Quiet, long lasting, high performance... what board?

OK, I want some advice on the best motherboard to get the most out of the following:

I plan on getting an E4300 and pushing it for all I can get on air cooling. Quiet will be very important, so I don't expect the world's best overclock, but I DO want to get as much out of this processor as I can in this situation. I plan to get the thermalright SI-128, and use an ultra-quiet 120mm fan on it. (It will be quieter than a stealth, but put out less airflow.)
I will have a case with decent airflow, and a quiet 250mm fan blowing over most of the middle of the motherboard, so airflow will be OK.
I have no need for SLI, and I won't do any serious gaming. I have a 350W fanless ATX power supply which I will be using.
I do need a board where you can adjust the memory ratio, because I don't plan on getting top of the line memory, but I want one with at least 4 slots, so I can upgrade when I get vista. I also plan on having this setup last at least 5 years, and would like to be able to upgrade to quad core, if it is reasonable/necessary.

I was thinking about the P5N-E, even though I don't need SLI, because of the overclocks I have heard of on this board. But I've also heard a lot of people promoting the P5B and the P5W-DH.

So what do you guys suggest? And are there any other boards out there that you think would fit the bill?

Thanks

*Bump*

Has this place really gotten to the point where nobody gives advice anymore?

I would take a look at the Abit AB9. It has a quiet fanless heatpipe N/B cooling (they call it OTES). It's inexpensive, has lots of features, adjustable memory ratios, quad core ready, and four RAM slots.

http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=319

batboy said:

I would take a look at the Abit AB9. It has a quiet fanless heatpipe N/B cooling (they call it OTES). It's inexpensive, has lots of features, adjustable memory ratios, quad core ready, and four RAM slots.

http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=319

Click to expand...

i agree with batboy, that abit looks quiet and good... i practically will try the same you do but i do want the most of the cpu and i can bare some noise. Im going after deh p5n-e sli.

I should of mentioned, the AB9 is a good overclocker. I put one in a buddy's rig that I built last fall and it easily does 400 FSB, no problem. With an E4300, that would be 3.6 gig. I've been seeing too many people struggling with Nvidia chipset mobos lately, so I can't recommend them.

Thanks guys. The AB9 looks to be exactly what I want. I probably can't expect more than 3.4ghz out of that chip on air anyways.

Every other thread seems to be singing praises to the BH5 deluxe, but I don't need all that stuff. And from what I've seen, the stock northbridge cooling is less than spectacular, which probably means added noise!

i've owned two Abit boards (IS7, AI7 socket 478) i've had good OC's with (290 FSB).
both of then under volted a slight bit (-.025v) on the Vcore.

the AB9 or the D975XBX2 are the ones i'm considering pairing with a E4300.

i read that the D975XBX2 had the overclocking features locked unless you had
a higher end chip. not sure how true this is.

From the threads I've seen, the E4300 isn't that much cheaper than the E6300. The E4300 looks to have less of a chance at clocking as high and has a FSB limit.

Downer,
The E4300 has a multiplier of 9, and a FSB of 200mhz.
The E6300 has a multiplier of 7, and a FSB of 266mhz.

Assuming the memory or motherboard is the limit, which one will reach the highest clock speed?

It's the E4300, hands down.

If the core architecture is the limit, each chip should reach about the same speed, regardless.

I know what I'm doing in terms of the chip... I just need help with a good motherboard.

3.3ish Ghz is the limit with ambaint cooling on the E4300's so far. (thats all the CPU's have in them )

3.5 is the limit people reach with the E6300 and its more or less FSB in the way, if there ram and mobo could handle some more they would likely do 3.6Ghz on air

OK, then I have another motherboard challenge for everyone:

Is there any sub-$100 motherboard that I can expect to get 3.3-ish from a E4300?

I'm one of the old-time Bang-for-Buck overclockers, and not just looking for the biggest bang.

OK, any thoughts on the Biostar Tforce965p?

Or here's an interesting idea:

Get the P5B deluxe, a cheap Kentsfield celeron, and use an old PCI video card. Wait till the E6320 and cheap DX10 video cards come out, and finish the upgrade then.

The reason for all this is that I want a good, long lasting computer system; one that I can upgrade to vista when it becomes necessary. I don't game, so the vid card is unimportant, but I want it to support all of vista's features.

Really, I'd be happy to wait, but my old computer is starting to show signs of dying: Keyboard sometimes not detected, USB suddenly stopping working, freeze ups, and sometimes 20-30 seconds before it posts! Don't get me wrong, it's working 95% of the time, but these things have started happening recently. And unfortunately, I don't have a ton of money right now.