I need a hybrid agp/ddr C2D mobo, best one?

just want to upgrade my cpu, keeping my PC3200 ram and my 9800pro vid card.

I have no plans of ever putting DDR2 or a PCIe card in this mobo, when I upgrade that, Ill replace the mobo.

so hybrid isnt really that big of a deal... except I dont think DDR/agp only exists. so Im ok with hybrid.

looking at E4300 for the chip to best use my "slow" ram. overclocking isnt huge, if I can hit 3ghz Ill be estatic.

whats out there for me?

Lots will tell you to stay away from it but if you are set on doing a phased upgrade I suggest the ASRock 775DUAL-VSTA. I have one in the system I am typing this up on (not using my PC at the moment ). I have been very very pleased with this board as a whole. It does everything I want it to and more. I would say if you need a board take a look at it but for $50 its hard to beat.

~jtjuska

Im willing to bet a intermedate rig with a Opty 170 and a solid overclocking AMD AGP / DDR mobo would perform better.

I have doubts about the Asrocks abitly to overclock (or keep from dieing for that matter), but they seem to do better with DDR.. if you can skip upgrading to DDR2 on it, it might work out but Im unsure of the DDR it works best with. What FSB can you hit with yoru PC3200 overclocked normaly?

Green is probably right on that one, they only like DDR. I got my Team Group back from RMA so i plopped it in (took out the DDR first) just to test it and the board didn't like it at all. As for OCing I would consider the 775DUAL-VSTA as more a carry over board that will get you to the PCIe DDR2 specs. In all honesty though Green is right on the money that the Opty will prolly be faster overall.

~jtjuska

well I probably have the best DDR ram ever to exist... that being BH5 mushkin special 2-2-2.

however... I have never gotten it past 200fsb. I dont know if I got bad ram or if its the mobo; or the cpu, whatever the case. I think its something I could take a shot with.

I have no plans for a phased upgrade. my system is deteriorating, IE its crashing for hardware reasons. the onboard lan cuts out frequently, USB has problems. and I can no longer OC it at all. so Im limited to 1800mhz. I think the ram and graphic card are fine; so Id like to just replace the processor and mobo, a hybrid and C2D seems fair. its all just an inexpensive place holder till native quadcore comes out in 6-9months then I will upgrade the whole enchalada at once.

side effect, I get a mobo to troubleshoot with which could come in handy.

if the hybrid setup ends up OCing extremely well, awesome. but compared to 1800mhz athlon, I dont need to OC at all to double my cpu performance.

PS. its really all about the itch. its really bad. and this along with my new coolermaster case may keep me from spending 1000+ on a whole new conroe rig that Ill still want to replace when quadcore comes.

@jtjuska, what are your Vdimm options like on the Asrock for DDR?

crappy... something like low, normal and high if I recall correctly.
I never did try tweaking it to go past 300 bus, but everything on auto except locking down the standards like AGP, PCI etc. I got 300 FSB on my E6600. The same chip now does 3.8 in my P5W 24/7 and looking to tweak that to hopefully hit 4 although that may be a bit much to ask.

Ill look into all the options and take some screenshots to post when I get home tonight.

~jtjuska

jtjuska:

Did it work with DDR2 or is it more trouble than what it is worth. I have 512megs of Rambus so I have to buy new ram. If it would work and NOT overclock I could live with that for a little while. It would have to be a LOT faster than my P4 2.66 running at 3.1gigs.

Thank in advance for your reply.

I can't get mine to work with my DDR2, but i think its that the board won't push enough voltage for the Team. I will try it again tonight though to see if I can get it to work tonight .

~jtjuska

@jtjuska: Could you measure with a DMM the ram fet on the board (ground the ground side) with the Vdimm setting on normal and high?

jtjuska said:

crappy... something like low, normal and high if I recall correctly.
I never did try tweaking it to go past 300 bus, but everything on auto except locking down the standards like AGP, PCI etc. I got 300 FSB on my E6600. The same chip now does 3.8 in my P5W 24/7 and looking to tweak that to hopefully hit 4 although that may be a bit much to ask.

Ill look into all the options and take some screenshots to post when I get home tonight.

~jtjuska

Click to expand...

lol good luck gettin to 4ghz... my E6600 will do 3.8ghz very easily.. that last 200mhz the voltage needed to be increased exponentially more for every step than before 3.8...

BTW ECS makes a board with AGP DDR1 / DDR2 with full c2d support.. dunno how she overclocks.

BTW ECS makes a board with AGP DDR1 / DDR2 with full c2d support.. dunno how she overclocks.[/QUOTE]


The ECS P4M800PRO-M (V2.0) is a micro ATX board. I never thought about using one. Has to be better than what I have (skt478) - even if I don't overclock.

dudleycpa said:

BTW ECS makes a board with AGP DDR1 / DDR2 with full c2d support.. dunno how she overclocks.

Click to expand...

The ECS P4M800PRO-M (V2.0) is a micro ATX board. I never thought about using one. Has to be better than what I have (skt478) - even if I don't overclock.[/QUOTE]


lol this is what i plan on doing for my htpc... my 6600gt is WAY more then enough to produce 1080 video (actually 6600gt is the perfect card for a htpc IMO) and i have a gb of ddr PC 3200 ram... with the E4300 comming out i can see frys doing a sale like the do with the E6300... currently they will give you one of thoes boards, and a e6300 for 170 ! with a e4300 supposedly retailing at $163 (e6300 is 183) i would think frys would be having a sale SOON on a E4300 and ECS P4M800PRO-M for right around 140-150ish... HOW SWEET of an upgrade would that be from a 2.8C P4 northwood i am really hurting for more cpu power on my HTPC.

nd4spdbh2 said:

The ECS P4M800PRO-M (V2.0) is a micro ATX board. I never thought about using one. Has to be better than what I have (skt478) - even if I don't overclock.

Click to expand...

lol this is what i plan on doing for my htpc... my 6600gt is WAY more then enough to produce 1080 video (actually 6600gt is the perfect card for a htpc IMO) and i have a gb of ddr PC 3200 ram... with the E4300 comming out i can see frys doing a sale like the do with the E6300... currently they will give you one of thoes boards, and a e6300 for 170 ! with a e4300 supposedly retailing at $163 (e6300 is 183) i would think frys would be having a sale SOON on a E4300 and ECS P4M800PRO-M for right around 140-150ish... HOW SWEET of an upgrade would that be from a 2.8C P4 northwood i am really hurting for more cpu power on my HTPC.[/QUOTE]

I share your pain. 2.66 P4 for me. It was (and still is) a great chip - stock voltage for 3.1 (that's the max my motherboard will go).

I unfortunately have 512megs of Rambus memory so I need to go DDR2. I wonder if that would work (Couldn't find any info here on on the Egg). I would like to buy something good and use it later when I do the motherboard/video card/power supply upgrade. I was just going to do a "temp" motherboard upgrade with the ram and a processor. I have doubts that it will work.

nd4spdbh2 said:

lol good luck gettin to 4ghz... my E6600 will do 3.8ghz very easily.. that last 200mhz the voltage needed to be increased exponentially more for every step than before 3.8...

BTW ECS makes a board with AGP DDR1 / DDR2 with full c2d support.. dunno how she overclocks.

Click to expand...

This chip is good to 4.41 on Phase... my temps are well under what most have it and also I am running 3.8 with only 1.4 volts I see no reason why 1.55 or so wouldn't get me a CPUz Validation at 4. I think that I will need a different board though as this one doesn't seem to like hitting 430 FSB.

~jtjuska

sorry about forgetting to look at settings last night, got home a 1am and had to be up to get ready for work at 5:30... lol

nd4spdbh2 said:

lol good luck gettin to 4ghz... my E6600 will do 3.8ghz very easily.. that last 200mhz the voltage needed to be increased exponentially more for every step than before 3.8...

BTW ECS makes a board with AGP DDR1 / DDR2 with full c2d support.. dunno how she overclocks.

Click to expand...

Bus only goes to 300MHz on the ECS. Decent budget board for Pentium-Ds (my 805 is at 3.5GHz and stock voltage), but you're not going to get much of anything with a C2D. Only does single channel on the memory too.