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I need mobo shoppin' help! :D

naokiakira

New Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2005
Messages
57 (0.01/day)
System Name ACER Aspire E380
Processor AMD Althon x2 5000+
Motherboard ACER EM61SM (stock mobo, came with the system)
Cooling Stock
Memory 2GB Samsung PC2-5300
Video Card(s) eVGA 9600 GT KO
Storage Hitachi 300gb
Display(s) Viewsonic VX2235wm 22"
Case Acer E380
Audio Device(s) Integrated Realtek HD audio
Power Supply OCZ StealthXtreme 650w
Software Vista 32bit
Benchmark Scores 3Dmark06: 9233 PCmark05: 6749
As the title says I'm in need of some suggestions, or perhaps something to steer myself into the right direction. I'm wanting to upgrade my pc, new Mobo, cpu, ram etc. The thing is, I'm a complete newbie when it comes to anything related to buying a motherboard, never done it before. I'm on a budget, and I haven't really looked at anything over $160-170 (canadian). Basically, looking for something thats a great bang for your buck, since I'd be looking at overclocking of course. I've heard the name P5Q's from Asus tossed around a bit, and they'd be in my price range, but I'm open for suggestions since I was originally looking at something from Evga since I get my GPU's from them (I beleive they have 750i's within my budget). So, any suggestions on make or model to look at or anything I should look for when shopping for a motherboard would be awesome :)
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2008
Messages
367 (0.06/day)
Processor Intel E8400 @ 3.6ghz (1.25v)
Motherboard Evga 680i SLI
Cooling ASUS Arctic Square
Memory 4GB GSKILL PI Black (2x2GB) 4-4-4-12 @ 1.8v
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 275 Superclocked
Storage WD 320GB (B3 revision)/WD 160GB
Display(s) Acer X241W
Power Supply PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750w
Software Windows 7 Ultimate x64
The Evga 750i's are great boards. But, if you are planning on not SLI-ing later on, or switching to an ATI card, I would go with a p45 chipset board, such as the Asus P5Q Pro. p45's oc great, and that one is a great deal price/performance wise.

With ram, I would without a doubt pick up Gskill's (2x2gb) PI Black ram (DDR2 800). They can oc quite well, and can run 4-4-4-12 timings at 1.8v!

But, if I was you, I would pick up the P5Q Pro instead of a Nvidia chipset. If you ever need better graphics, you probably would be better off upgrading to a new card anyway. Intel's chipsets rock when it come to ocing and performance, performance, and power consumption ratio.

:toast:
 

naokiakira

New Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2005
Messages
57 (0.01/day)
System Name ACER Aspire E380
Processor AMD Althon x2 5000+
Motherboard ACER EM61SM (stock mobo, came with the system)
Cooling Stock
Memory 2GB Samsung PC2-5300
Video Card(s) eVGA 9600 GT KO
Storage Hitachi 300gb
Display(s) Viewsonic VX2235wm 22"
Case Acer E380
Audio Device(s) Integrated Realtek HD audio
Power Supply OCZ StealthXtreme 650w
Software Vista 32bit
Benchmark Scores 3Dmark06: 9233 PCmark05: 6749
Yeah I'm happy with Nvidia right now though I don't see myself going with an SLI solution anytime soon, though I may consider using my 9600gt as a physics card while I use the upgrade as the main GPU (however that works exactly :p). In terms of CPU, yeah, intel all the way, no question there. I'd probably be looking at a Quad for that.
 
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