[rblaha]

Time to upgrade and I've 95% settled on a E6700. Any suggestions on motherboard and 2 Gb of memory? I've had good luck in the past with Asus and Corsair but am open to any and all suggestions.

This will be strictly a gaming rig and my budget, although not unlimited, allows for top shelf components. I'm not an overclocker so I'm looking for max performance out of the box.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by rblaha

Time to upgrade and I've 95% settled on a E6700. Any suggestions on motherboard and 2 Gb of memory? I've had good luck in the past with Asus and Corsair but am open to any and all suggestions.

This will be strictly a gaming rig and my budget, although not unlimited, allows for top shelf components. I'm not an overclocker so I'm looking for max performance out of the box.

Thanks in advance for any help.

I'm having quite good luck with my memory and board combo. If you want to save soem moeny its worth considering. also, I'd go with a 6600.

Board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138037
Ram: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820231087

[rblaha]

Thanks for the suggestions. Why a 6600 instead of the 6700? Less money of course but other than that?

[stags]

Same amount of L2 catch and can be overclocked to a 6700 in about 5 seconds. Put that extra cpu money towards some other part of the system.

[batboy]

I know you said you weren't an overclocker, but the E6600 and E6700 is the same exact processor, just different multiplier. You can get the E6600 and do a very mild O/C with stock cooling to make it run at E6700 speeds. How cool is that?

[rblaha]

That's very cool, thanks. Does that mean the mild overclock is simply raising the multiplier?

Any thoughts on motherboard and memory?

[DeepSky]

Originally Posted by rblaha

That's very cool, thanks. Does that mean the mild overclock is simply raising the multiplier?

Any thoughts on motherboard and memory?

No, the multiplier is locked. You would be able to run at the 6700 speed by changing the Bus Speed up until the bus speed * the multiplier = the core speed of the 6700.

As for a motherboard I've been advertising Asus's P5B line since I got mine. I've never dealt with a better board in my life. If you go for one of these just check the Qualified Vendors List for memory thats best compatible with it. (I didn't and now i'm stuck with only a gig of RAM for now).

[rblaha]

Which P5B would you recommend, there's several. And, what's the consensus on the Asus nForce 680i boards?

[batboy]

The Asus P5B Deluxe is probably the better version of that series.

Get the 680i if you want SLI. That's about the only reason I can think of though.

[dominick32]

What they all said. The only reason I bought my 6700 was for the 10X multi. If your not extreme cooling the processor, a maximum overclock on E6600 or E6700 is going to be either 9 X 400 (6600), or 10 X 360 (6700) with a good set of DDR2-800 and 4-4-4 timings. So, in your case I would definitely buy the 6600.

I initially had a 6600, but decided to purchase the 6700 for the 10X multi. You do not need it.

Good luck on your Conroe build brother.

Dom

[ozziegn]

most definitely get the 680i board from eVGA. this board overclocks very well.

[batboy]

I can point out over a dozen recent threads here on the forum where people are having trouble with the 680i mobos. With such an expensive price tag, you'd think they'd be better.

[Gautam]

Originally Posted by batboy

Get the 680i if you want SLI. That's about the only reason I can think of though.

QFT.

I don't get the hubbub over these for any other reason either.

[i686]

hi'
could someone explain to me why it' recommended to take a p5w-dh with an E6600 rather than a p5b?
anyway, as I understood the 6600 has the fsb multiplier fixed,
so, 9x400 give a good 3.6ghz, just to keep the ram at 1:1 ...?

what a p5b has less than a p5w-DH for a 6600?

i686

ps; may be silly question

[batboy]

The E6600 has an upward locked multiplier, but most of the good overclocking motherboards allow you to lower the multiplier

Yes, if you can get the E6600 anywhere near 400 FSB, just use the 1:1 memory ratio and as tight of timings as possible.

Ok, P5W DH (i975X chipset) vs. P5B (i965 chipset). The P5W DH will give you a little bit better performance (at least in some benchmarks), but the P5B will run a little higher FSB. With the E6600, you don't need super high FSB, so most people that can afford it will get the P5W DH because of the performance factor. Also, if you ever plan on running Crossfire, the P5W DH is the better choice because the PCI-E both run at 8X (think the second PCI-E slot on the P5B might be 4X under Crossfire or something like that). If you plan on running a single vid card and your budget is starting to get strained, then the P5B is certainly an excellent compromise.

[fabulouscoops]

P5B family has P965 chipset
P5B ICH8, (No Matrix RAID support), 6 SATA , 1 PCI-e 16x slot
P5B-E ICH8R, 8 SATA, 1 PCI-e 16x slot
P5B Dlx ICH8R, 2 PCI-e 16x slots
P5B Dlx WiFi ICH8R, 2 PCI-e 16x slots, built-in WiFi card.

P5W DH has 975X chipset, ICH7R, 2 PCI-e 16x slots

Unless you have two video cards, the P5B-E seems like the best choice if you want to take advantage of Matrix RAID.

[dominick32]

Originally Posted by i686

hi'
could someone explain to me why it' recommended to take a p5w-dh with an E6600 rather than a p5b?
anyway, as I understood the 6600 has the fsb multiplier fixed,
so, 9x400 give a good 3.6ghz, just to keep the ram at 1:1 ...?

To answer your question. I personally think if you are a heavy overclocker the P5B-Deluxe will be a better choice for stability and frequency (FSB). But it is argued that the 975 DH will give you slightly better overall performance clock for clock. It is very arguable and I would still choose the P5B...

As far as us recommending he buy a 6600 over a 6700 and to answer your question. Most people do not want, or cannot afford uber priced DDR2-800 and DDR2-1000 ram for $250 to $500 so they choose to buy more affordable ram with tighter timings such as a DDR2-667 Team Xtreem or a Geil.

For this type of ram, you will be overclocking your 667 ram to 800 mhz, and still trying to keep the stock tighter timings. So, technically if you had an overclock on your 6600 of lets say 9 X 400 (3.6GHz) your CPU would be excellent and your ram would be overclocked rather nicely at tight timings. It would be the perfect AIR setup.

Regards,
Dom

[ozziegn]

Originally Posted by batboy

I can point out over a dozen recent threads here on the forum where people are having trouble with the 680i mobos. With such an expensive price tag, you'd think they'd be better.

I think a lot of those peoples' problems can or could be related to human error because I've had zero problems with my recently built E6600/680i system. absolutely zero problems.

one of the problems I think people are having problems with is that newest P23 BIOS that came out not too long ago. it's supposed to fix a lot of issues and yet I think it's causing more trouble than what it's supposed to fix. thats why I decided to keep the stock BIOS that came on my card which to this day runs flawlessly.

[batboy]

Glad your 680i board is working ok. Regardless the reason, lots of people are struggling with this chipset when trying to overclock. I'm guessing it's a little complex or the BIOS is still immature, or maybe a little of both. Perhaps it's more of a "tweaker's" mobo that should not be recommended to beginners, I don't know.

[ozziegn]

Originally Posted by batboy

Perhaps it's more of a "tweaker's" mobo that should not be recommended to beginners, I don't know.

a "tweaker's" board? I think hardly not. otherwise there's no way in hell I would be getting the great results with mine like I am.

I would have to say that this board has to be one of the easiest setups I've ever used. now, you want to talk about a "tweaker's" board? take a look at the older DFi NF4 Ultra-D board for the AMD s939 platform. I tried that route once and boy oh boy what a PITA that was.

I'd never seen so many damn BIOS options in my whole life. thank God those days are long gone.