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Questions on C2D motherboard that suits me...

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sektor

Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2006
I really hesitated to start this thread because there are so many in here. I have pretty much read all of them, but I still have questions.

Granted, I am really young to OC and im still learning. With that though, im trying to piece together a rig that suits my needs and I don't buy what I don't need.

I lay the ground work and ask my questions:

Primarily a gaming rig an im trying to build a rig that will last for quite some time. With that in mind, I have decided on the following:

Intel Core 2 Duo: E6600
I figured this CPU will allow me to get a lot of use out of it and gel well with Vista. I can also OC it to higher speeds for extra added life.

Memory: 2gib kit. Specifically, Corsair XMS2, DDR800, PC6400, 5-5-5-12 timing. I can get it for about $220 right now with rebate.

Motherboard. *sigh*
This is where im confused.

What i DONT need:

-RAID
-SLI/Crossfire
-tons of drives.

I will have a DVD drive and 1-2 SATA drives, one floppy, extrememusic Sound card, possibly a better NIC down the road. Thats a "if" though.

I read a lot about Gigabyte, ASUS, MSI and Abit boards. The gigabyte boards seem to work extremely well with E6300 and E6400 chips and allow great O/C' ing.

I found something here that the ABIT AW9D is a very good board as well.

I have used quite a few ASUS boards in the past and found them very good. I have read a lot of up and down reviews on ASUS boards for C2D chips, which is where I get lost.

Besides with what I have and what i need, I do plan on OC'ing. Not to Extreme measures, but i'd like to get into th 3+ghz range. I know that requires cooling and im not shy of that. However, I just need to keep things in perspective right now (long story).

Anyway, what suits my needs motherboard wise? Based on what i've pointed out, does any board jump out right away?


I do appreciate the feedback and apologize for another one of "those threads." :confused:
 
I kid you not, the more I read the threads in here, the moe confused I get. LOL

:bang head

Now I am confused on what would be good memory to get. I prefer to shy away from OCZ because i've read al ot of bad things with their memory, especially with ASUS boards.
 
After re-reading a lot of threads, here is some extra information.

Since I am pretty new to OC'ing, I don't plan on being extreme on the OC. It is hard for me to gauge what is and what isn't extreme, but i'd like to get good performance out of the CPU while not "risking things."

The CPU is at 2.4ghz. Maybe into the mid 3ghz range? Is that extreme? Medium?

Hope the info helps.
 
me and green can help ya figure out what to get:beer:

once we get you setup we will get you into the 3ghz-3.4ghz range with it.:burn:
 
Appreciate the help guys.

One thing I started thinking about last night is that this particular rig will be shared between my wife and I (For the time being, until i get more room in my home and then I can build her own puter :beer: ).

With that, I started thinking, what type of motherboard would be ideal for me that would be very stable under normal CPU usage, but at the same time, would allow me to OC the CPU maybe into the high 2ghz range to the low 3ghz range. I just started thinking, since this is a shared puter, I might think more of stability than OC'ing ability.

That make sense?

I can always buy another board down the road when new one comes out when the computer is mine! All mine!


With that in mind, what would you guys say to motherboard? memory?

Thanks again guys.

Cheers,

Sektor
 
if your not ocing and just going stock speeds.
imo first on my list would be the dfi infinity 975x/g feature to price cant find none better unless you pay more.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136168
next would be abit aw9d i think $15 more at newegg nice feature is the pwm's have a sink with heatpipe cooling.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127014

if you want cheaper the only ones really imo to get is the gigabyte p965-s3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128017
followed by the abit ab9
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127005

now if you really want cheap, i mean cheap
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157092
i dont like suggesting non-intel chipsets but the few here that used it say it was great for stock speeds.

as for mem imo nothing less then these ddr2-667 sticks
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145098
imo you would want ram to run ddr2-800 though so these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231098
 
Evilsizer said:
if your not ocing and just going stock speeds.
imo first on my list would be the dfi infinity 975x/g feature to price cant find none better unless you pay more.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136168
next would be abit aw9d i think $15 more at newegg nice feature is the pwm's have a sink with heatpipe cooling.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127014

if you want cheaper the only ones really imo to get is the gigabyte p965-s3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128017
followed by the abit ab9
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127005

now if you really want cheap, i mean cheap
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157092
i dont like suggesting non-intel chipsets but the few here that used it say it was great for stock speeds.

as for mem imo nothing less then these ddr2-667 sticks
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145098
imo you would want ram to run ddr2-800 though so these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231098


Thanks Evilsizer.
I have been eyeing that Abit AW9D board and the G.Skill memory. I definitely want DDR 800 speeds for that extra added performance.

Here is something I just thought of. How about comparrisons on what options I have for OC (how high could I OC it) with certain combos:

For example, lets say I had:

E6600
Abit AW9D (from above)
G.Skill memory (from above)

What ranges could I get into for OC?

I'd prefer to stay away from cheap stuff (bad experiences in the past going that route). I don't have a problem paying for better quality items.


I should mention, I do have a X-Fi xtreme music sound card from creative that was recently given to me, so I thought I might use that. Just a FYI.

Thanks guys.

sektor
 
sektor said:
Thanks Evilsizer.
I have been eyeing that Abit AW9D board and the G.Skill memory. I definitely want DDR 800 speeds for that extra added performance.

Here is something I just thought of. How about comparrisons on what options I have for OC (how high could I OC it) with certain combos:

For example, lets say I had:

E6600
Abit AW9D (from above)
G.Skill memory (from above)

What ranges could I get into for OC?

I'd prefer to stay away from cheap stuff (bad experiences in the past going that route). I don't have a problem paying for better quality items.


I should mention, I do have a X-Fi xtreme music sound card from creative that was recently given to me, so I thought I might use that. Just a FYI.

Thanks guys.

sektor
with the g.skill mem above and aw9d you should be able to get into the 3.2ghz-3.4ghz range for cpu speed. you might also want to consider replacing intel's noisy stock cooler with something else.
 
Evilsizer said:
with the g.skill mem above and aw9d you should be able to get into the 3.2ghz-3.4ghz range for cpu speed. you might also want to consider replacing intel's noisy stock cooler with something else.

I can deal with that.
Speaking of cooling, what would you recommend for a cooler? I've seen the Scythe Ninja and that thing is just way to big...

Also, out of curiosity, what about the Abit board in your sig?
 
Definitely get a 956 board, like the DS3 or P5B. DFI infinity is like the worst 975X board for Core 2.

For 150.00(DS3 or P5B) you will get everything you need.
 
RangerXLT8 said:
Definitely get a 956 board, like the DS3 or P5B. DFI infinity is like the worst 975X board for Core 2.

For 150.00(DS3 or P5B) you will get everything you need.

A 956 board? Not familiar with that.

I noticed a lot of people have the E6400 (from their sigs and then OC it...must be pretty popular chip to OC). :beer:
 
Ok.. lets say your TOP CPU frequency goal is 3.6Ghz.. (to give you a little head room just in case you get a lucky chip :beer: )

The E6600 has a 9 mulitplier.. that means.. 3600/9= 400FSB
So.. you'll need a motherboard that can hit 400FSB stable. That makes your choices very wide open. I would definatly get a 975X mobo in this situation ;)

Now.. the E6400 (or Xeon 3050) has a 8 mulitiplier.. 3600/8= 450FSB
Now this is were things get tricky, the only 975X motherboard I would recomend for that FSB would be the Abit I linked the pricing info to in post #4
The Abit AW9D-Max.
If you want a cheaper motherboard then the Abit AW9D-Max.. I would recomend going with a 965P (what RangerXLT8 was really trying to ellude at) based motherboard with a 8 mulitiplier or lower chip.
 
greenmaji said:
Ok.. lets say your TOP CPU frequency goal is 3.6Ghz.. (to give you a little head room just in case you get a lucky chip :beer: )

The E6600 has a 9 mulitplier.. that means.. 3600/9= 400FSB
So.. you'll need a motherboard that can hit 400FSB stable. That makes your choices very wide open. I would definatly get a 975X mobo in this situation ;)

Now.. the E6400 (or Xeon 3050) has a 8 mulitiplier.. 3600/8= 450FSB
Now this is were things get tricky, the only 975X motherboard I would recomend for that FSB would be the Abit I linked the pricing info to in post #4
The Abit AW9D-Max.
If you want a cheaper motherboard then the Abit AW9D-Max.. I would recomend going with a 965P (what RangerXLT8 was really trying to ellude at) based motherboard with a 8 mulitiplier or lower chip.

Makes sense. I am starting to get things now.

It was very interesting reading this article today:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/10/10/cheap_thrills/

My jaw dropped after reading this.

I get giddy thinking of what I can do with a E6600. :bday:
 
So.. Evil.. what 975X motherboards can do 400FSB stock reliably (for a mobo reco. for the E6600 @ 3.6Ghz max)
The DH can pull that off so I'm guessing the list would be pretty long.
 
greenmaji said:
So.. Evil.. what 975X motherboards can do 400FSB stock reliably (for a mobo reco. for the E6600 @ 3.6Ghz max)
The DH can pull that off so I'm guessing the list would be pretty long.
based on price most to least
asus p5w/p5ws/p5ws64 , last 2 i got from you green.
the only one i strongly recommend is the abit aw9d-max. aw9d-max with its second bios is up to 425-450 atm, i cant find any reason though why the aw9d wont oc the same.
 
If I was going WS-Pro.. I'd get the 64 (quad PCIe)

But, if thats the list.. I was right in assuming that the Abit AW9D-Max is the 975X to get right now :thup:
 
greenmaji said:
If I was going WS-Pro.. I'd get the 64 (quad PCIe)

But, if thats the list.. I was right in assuming that the Abit AW9D-Max is the 975X to get right now :thup:
yep but im eyeing intel's tweakers delight "badaxe 2" more voltage steps for cpu/ram then any other board. plus being able to do 433mhz for a intel board is sweet, still got the 3 pci-e slots to. to bad intel didnt do this with the first badaxe.
 
yea.. but that 433FSB and the 1.6tops Vcore puts it out of the running for me for now ;)

mmmm Vcore
 
I love my AW9D-Max. The plain AW9D is even cheaper. Both will easily do 400 FSB. Even with really good air cooling, I doubt you're gonna get much above 400 FSB with the E6600.
 
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