-10666, PC3-12800, PC3-14400 RAM Features
Unbuffered, two DDR channels

VisionTEK
Radeon HD 4870 512 MB GDDR5 PCI Express Graphics Card. Interface Type: PCI Express 2.0 x16 Video Memory Installed: 512 MB

Yes i did actually:

The E8400 is also a great processor, as are the dual cores i posted above for slightly different price ranges. I personally prefer saphire cards, but VisionTek is fine, i think saphire is actually cheeper at newegg though.

The Asus rampage motherboards have little performance increases except when your overclocking to the limits of your hardware, stick with a cheeper mainstream board.

And thats right you will may need new RAM, do you know what RAM you currently have, like 240 pin DDR2?

After much thought and research and on a strict budget, i finally decided on the following system. First id like to thank all of you that gave me your input.

2 GAMING MEMORY 2GB PC-6400 800MHZ DDR2


1 Radeon HD 4870 512 MB GDDR5 PCI Express Graphics Card


1 3 GHz Core 2 Duo E8400 Processor


1 P5Q LGA775 ATX Intel Processor Motherboard

Smart purchase. Good equipment. Reliable. Prices are right. If not already purchased, the E8400 is heavily discounted on some websites.

Actually you should use a 4 (2 x 2) set of RAM.

Computer Gods, HELP!

I purchased an ASUS P5Q MB, 4870 video card, 4gb memory, new sata drive, new sata cd rom.

I put it all together and it recognizes the drives in the bios as it should. Runs great!

I just cant load the operating system cause it dosent recognize the HD.

How can this be i asked myself? I dont know.

ASUS says, u cant load win98sec.ed. cause MB chipset. Also said cant install IDE/ATA drive cause of MB. (not true) and ASUS says try installing Lennox UBUNTU. Well DUH! I cant do that yet can i.

I thought to myself, WTH!

So im at a total loss at this point. I have never had any of these problems before. I have exhausted all my efforts to solve the problem. I need serious help!

One more thing, It will recognize the CD rom, but when it asks to boot from the HD or CD rom, then it says there is no HD installed.

was trying to install win98 sec. ed. cause i only have xp pro upgrade

Read the fine print on the WXP Pro Upgrade disk... many of them will only upgrade to certain installations... some will not upgrade Windows 98. Others will not upgrade Windows ME...

tell me more

about SATA/RAID F-6 thing.

I would really like to be able to install my 500gb sata drive instead of this ide/ata hd.

I couldnt get the comp to recognize the sata drive when i went to load xp, even tho the bios said it was there.

Im not familuare with SATA/RAID but have heard it was a lot better.

any and all suggestions are greatfully appreciated!

SATA is significantly faster. But the drives require a SATA install, and a motherboard designed to use them.
Whether SATA is more or less reliable is yet to be determined.

SATA is a much faster interface, but the performance of hard disk drives is limited by their spindle speed, not so much by the interface.