Help Me Buy A New Motherboard ^__^

Okay so as the title specifies id like your knowledge to help me find a suitable motherboard, Ill try and be as specific as possible as to what Im looking for.

It has to take a q6600 processor and also the new 45mn processers for the future. It also has to take a 8800gts, DDR2 memory with the capability of taking DDR3 in the future, and lastly Id like it to have good cooling.

Ill be using it for games mostly, Also lastly Im not sure about the differences between 680i, x38 and p35 chipsets if someone could help with that?

Thank you.

680i is an NVIDIA nForce chipset which allows for SLI, dual Gigabit LAN and has a lot of OCing potential. The P35 and X38 are Intel chipsets and have support for DDR2 and DDR3 RAM, which the 680i lacks. They also support Crossfire, which is ATI's version of SLI using two ATI graphics cards. The X38 also has PCI-E 2.0 slots which are supposed to offer faster performance than regular PCI-E x16 slots. But PCI-E 2.0 is backwards compatible so any PCI-E x16 card will work in a PCI-E 2.0 slot. As far as best motherboard goes, the ASUS P5E is the top contender for that slot.

I was gunna reccomend the p5ne-sli but it cant take ddr3....Hmmmmm

Ok well the Asus P5E is now on the list, any other recommendations?

Rage, I remember you recommending the Gigabyte DQ6 before..

Ok ive now narrowed it down to the following:

Asus P5E
Asus Striker Extreme
Gigabyte Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 (ddr2 version)

If you could help me decide that would be great.

Thanks.

Go with the striker extream

The GigaByte GA-X38-DQ6 and ASUS P5E are the best choices of the lot. You can't go wrong with either. The Striker Extreme isn't bad, but the northbridge runs quite hot and you did say you needed a cool-running mobo.
Oh, and I recommended the DQ6T if I'm not wrong. That's the DDR3 version of the same board.

Yeah and also the striker extreme doesnt have pci 2.0 slots or compatiblity with ddr3. Basically im looking in longevity, I dont wanna have to buy another one in a years time.

Does the DQ6T take ddr2 and drr3? Its just because ddr3 is really expensive at the moment.

No, the DQ6T just takes DDR3. If you want a good board that takes DDR2 and DDR2 RAM, the GigaByte P35C-DS3R is a great one that does just that. Only downside is, it has a P35 chipset so it has no PCI-E 2.0 slots. If you want an X38 mobo with DDR2 and DDR3 support, get this mobo instead.

Ok so I have narrowed it down even more now, Im now looking for:

- X38 board (down to the ability to take pci 2.0 and 45nm cpu's)
- good cooling
- DDR2 ram

Please give advice as Id like to order it tonight, oh and im on a budget of around £130 or less.

Thanks.

Good choice

so crap..

what is this pci e 2.0 I keep hearing about? If a card works for pci e 2.0 can it not adjust to x16 or just it will work at slower speeds?? I just got a new mobo with pci e x16 , because I had agp previously, now is Pci e 2.0 going to do what Pcie x16 did to AGP 8x? Also I think my HP-Berkley mobo only takes DDR2 when is ddr3 coming out soon?

Ya i dont really know either, I really need to figure it out.

Rage do you know of any other X38 boards that also take both dd2 and ddr 3?

Also what is the difference between the Gigabyte GA-X38-DS5 and the Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 ? I looked on www.scan.co.uk but couldnt see one difference.

After reading this comparison

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/11/06/gigabyte_ga-x38-ds5/1

I think im gonna go for the Gigabyte GA-X38-DS5, Good choice?

PCI-E 2.0 allows for faster performance compared to regular PCI-E. PCI-E 2.0 slots are backward compatible, so regular PCI-E cards will work fine in a PCI-E 2.0 slot.
Also, the DQ6 overclocks better with quad core CPUs compared to the DS5. That's why it's the better choice.

Is that the only reason?
Beacuse the DS5 is £20 less which could go towards some memory.

Yeah that's basically the only reason. So if you're not going to OC the CPU too much, the DS5 would be okay as well.

Hmm well I was thinking of oc'ing to maybe 3.0GHz

Now Im stuck again, its definitely gonna be out of the dq6 and the ds5 though. HMmmmmm