Recommendations on new Motherboard

[Phenique]

Hello everyone;

I just ordered a Q6600 processor from newegg, but I have no idea as to what board I should get because I paid more attention to AMD than Intel these past years.

Currently I own a Foxconn C51XEM2AA 590 SLI; it has two sticks of Corsair DDR2 800 RAM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145590) in it. I would like to be able to transfer this RAM to my new motherboard, yet be able to upgrade to something like DDR2 1066 or something in the future; especially when I buy Vista.

The requiremements and limitations I have are that the the price needs to stay at a max of 180; rebates count too.
-I need a PCIe x16 slot fo rmy video card. It needs to support DDR2 800 and have room so I can upgrade to DDR2 1066 later or something higher.
-It needs to support LGA 775 Sockets because the processor is a Q6600
-Prefrrably something that stays cool
-Something that wont make a huge racket, such as the EVGA nforce.
-I have no preference if it's nvidia chipset or Intel.
-I will not buy Foxconn
-Needs SATA


I hope some experts could help me find a nice MOBO; thanks!

 

[judicious]

well i'm not an expert, but this board looks pretty close to what you're looking for.

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3P Rev 2.0 LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Ultra Durable 2, Ultra Cooling Intel Motherboard

According to the manufacture site..it takes 800 and 1066 DDR2 Ram...on newegg it's going for $152..

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard , this one got less USB ports, but costs less...pretty much the same as the board above...

 

[link590o]

judicious, i think you're more of an expert than you might suspect. in my search for a motherboard for phen, i found the same motherboard. that being the case, i'd like to second that opinion .

gigabyte is a decent manufacturer. of course, whenever you're buying a motherboard, you're in for a real crap shoot. there are tons of horror stories from all kinds of people about Dead on Arrivals, and BIOS functions and stuff...but at least that board has decent reviews. and it's likely it will work well when you get it. this looks like an incredibly good buy. if i could get it, i would.

 

[Phenique]

The problem with the gigabyte one with more USBs is the limited RAM support for 1066, I am looking for something that could support 2 gb sticks when plugged in, because I plan on maxing out at 8 GB later on, or using 2x2 gb sticks of 1066 when they drop in price a little. I do need more than 2 USB ports; because I have my keyboard, mouse, ipod, USB wireless adapter, and joystick. I need 4-6 on it sadly. I appreciate the speedy answer; and I also have 2 days to decide because newegg wont ship on christmas eve or day.

I see these mobos though.. any good for intel?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130097 and
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813127030

 

[judicious]

I actually looked at the ABIT IP35 Pro LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard and thought about buying that...but I was tempted for the USB ports on the Gigabit...

but I sooooo didn't know that if you have more USB ports, it sucks up RAM speed...how does that work?

link590o thanks for that comment!!

 

[link590o]

the p35 pro doesn't support ddr2 1066 memory though. only ddr2 800. so that's not a viable purchase if you want 1066.

the MSI board looks like it has promise, but it doesn't support a quad core.


MSI used to be good quality. i don't know. perhaps you'll get a better quality board than i anticipate. i just don't think of MSI when i think of good quality anymore. i think EVGA, ABIT, FOXCONN, GIGABYTE, and ASROCK. ASRock doesn't really make very many full atx boards though so they're out of the picture.

out of everything i've seen, either go with one of the boards judicious suggested and ignore the USB, or we can try to keep looking for another board that meets your specs.

but, honestly, i think the whole USB idea is being a little nitpicky. almost nobody is going to get 100% maxed out performance out of any given rig, so detracting a tiny bit of 1066 RAM for some USB ports to me doesn't make any difference.

i think your standards are a little bit too high, but you can do as you please.

 

[Phenique]

I'm going to agreem most new boards these days can be nightmarish; the reason I don't buy foxconn anymore was the 2x DOAs and the rude customer service. I hear ASUS and MSI are the best right now; but that's just other's opinions.


Thank you very much for your help

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

The Abit IP35 Pro is an excellent motherboard for overclocking and the ASUS P5K (vanilla, not the SE and VM variants) is a good one as well, but they support DDR2 1066 only through OCing. Of course, that would require a good memory kit and by far, I have found the Crucial Ballistix kits to be the best bet as far as price and performance goes. Keep in mind that DDR2 1066 is supported natively on very few boards, so unless you're willing to shell out more than $180, these boards will have to do.

 

[Phenique]

I ditched the DDR2 1066 idea and just sprung for http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130081
Most of the motherboard supporting both did not support the 2gb sticks of DDR2 1066 I was planning on buy, and the ones that did were way to expensive.
I looked at the ASUS ones, but reviews said the BIOS was a nightmare, and they had lots of poor reviews.
The Abit one is a solid, amazing board; but I don't want to dish out 180 bucks for a MOBO that doesn't support DDR2 1066
I also don't see a need to really overclock a quad core; maybe in the future I may, but for now; I'm fine.

Thanks for the help
It's cheap, and I probably will never SLI, so using only 1 x16 slot wont slow me down

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

I never said anything about OCing the CPU. You could OC the memory to match the CPUs FSB.