Going Core 2 Duo, but what mobo/mem?

[pc_man_iac]

I am going Core 2 Duo, in less than a months time, but I am not quite sure what mobo/mem I want. I want at least 2 gigs of mem, and I was looking at the Asus P5W DH DELUXE motherboard, so I just wanted to see if you guys maybe had some suggestions that could help me decide which one/what to get

[Yatenkaiohu]

If anything get patriot ram! They are the best :D But yeah sorry I don't really know! I am going to be upgrading to conroe this Xmas.. So I need to figure out which mobo and ram to get.. I wanna stick with Patriot and Asus.. That's all I know : )

[Das Capitolin]

I am building a dozen Core 2 Duo systems right now, and OCZ is no good across the board; avoid it.

[Scott]

I am waiting and building mine in about 15-20 days. NVIDIA told me nForce 590 for Intel will be shipping to stores then. I will be using the new Mushkin Redline 8000 I got. You may want to wait and see what kind of results I find if you are not in a super hurry.

[pc_man_iac]

Well I am getting a package from intel in about 3weeks giv er take, so I can wait, but for the most part should I get the mobo, or what?? That is more of my main concern I was looking at Crosair xms ddr2 2x1024, so IDK i can wait for about 15-20 days to see if you have good luck with mushkin ram, but I still need to sell my old mobo/mem/cpu
FX 53
Gigabyte GAK8NXP-SLI
OCZ GX-XTC Dual Channel 2x1024 DDR 400
Wouldnt mind an offer lol, but yeah I need to sell that first, I have about $380 saved for the cpu stuff from intel, and just need to sell my old stuff

[Victor]

it seems like a lot of people are waiting for the nforce590. Let's hope it's released soon. I guess currently, intel 965 seems to be the best option until amd release their chipset.

[pc_man_iac]

what about intel 975, isnt that what the P5WDH is?

[markkleb]

If anything get patriot ram! They are the best :D But yeah sorry I don't really know! I am going to be upgrading to conroe this Xmas.. So I need to figure out which mobo and ram to get.. I wanna stick with Patriot and Asus.. That's all I know : )

This is what makes Bjorn3D so cool.

On another forum I posted a answer to "whats your favorite fan", I said AC8 and 12s were the best and they flamed me to hell. They had never even tried them and yet I was a moron for saying how much I loved the fans.

Dude if Patriot is ur fav, go for it.

[pc_man_iac]

I personnally love OCZ but i hear that there have been some troubles with ASUS and OCZ, so I was looking at Corsair cuz i thought/think ASUS and corsair are tighter than tight

[Kougar]

I've heard the term "lesser quality" being thrown around in regards to the memory chips OCZ and G.Skill use for most of their RAM, because it requires much higher voltages to run... In my opinion, regardless of the quality or the maker I'd suggest avoiding RAM that needs over 2v otherwise there will likely be problems simply getting into the BIOS the first time to give the RAM enough volts to work. There were very many uneeded RMA's of boards and RAM because often it wouldn't even post without the voltage being changed first.

Personally, my favorite is the new Abit AW9D-MAX. ZZF had it for $220 shipped, which is exactly MSRP before I dunno what happened and they raised the price $80 more... NewEgg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127011) sold out a 2nd time already as well.

Drawbacks would have to obviously be the single PCI slot and losing PCIe slots for multi-GPU setups, but by reports it will out-OC a P5W-DH. The Asus P5B is also a good board... it basically comes down to features, OCing, and price. :)

[Das Capitolin]

The ABIT AB9 Pro is a nice 965-based board, but it is very sensitive to which DDR2-800 it will accept. Just as Kougar mentioned, DDR2 should be at or below 2.0V out of the package, and OCZ is advertising one thing but requiring another. So far I have had very bad luck with them. Lets hope the G.Skill, GEIL and Corsair do better.

[pc_man_iac]

No Kougar how much OC'ing diff are wetalking between asus and abit, because I would be more than satisfied with an oc @2.5ghz-2.6ghzwith a core 2 duo b/c it will still outperform most chips out there and than I am hardly pushing it, but I also love the fact that it requires no F6/Floppy for a raid setup, and that it comes with a remote to turn it on and what not it seems like a cool feature, also the built in on board WiFi is also a plus, I am not completely familiar with that ABIT one but I will go read up on it now, and see if my canadian retailers can get it/ship it


After reading several things about the board i noticed some good things and some bad,
Pro
8pin power on mobo(Quad core support?)
cool diode thing
Abit quality, good over clocker

Con
1pci slot that will be covered(I need at least one to have wireless internet)
i feel not as nice a board layout as the P5W DH Deluxe
for same price point the ASus P5WDH has many more features that I not only think are cool but would use(Remote startup/watching movies use remote, driverless raid, onboard WiFi, will still overclock fairly well)

[Miles]

How much are you willing to spend for a motherboard and what do you want as far as features are concerned?

[pc_man_iac]

Realistically I am willing to spend $250-300 CAD for a mobo which is what those mobo's seem to be going for, I plan on ocing this system fairly high, So I am not going to cheap out when I get the rest of the parts(Mobo/Mem), and probably about the same on memory 250-300 CAD which is how much I could find Corsair XMS DDR2 1066 mem for at $305 CAD, so that is kinda what I was looking to spend, if oyu have some parts that are slightly used but work I would definately purchase them if that is what ur saying miles

[Miles]

Actually I was asking about price and functionality, so that I could help make the best recommendation possible for you. I've got what I consider to be the best motherboard available now for the Conroe, the Asus P5WDG2 WS Professional. It is similar in looks to the board that you are looking at.

[Kougar]

The AW9D-MAX is $35-60 (U$) cheaper than the P5W-DH, actually. I assume the savings would translate into CAD.

As I said it's a personal favorite although I haven't had the privilege to play with one personally. There are no concrete reviews of it yet and not many pre-reviews, and I wouldn't factor in raw numbers thrown around off other forums without good evidence so I can't tell you how much better it overclocks on average. But it does overclock better, it's cheaper, and I personally have no use for the wifi as it's not super-G capable anyway.

The Abit does use a EPS12v connector, which is a good plus over the P5W-DH. Also the AW9D has been tested with Kentsfield already and works fine with quad-cores.

All of that said, the P5W-DH may be the better all-around board however... Either board would be capable of getting a E6300 to ~2.6ghz, so that is a non-issue then. In all honestly, I think you personally would be better off with the ASUS P5W-DH, because as you said it offers more features that you would actually use.

[pc_man_iac]

That is a very balid point Kougar, and this si slightly off topic but how are you gaming with an ATI 7000 pci video card? And if it turns out that the
P5W DH-Deluxe does use up the topmost port on my case(with the WiFi) than I will have to get a different motherboard or somehow modify the pci plate where the watercooling is so it can go through and miss the power and the pipes

[werty316]

That is a very balid point Kougar, and this si slightly off topic but how are you gaming with an ATI 7000 pci video card? And if it turns out that the
P5W DH-Deluxe does use up the topmost port on my case(with the WiFi) than I will have to get a different motherboard or somehow modify the pci plate where the watercooling is so it can go through and miss the power and the pipes
Hes not gaming on that ATi 7000 ;)

[GIBSON]

Hes not gaming on that ATi 7000 ;)
As far as I know he's not gaming at all! :lol:

[Kougar]

I have been gaming with an ATI 9600XT, on my previous rig that I've used for the last three years... it is also plugged into this same APC 1100 backUPS Pro unit. ;)

Thanks to Miles, that slight problem will be corrected anyway though soon enough... ;)

[werty316]

I guess the idea of waiting for DX10 went out the window then huh.

[pc_man_iac]

you dont know for sure hey off topic this is about core 2 duo mobo and stuff lol

[Kougar]

I guess the idea of waiting for DX10 went out the window then huh.

Actually, it didn't. I don't think I should be saying anything more though... you'll see why soon enough. ;)

[GIBSON]

God damnit, kougar is getting DX10 from miles! :mrgreen: :lol:

[markkleb]

Dam, I knew I should have been nicer to Miles, lol....

[werty316]

God damnit, kougar is getting DX10 from miles! :mrgreen: :lol:
I think he got a 7800GT from Miles; just take a look at his sig ;)

[Kougar]

I better stick to not saything anything next time, I think... :lol:

And before the rumor gets a life of it's own, I WISH I was getting DX10 for free, good grief I can say those cards will not be cheap already. ;-)

[werty316]

$500-600 seems to be the trend for topend cards that are just released.

[markkleb]

I better stick to not saything anything next time, I think... :lol:

And before the rumor gets a life of it's own, I WISH I was getting DX10 for free, good grief I can say those cards will not be cheap already. ;-)

How did you get Quad DX-10 cards and a Conroe 7mhz cpu with 4 cores?

(how is that for a rumor):lol:

[GIBSON]

How did you get Quad DX-10 cards and a Conroe 7mhz cpu with 4 cores?

(now is that for a rumor):lol:
7 mhz eh, wanna bench against my pocket calculator :lol:

[Kougar]

How did you get Quad DX-10 cards and a Conroe 7mhz cpu with 4 cores?

(how is that for a rumor):lol:

Quad DX10 cards? That's only about, what, 300 x 4 + system watts= 1,600 watt PSU?

The power company said it wasn't legal for them to install a second line from the pole directly to my computer. Something about being to costly to upgrade their transformer... :(

[markkleb]

Quad DX10 cards? That's only about, what, 300 x 4 + system watts= 1,600 watt PSU?

The power company said it wasn't legal for them to install a second line from the pole directly to my computer. Something about being to costly to upgrade their transformer... :(

Yea sure Kougar ur secret is safe with me:wink: I know Miles just gave you one of those matter/antimatter power supplies....8-)

[Kougar]

LOL :lol:

[pc_man_iac]

ZOMG kougar nice rig lol, but seriously how has the 7800gt been for ya, u OC it to death yet?? Lets see your 3dmark score now

[Kougar]

You asked for it... let me find a stable 3.73ghz OC though first. :-P

[werty316]

Bah quite being lazy and run some bench now! hehe

[Kougar]

Well, since Gimp made the thread and asked too...

First run looks like only 4,655 in 3dmark06... CPU score alone was ~3,000 though. Card was still stock, I need to read up on how to OC nVidia cards now that Coolbits seems to have been worked around. ;) Took a brief glimpse around, seems funny I got a higher score than some 7900GT class users with AMD chips. The 7900GT is supposed to be a hair above a 7800GTX. :confused:

[pc_man_iac]

How many opf the 7900gt users had core 2 dup though oc'd to hell, even if they had an fx 62 they wouldnt stand a chance against ur cpu, no wonder you beat some 7900gt scores, but good to here how well you did

[Kougar]

Yeah... you do have a point. I guess I'll be getting 3dmark05 as well for those people that don't want the cpu factored into the score when I do my testing...

[pc_man_iac]

It will still be a factor it is a ridiculously powerful cpu no matter which way you slice and dice it

[Kougar]

Not nearly as much so. 3dmark06 is the first to incorporate the CPU scores into the overall score... 3dmark05 and those before it will test the CPU but they do not factor the CPU itself into their main system score. This is why, say for instance someone with my kind of rig can win a 3dmark06 bench, but the tables would turn back in favor of the better GPU based system with a 3dmark05 bench. ;)

[werty316]

If you want to compare video card scores/marks just run/compare the SM2.0 & 3.0 scores. Screw the overall score ;)