Vry's Official OMG 'What Do I Buy?' Thread!

Ok, so I know that a lot of threads have been popping up with folks confused as to what mobo they should buy for their conroe system....and iv been feeling left out - had this system unchanged for over a year now But, im a bit out of touch with whats what in the new C2D world...

So, iv finally grown board of the 'quirky' p5wdg2-ws thats currently powering my rig - its time for something new

So, rather than running round headless il outline kind of what im after/what my plans are, and hope that someone that knows what theyre talking about comes to my aid!!
Here goes:


Ok, first and foremost the mobo has to support conroe, preferably straight outa the box (ie not with a bios update that a mobo might not ship with). I dont have a conroe.....YET, but there is definately one on the cards

So...for the time being this mobo is going to have to perform well with my PD920 - any suggestions need to be excellent overclockers for conroe, but also do ok with PD (not so bothered about pent d clocking being not as good if the potential is there for some crazy C2D action). However, id really like a borad with as few bugs as possible...'quirks' are starting to p** me off, so non working features, buggy vcore etc would best be avoided!

CPU will be high end watercooled, so potential overclocks are high

Iv heard that some mobos dont do so well with ram OC'ing, and that this can hold back lower C2D's...I honestly cannot tell you what conroe il end up with, but itl be a E6600 OR LOWER... would be nice then if mobo had some scope for cheapy C2D's but not vital. Quad Core support (and clocking) would be a nice extra, as id like to keep this mobo for some time.

RAM to be used on this mobo will be, for the time being, the PQI pc5300 in my sig...never OC'd it, as my current mobo wont allow it :/ Scope is there for new ram if mine isnt gonna cut it.

I can genuinely say that il go sli or xfire about the same time as hell freezes over, so support for multi gpu is not important...i dont care if the mobo only has one pci express slot, so long as its x16! Thus the mobo chipset aint important to me....975, 965, 680/650...dont really mind - whatever does best.

GPU for the system will be something 8800 flavoured as soon as they come into my price range. It will be Aircooled, as full cover wblocks cost ££££.

The new mobo MUST have 2 easily accessible pci slots (ie mot right on top of gpu, as itl be on air and probably hot) - to be used for wireless card (270mbs pre-n, not bothered about on-mobo wifi) and sound card.

Preferably more than 4 sata headers, as I have 3 hdd's and have on the way 2 sata dvdrw's. IDE must die!!


MOST IMPORTANT - - My case runs the mobo inverted, so if the mobo has heatpipes on it they either need to be able to properly work upside down (and not flood the nb with heat), or the heatpipes need to be easily removable so I can try and sort out a new nb sink :/


Finally, id really like to make my mobo purchase from this selection here -
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Products.ASP?CatID=28&FilterCategories=394&Thumbnails=yes

so any suggestions have to be available at that store. Why there? cos their customer service is amazing

Sooooooooooo, now iv proved how fussy I am, can anyone help?

How much FSB your going to need REALLY depends on the CPU you want to run.

Upside, it looks like your website has a great selection of mobo's.

You could also try here http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ there customer service has been excelent for me. As for which board as greenmaaji said you need to pick the cpu first then we can look at which boards oc the best, i have an Abit AW9D-max lots of sata ports but i dont think its heatpipes will like being upside down also a bit fussy with memory, i run an X6800 24/7 @ 4.2 with this board and no problems. Also it does'nt like IDE drives.

As mentioned above CPU is more or less required to figure out what you'll want to run.

My CPU recommendations will be either be the E6400 or E6600. If you really want the extra cache the E6600 is the way to go of course. If you want to have some fun in the OC and don't mind the hit on the cache (unless you wait til the E6420 to come out this summer). Mind you you'll probably need new ram either way you look at it since to get good clocks you'll need 400FSB at least (unless you go for a mobo for a reason below) I've had both cpus, actually 2 of each. I've noticed very little difference in the apps I use from professional apps to games. But out of the ones I've owned really the E6400's clocked better for me.

Truely if you want alot of headroom in FSB you'll need to go either with the 965, RD600 or i680 chipsets. If you want a little headroom but you'll still get good clocks the 975 P5W-Deluxe is the way to go. Benifits of going the RD600 or i680 chipsets is the ram. They can run async to your CPU. So having your ram clocked at stock settings and your CPU could be well over that. 965 benifits from one of the highest if not the highest clocks around, and so far works very well with the quad core CPU's obtaining some of the higher clocks (at least the Asus P5B-Deluxe). 975 benifits from the slightly higher preformance clock for clock, but has a relatively low FSB ceiling around 425-430max typically.

Truely my recommendation stands as the Asus P5B-Deluxe (or Wifi version as well) It has really 7 internal SATA connectors and 1 E-SATA connector. The board is a tank and well suited for very high OC's without volt modding the board unless you run out of CPU voltage truely.

BTW: Can't break tradition You know what to get.

If you get the E6600 and the 975 P5W-Deluxe (the E6600 has the multi needed to match up with the mobo's max FSB) you can use the updividers in the bios to use your old ram (untill you can get some ram that can run 400mhz frequency or so to run 1:1 with the CPU).

That would be the plan to delay the £££££ investment in new ram.

ok guys, well iv been having a look at some C2D's, and I suspect when I come to buy a conroe itl be EITHER an e6400, this new 4mb e64xx or an e6600.... nothing lower than the 6400 anyways...
Ram can be replaced at same time as the c2d is bought later in the summer, so forget my current ddr2 in the purchase decision...
on a side note, what is good ddr2 for that selection of 3 cpu's?

Seems then the p5b-dlx wifi (no non wifi from that site) is the current forerunner....or what about this asus commando thingy?
Is p5b-dlx a considerably better OC'er than the p5w-dh? if its not as good for quad core i dont wanna cut of potential upgrade routes...

Deathman20 - looks like tradition may well win for mobo, cpu and maybe even gpu too

The Commando is worth looking at these days...at least in certain stores in the states, it's price is right between the P5B Deluxe and P5W DH, and it has more voltage options than both, along with 8 phase power.

hmmm, the mobo layout on both the p5b and the commando put one of my two pci cards right next to the gpu....
... are there any major issues with the commando? asides from the fact that il have to pull the heatpipe arrangement off and buy a cooler for both chipset areas :/

choices seem to be between the p5b-dlx wifi, the p5w-dh and the commando..... gah decisions!!

Vrykyl said:

hmmm, the mobo layout on both the p5b and the commando put one of my two pci cards right next to the gpu....
I think the p5w-dh is a no go in case i end up being a skinflint and getting a cheap c2d... are there any major issues with the commando? asides from the fact that il have to pull the heatpipe arrangement off and buy a cooler for both chipset areas :/

Click to expand...

The heatpipes work inverted on the P5B-Deluxe people have tested it. Really as long as you pull of the crappy logo cover on it its fine, and if you want put a small fan on it.

Truelly for the GPU through you want to run that in the slot closest to the CPU so you won't be eating any PCI slot space. The bottom PCI-E Slot is 4x.

yeah, sorry what I meant was that if i install my 2 pci cards, one in the p5b's lowest slot, and the next one in the 2nd lowest slot (above the black pcie slot) its going to be really close to the top of any dual slot cooled gpu in the primary pcie x16 slot :/
the p5wdh on the other hand has two pci slots right at the bottom, well away from the main gpu area.... however the p5wdh isnt anywhere near as good an overclocker from what i can tell in reviews....its also the most expensive of the three im looking at, p5b being cheapest...

you sure the heatpipes work inverted? says on the asus site that they cant run upside down...? just dont want it to toast

Vrykyl said:

you sure the heatpipes work inverted? says on the asus site that they cant run upside down...? just dont want it to toast

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I'll look around but I swear i've seen running them upside down.

are there any benefits to the 680i boards apart from sli?
also, do any of the asus boards above have any issues with pci lock or HDD corruption...with this p5wdg2ws im constantly paranoid about corrupting my discs....

the only reason besides sli i can see for getting the 650/680 mobos is the fsb unlocking of the ram/cpu busses. this way you can oc just the cpu and leave the ram running at its rated speed, then go back and start ocing the ram.

not enough to justify the extra £60 then...

The P5B-Deluxe and P5W-DH have the Matrix Raid

BTW The PCI lock works perfectly on really any of these boards that I know of. If OCing the PCI-E bus certain things will start causing issues after certain speeds but I wouldn't worry about touching that.

does matrix raid need a floppy drive to set up? as i dont have one...and havent for some time... :/

well irc you need to install the drivers for the use of matrix raid during the install of windows. you should be able to slipstream the drivers. i still have not used slipstream or know where to dl it im just suggesting what i have read as idea.

Evilsizer said:

well irc you need to install the drivers for the use of matrix raid during the install of windows. you should be able to slipstream the drivers. i still have not used slipstream or know where to dl it im just suggesting what i have read as idea.

Click to expand...

Well there is suppositly easy raid ports on the board that don't need drivers. Not sure how that works though. With XP I had a horrible time getting it running without the floppy. I did have a slip streamed copy of XP that did work but I lost it and when it took me 3 days to figure out how to get it to load the drivers I wasn't going to do that again.

Vista no drivers needed its all in the install, besides you don't need a stinking floppy to load drivers! WOOT.

The easy raid ports work for the other raid, you do have to slipstream the drivers with nLite to get away with not loading them with a floppy.

And the commando has it as well.

think iv settled on the pb5-deluxe...the commando just hasnt been out long enough for my liking yet, plus i cant take the risk of the commando heatpipes not working inverted...as unlike the p5b where heat will just end up back at the nb (where theres a sizeable hsink) on the commando itl toast the southbridge....
id really like the p5wdh purely for the fact that it has two pci slots at the bottom, well away from the gpu...but i dont want to loose overclockabilty that the p5b has :/ wish theyd put the pcie x1 higher up and clustered 2 pci slots at the base...or just left out the 2nd pci-e slot at all...its not like its any use anyway!!!

Next question is, if I buy the p5b-dlx is it worth me using this fabled matrix raid for my two 80gb 7200.9 drives? nothing fancy, just straight raid 0...or are they 'slow' enough that i may as well use them as single drives...?