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LGA 775 Motherboard – what would you choose if you were me?

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Wai_Wai

Registered
Joined
Jun 22, 2008
LGA 775 Motherboard – what would you choose if you were me?

My temporary list for my new computer:
CPU: Intel E2180
RAM: 2GB or 2GBx2; DDR2 667 or 800
Motherboard: not decided yet. Socket LGA 775
HDD: Western Digital WD6400AAKS (640GB, SATA2)
DVD-RW: not decided yet.
Display card: not decided yet. Perhaps HD2600Pro
Monitor: not decided yet. Two cheap 1680x1050 monitors
1 Modem card
1 FDD
1 Keyboard
1 Mouse
1 Speaker
Operating System: Windows XP Pro​


Info

CPU & RAM:
I'm going to overclock my E2xxx using its stock cooler only to about 3Ghz.
FSB 333 x 9 multiplier = 2997Mhz. So the speed of my DDR2 RAM only needs to be 333 x 2 = 667Mhz. Am I right?

LGA 775 Motherboard:
Here's my initial (temporary) criteria for my motherboard:
  • It has to be LGA 775 (to fit my E2xxx CPU). Support dual/quad-core CPU. Support 45nm/65nm CPU
  • 4 DIMMs. Support DDR2 (and preferred DDR3). Support at least 8GB (preferred 16GB). Prefer to support dual channel
  • preferred in-built sound card & LAN card

Questions:

Motherboard
1.What motherboard chipset should I get? The performance results shown from benchmarks appear to tell me that the difference is very minor, so I would better pick the cheapest motherboard. Agree?
2.I would like to get 2 PCIe slots just in case if I want to go for dual graphic card in future. But it's only a future-proof act. I don't have such a need anytime in near future. So if it's cheap to get 2 PCIe. I will do.
Either PCIe 2.0 or PCIe 1.0 is fine. The real-world difference should be very minor.
I believe I need 2 PCIe x16 if I go for dual graphic card, right?
3.What brand of motherboard should I get? Any recommendation?
What LGA 775 motherboard should I buy?

RAM
4.What brand of RAM should I buy? Is there any difference? Or should I just go for the cheapest?
5.What speed of RAM should I buy? I think I shouldn't buy DDR2 800 since I don't need such a high speed. What's more, DDR2 667 and 800 don't have any noticeable real-world difference. I should stick with DDR2 667. Agree?

DVD-RW
6.I'm going to get a DVD-RW drive too. But should I get a PATA / SATA / SATA2 drive? Any advice?

Thank you. :)
 
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