LGA 775 Motherboard – what would you choose if you were me?

[Wai_Wai]

LGA 775 Motherboard – what would you choose if you were me?

My temporary list for my new computer:

CPU: Intel E2180
RAM: 2GB or 2GBx2; DDR2 667 or 800
Motherboard: not decided yet. Socket LGA 775
HDD: Western Digital WD6400AAKS (640GB, SATA2)
DVD-RW: not decided yet.
Display card: not decided yet. Perhaps HD2600Pro
Monitor: not decided yet. Two cheap 1680x1050 monitors
1 Modem card
1 FDD
1 Keyboard
1 Mouse
1 Speaker
Operating System: Windows XP Pro​

Info

CPU & RAM:
I'm going to overclock my E2xxx using its stock cooler only to about 3Ghz.
FSB 333 x 9 multiplier = 2997Mhz. So the speed of my DDR2 RAM only needs to be 333 x 2 = 667Mhz. Am I right?

LGA 775 Motherboard:
Here's my initial (temporary) criteria for my motherboard:

• It has to be LGA 775 (to fit my E2xxx CPU). Support dual/quad-core CPU. Support 45nm/65nm CPU
• 4 DIMMs. Support DDR2 (and preferred DDR3). Support at least 8GB (preferred 16GB). Prefer to support dual channel
• preferred in-built sound card & LAN card

Questions:

Motherboard
1.What motherboard chipset should I get? The performance results shown from benchmarks appear to tell me that the difference is very minor, so I would better pick the cheapest motherboard. Agree?
2.I would like to get 2 PCIe slots just in case if I want to go for dual graphic card in future. But it's only a future-proof act. I don't have such a need anytime in near future. So if it's cheap to get 2 PCIe. I will do.
Either PCIe 2.0 or PCIe 1.0 is fine. The real-world difference should be very minor.
I believe I need 2 PCIe x16 if I go for dual graphic card, right?
3.What brand of motherboard should I get? Any recommendation?
What LGA 775 motherboard should I buy?

RAM
4.What brand of RAM should I buy? Is there any difference? Or should I just go for the cheapest?
5.What speed of RAM should I buy? I think I shouldn't buy DDR2 800 since I don't need such a high speed. What's more, DDR2 667 and 800 don't have any noticeable real-world difference. I should stick with DDR2 667. Agree?

DVD-RW
6.I'm going to get a DVD-RW drive too. But should I get a PATA / SATA / SATA2 drive? Any advice?

Thank you.

 

[FilipM]

Motherboard

You can't go wrong with P35 with some exceptions here and there, or even better, get a P43/P45!

P43
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138122
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130185

*One of those, not both, lol!*

I think the Biostar might be better.

If you're going dual, get at least a P45 or X38/X48 if you're going the ATI way, or if going the nVidia way, a 750i. You don't really need to GFX's.

RAM

DDR2 800, not the 667, Ram isn't that expensive these days...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134012

Graphics card

2600Pro is old and slow, and you're gonna be disapointed out of it after a while. Better get one of these or something higher - nVidia 9600GSO

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143135

CPU

If you can get an Intel E7200, that will be really good

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115052



The rest is on your choice, and for that GFX the 9600GSO, best will be a 19" widescreen with a resolution of 1440 x 900. The 2600 Pro, isn't capable of anything.

Also, how much are you willing to spend?


BTW, welcome to the forum!

 

[calvary1980]

DS3R, Blood Iron and IP35-E all great boards with successful overclocks with that processor. and you are correct with the memory calc. if you want a quality kit here is a good deal but you must order now so you can send in the rebate if not here is a cheap kit that can overclock very well.

- Christine

 

[Wai_Wai]

Hello. Thanks for the welcome.

Purpose of My Build
There is no specific budget but I want to make a budget build. However I don't mind spending more if it's proved to be well-spent. I want the price I pay and the performance (benefits) I get is proportionally related. Otherwise I would go for the cheaper.

It's a working PC. I need to receive like 10+ streaming data every day. This means it requires much RAM. So I'm getting 2x2GB although the last 1GB would be largely wasted due to Windows XP.
Video/audio: I would like to do some moderate video/audio editing and recording too.
Gaming: I play very few games. As long as I'm able to run modern games in 1024x768 or 1280x1024 on the *lowest*, it's perfectly fine.

Motherboard
I have a tendency to go on a budget because I don't see any big difference between the low-end and the mid-end.

So my current budget for motherboard is about US$40-80.
But if dearer motherboard proves its usefulness, I don't mind spending like US$20-30 more.
I'm thinking about a very cheap motherboard like P965 / 975X / 945GC / nForce 4 or 5 / 610i etc. I don't see much performance difference for the dearer motherboards like P35 / P45 / 650i / 750i.
I'm only a budget overclocker who only uses stock coolers to do overclocking. I do overclocking because I can get more by paying less.
Thus why not go for the cheaper ones? Any advice?

RAM
Price is not a concern unless I'm very price-conscious want to save a few bucks at best. However I'm going to underclock my RAM to 333 to keep consistent with my FSB.

If I use DDR2 800, the FSB has to be 400. I will get 2800 if I use 7x multiplier or 3200 if 8x multiplier.
I would not be able to overclock to 3200 so I'm forced to use 7x multiplier.
A slower CPU is going to hurt more than a slower RAM.

So it seems it isn't worth getting a faster RAM in my case. Did I miss anything? What do you think?

Multi-GPU
I don't really know much about multi-GPU, Crossfire or SLI. As far as I know, multi-GPU is only useful for games, isn't it? If so, do I benefit from getting two cheap graphic cards? My gaming need is very low and I don't expect it to change in the year to come, so multi-GPU should be pointless for me.

DVD-RW
There's another thought. Since a DVD-RW can't really use up that much of bandwidth, a PATA is more than enough. So why not saving a SATA port for something which actually need it (eg HDDs, blue-ray drive in future)? What do you think?

Is there any disadvantages of using PATA-based DVD-RW drive?

 

[dark2099]

From what I have read, the P43/45 series chipsets are can be very difficult to overclock. The following board I have read great things about.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136034

 

[JrRacinFan]

Hello. Thanks for the welcome.

Purpose of My Build
There is no specific budget but I want to make a budget build. However I don't mind spending more if it's proved to be well-spent. I want the price I pay and the performance (benefits) I get is proportionally related. Otherwise I would go for the cheaper.

It's a working PC. I need to receive like 10+ streaming data every day. This means it requires much RAM. So I'm getting 2x2GB although the last 1GB would be largely wasted due to Windows XP.
Video/audio: I would like to do some moderate video/audio editing and recording too.
Gaming: I play very few games. As long as I'm able to run modern games in 1024x768 or 1280x1024 on the *lowest*, it's perfectly fine.

An HD3650/HD2600XT/8600GT would serve you very well if all your planning on doing is gaming @ 1024x768. Due to being budget, have you thought of doing an AMD build?

Motherboard
I have a tendency to go on a budget because I don't see any big difference between the low-end and the mid-end.

So my current budget for motherboard is about US$40-80.
But if dearer motherboard proves its usefulness, I don't mind spending like US$20-30 more.
I'm thinking about a very cheap motherboard like P965 / 975X / 945GC / nForce 4 or 5 / 610i etc. I don't see much performance difference for the dearer motherboards like P35 / P45 / 650i / 750i.
I'm only a budget overclocker who only uses stock coolers to do overclocking. I do overclocking because I can get more by paying less.
Thus why not go for the cheaper ones? Any advice?

Regarding the AMD Build-
Here are my budget thoughts;

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138105
Processor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103194

Also, here is the Intel build I have been thinking of as well;

Motherboard:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138122
Processor:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115052

Remember that Intel build can potentially be twice as fast as the AMD build.

RAM
Price is not a concern unless I'm very price-conscious want to save a few bucks at best. However I'm going to underclock my RAM to 333 to keep consistent with my FSB.

If I use DDR2 800, the FSB has to be 400. I will get 2800 if I use 7x multiplier or 3200 if 8x multiplier.
I would not be able to overclock to 3200 so I'm forced to use 7x multiplier.
A slower CPU is going to hurt more than a slower RAM.

So it seems it isn't worth getting a faster RAM in my case. Did I miss anything? What do you think?

You can overclock ram so what your saying in that paragraph does not truly apply. I mean my ram is rated for PC6400 800mhz 5-5-5-13. I have had it overclocked up to 1040mhz 5-6-6-18.

EDIT: With Intel based processors, they love high ram frequencies. Tighter timings does help but not much. Almost the opposite of an AMD overclock, the tight timings helps but if you can push for higher frequency then so be it.

Multi-GPU
I don't really know much about multi-GPU, Crossfire or SLI. As far as I know, multi-GPU is only useful for games, isn't it? If so, do I benefit from getting two cheap graphic cards? My gaming need is very low and I don't expect it to change in the year to come, so multi-GPU should be pointless for me.

The only time when multi-gpu can be in consideration, is only if your getting the video cards cheap enough to outweigh the additional cost of getting a heftier single gpu.

DVD-RW
There's another thought. Since a DVD-RW can't really use up that much of bandwidth, a PATA is more than enough. So why not saving a SATA port for something which actually need it (eg HDDs, blue-ray drive in future)? What do you think?

Is there any disadvantages of using PATA-based DVD-RW drive?

Disagreed here as well, you do have SATA burners out there and they work very well. Their burst time and how quickly they can read discs compared to EIDE/PATA is remarkable.