need help with a board Q6600.

sorry to make another post but i've been reading and i'm getting more and more confused honestly. there's just to many choices.

so i'm probably going to go Q6600. quad core power, overclockable so you get bang for the buck. perfect. pretty much settled on 4GB of ram. seems to be the sweet spot. enough to handle about anything specially when i'll be dual booting XPSP2 and linux. and therein lies the problem.

i need something not only linux compatible but favorabley compatible. i need firewire to work in linux either through on board or through my $10 PCI card so i can use my big expensive soundcard.

linux is also pushing me into Nvidia for graphics so crossfire isn't going to be in my future.

as far as my use. i'm not a heavy gamer. i play oblvion and similar RPG style games frequently. every once in awhile i'll fire up a shooter but gaming is more for murdering time than an actual hobby. oblivion aside. i'm addicted.

since i'm going with a fairly dated processor i'd like to be able to overclock a fair bit and use more modern memory. i'll be on air cooling as water isn't really going to happen for me budget wise and it would add time to my build.

can't wait for new hardware to come out as my system is officially dead as of now. selling a motorcycle helmet and boots to make it happen. immediate budget is $500ish if i were to rush things. that's mobo, memory, cpu, heatsink. i can survive on my current ATI x700 and 2GB ram for the time being but i'd rather not.

sorry for the wall of text.

Well, if you're on a budget you could go with a Gigabyte P35 of some sort, meaning DS3/DS3L/DS3R - whatever fits you. Throw an OCZ Vendetta 2 on the Q6600 and 3.6GHz is nearly guaranteed. As a GPU, I'd take the HD4850 over a 9800GTX(+, ++, SSC or whatever) anyday because of the felt image quality, which is superior imho (and in 2 of my GTX-owning friends opinion, too).
Don't bother with SLI/CF. For lower budgets, look at HD3870 or 8800GT, but again, I kind of don't like the nVidia's 8/9 series. Add 4GB of RAM and don't skimp on the PSU! Corsair and PCP&C are top, check back for other brands (some have really bad ones).

Video Drivers are actually quite good for Linux, a classmate switched his nV card for an HD3xxx because he was tired of restarting X11 everytime he changed something in Berryl or Compiz or whatever and the nV driver didn't take too kindly to multi-monitor switching attempts. Or whatever. Though ATi drivers are proprietary, afaik they're gonna open-source them by 2009 or something like that. I haven't worked with Linux in nearly 2 years, so forgive me if I'm not exactly in the know. I'd say it's worth to at least check what ATi has to offer.

Recap:
- Gigabyte P35 DS3(L?)
- Q6600 /w OCZ Vendetta (Xigmatek HDTS1283 or the Rosewill clone)
- 4GB RAM (Corsair, Mushkin, OCZ)
- HD 4850 (or 9800GTX?)
- 550W Corsair PSU (550W should be enough, Corsair is quiet and at least in the EU cheaper than competitors)

Hope that helped at least a bit. Maybe, if your PSU is good, you could keep it.

Alastayr said:

Well, if you're on a budget you could go with a Gigabyte P35 of some sort, meaning DS3/DS3L/DS3R - whatever fits you. Throw an OCZ Vendetta 2 on the Q6600 and 3.6GHz is nearly guaranteed. As a GPU, I'd take the HD4850 over a 9800GTX(+, ++, SSC or whatever) anyday because of the felt image quality, which is superior imho (and in 2 of my GTX-owning friends opinion, too).
Don't bother with SLI/CF. For lower budgets, look at HD3870 or 8800GT, but again, I kind of don't like the nVidia's 8/9 series. Add 4GB of RAM and don't skimp on the PSU! Corsair and PCP&C are top, check back for other brands (some have really bad ones).

Video Drivers are actually quite good for Linux, a classmate switched his nV card for an HD3xxx because he was tired of restarting X11 everytime he changed something in Berryl or Compiz or whatever and the nV driver didn't take too kindly to multi-monitor switching attempts. Or whatever. Though ATi drivers are proprietary, afaik they're gonna open-source them by 2009 or something like that. I haven't worked with Linux in nearly 2 years, so forgive me if I'm not exactly in the know. I'd say it's worth to at least check what ATi has to offer.

Recap:
- Gigabyte P35 DS3(L?)
- Q6600 /w OCZ Vendetta (Xigmatek HDTS1283 or the Rosewill clone)
- 4GB RAM (Corsair, Mushkin, OCZ)
- HD 4850 (or 9800GTX?)
- 550W Corsair PSU (550W should be enough, Corsair is quiet and at least in the EU cheaper than competitors)

Hope that helped at least a bit. Maybe, if your PSU is good, you could keep it.

Click to expand...

thanks for the great post. i didn't know corsair was into the PSU game.

as for ATI. i keep hearing over and over that just about anything ATI is bad news bears for linux. i have an x700xt that doesn't play well as is so i'm looking for a pretty bonafide answer on that front. been looking at 8800GTX's and possibly 9800's depending on what shakes loose for cash. i'm not a fanboy in the least, i just don't want to deal with returns and the hassles that correspond with a purchasing mistake.

back on topic though, i've been looking at boards and the Asus P5's seem to be very awesome. i think i was looking at the DELUXE model for like $210 american. no wifi but linux prolly won't play with it anyway so no sense in paying for it. still not settled on a chipset. i don't need crossfire specifically but i'd like a fast system that can take advantage of an overclockable CPU as well.

on that note: is there anywhere i can look for guaranteed stepping CPU's? i've heard that G0's OC well for the Q6600 and i'd like to get one or at least one that i know will clock well.

If you want, you could ask around in some linux forums how they think of ATi cards, but you might want to stick with nVidia if you feel more comfortable with them.

I don't have any experience with Asus and Linux (and the little experience I've had with Asus in general was pretty bad...) but you might want to stick to some linux forums.
What I always hear and read is that Asus boards tend to be picky with different RAM. So don't buy MDT or Crucial.

And as far as steppings, some e-tailers list the stepping, others not. That's simply the way it is. There shouldn't be any older (B3) steppings out there anymore, but still.

Alastayr said:

If you want, you could ask around in some linux forums how they think of ATi cards, but you might want to stick with nVidia if you feel more comfortable with them.

I don't have any experience with Asus and Linux (and the little experience I've had with Asus in general was pretty bad...) but you might want to stick to some linux forums.
What I always hear and read is that Asus boards tend to be picky with different RAM. So don't buy MDT or Crucial.

And as far as steppings, some e-tailers list the stepping, others not. That's simply the way it is. There shouldn't be any older (B3) steppings out there anymore, but still.

Click to expand...

i have 4GB of G-Skill on my wishlist. i'm not completely set on a board though so we'll see what happens.

I bought an open box asus p5e for 160$ or so from newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131219R then flashed it to a maximus rampage formula and I get no vdroop at all with loadline calibration with my q6600. I could hit 4 ghz stable if I had the cooling to support it. Now I'm at 3.6 ghz with 1.4v I have no idea on asus linux support but I think they do support it.

keninishna said:

I bought an open box asus p5e for 160$ or so from newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131219R then flashed it to a maximus rampage formula and I get no vdroop at all with loadline calibration with my q6600. I could hit 4 ghz stable if I had the cooling to support it. Now I'm at 3.6 ghz with 1.4v I have no idea on asus linux support but I think they do support it.

Click to expand...

so then the price difference with this CPU and some others is basically the amount of L2 cache?

emericanchaos said:

so then the price difference with this CPU and some others is basically the amount of L2 cache?

Click to expand...

depends on the what other cpu the newer 45nm quads have a lot more l2 cache but unfortunately they don't overclock very far past 420 fsb. They have some other things like sse4 and some other minor optimizations but yeah basically more l2 cache.