New board

[Jimmy1983]

I think either my motherboard or CPU has gone, see sig. So can you guys recomend a board and maybe a CPU aswell. Not checked prices as I've been out of the country for most of the year. Probably looking at about 80ish for the board.

Thanks all

 

[Jimmy1983]

Can any of you lot suggest a suitable motherboard for me?

Can someone also clarify what type of board I need to work with my E6600?

 

[Tetras]

For an E6600? Pretty much any will do you, P35, P45, whatever?

Seeing as you have the opportunity, you might as well buy something with future upgradability in mind. Whether that means 45nm Quads, overclocking and Crossfire, is up to you. There are low-end P45, P43 and many P35 boards in your price range (and probably second-hand X38 too)

 

[Jimmy1983]

Yeah for an E6600, aslong as I dont need to replace this aswell-not 100% sure its working ok.

What do you mean by P45/43/35, and X38?

Could you suggest a few for me please?

I was really happy with my DSP3 it had everything I needed so a replacement simialr to that will do fine, with maybe a few extras. Iread quite a few reviews saying the Asus P5Q range is very good.

 

[Tetras]

You don't know what I'm talking about with the chipsets? I'll get out the olde Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V then:

Originally Posted by Tetras
The P35 and P45 chipsets are both targetted at the "mainstream", while X38 and X48 are both "extreme", targetted at enthusiasts.

The most significant difference between P35 and P45 is that P45 uses 65nm technology (can potentially run cooler and use less power though with the added features it doesn't always work that way) and has PCI-Express 2.0 support (along with more lanes).

The most significant difference between mainstream and enthusiast chipsets are the number of PCI-Express lanes available. P35 can offer Crossfire mode working in a 16X/4X configuration, P45 in 8X/8X (though being PCI-Express 2.0 bandwidth wise this is equivalent to 16X/16X if it were the PCI-E 1.1 slots of P35), X38 16X/16X (PCI-E 2.0 so 32X/32X to the P35 PCI-E 1.1 slots) and X48 the same as X38 (the X38 and X48 chipsets are identical on a technical level).

You'll also find that most P35 and X38 boards are DDR2 but all chipsets (P35/X38/X48/P45 can support DDR3 should the board manufacturer choose to).

Officially there is also a difference in memory and front-side-bus (FSB) support but in practice you'll find the manufacturers that use the chipsets consider them equivalent in this regard (for example, X48 has official 1600 FSB CPU support where X38 does not but Asus advertises and supports their X38 motherboards with 1600 FSB).

You'll also find the new southbridge (10) is only offered on later boards (mostly P45) but it is mainly just a die-shrink so I wouldn't worry about this.

In CPU support all of those chipsets have official support for 45nm CPUs but in practice many P35 and X38 boards require a BIOS update to identify them (but may boot without issue, declaring the CPU as "Unknown"). P45 and X48 chipset boards are modern enough the BIOS can often recognise the CPU straight out of the box.

If you go to the Intel website and click on the block diagram for each chipset you'll get a fuller picture (the specs are publicly available but note that implementation of features in a chipset depends on the manufacturer, just because the chipset can offer 6 SATA ports or 3 PCI-Express slots doesn't mean the board manufacturer will make use of them all):
http://www.intel.com/products/deskto...8-overview.htm

Could you suggest a few for me please?

No, sorry.

I was really happy with my DSP3 it had everything I needed so a replacement simialr to that will do fine, with maybe a few extras.

What kind of extras?

 

[Jimmy1983]

What kind of extras?

Thanks mate, appreciate the help.

Well extras, I meant more like anything that I didnt have on the gigabyte board. Sorry didnt make myself clear.

Can you help me with a few questions on the Asus P5Q board? I have searched but cant find the answers that iam after.

 

[Tetras]

What are the questions?

 

[Jimmy1983]

What are the questions?

Will I be able to fit a noctua nh-u12f to it?
Can you run a DVD Rom using an IDE connection?
Will my current components in sig all work ok, ram etc?

It would be handy to have a LED on the board to show you that the board has power to it, my gigabye doesnt have one.


I did have a few more, but cant think now! Will it do everything that my current gigabye one does and more?

 

[Tetras]

I don't own the mobo but I'll answer the questions best I can:

Will I be able to fit a noctua nh-u12f to it?

I should think so.

Can you run a DVD Rom using an IDE connection?

Yes, though with some mobos, having RAID mode enabled can do "interesting" things when also using the third party IDE (like not functioning).

Will my current components in sig all work ok, ram etc?

Should do.

t would be handy to have a LED on the board to show you that the board has power to it, my gigabye doesnt have one.

Should have.

I did have a few more, but cant think now! Will it do everything that my current gigabye one does and more?

I don't know about Firewire and such but assuming you have P965 chipset now, then you gain official support for 1333 FSB and 45nm CPU, improved overclocking support (especially with Quad-cores) and a refined memory controller (with better support for high RAM clocks and 4 sticks of RAM). P45 also has PCI-Express 2.0 and (if you have two full-length PCI-Express slots, the P5Q vanilla does not) Crossfire in PCI-E 2.0 8X/8X or PCI-E 1.1 16X/16X mode.

 

[Jimmy1983]

Thanks Tetras, don't fully understand you last comments but will look into them in more depth to learn all the terms you use.

I will ask for a owner of the board to see if they can clarify those question for me, ask I would like to know for certain really.

Thanks for all of your help.

 

[Tetras]

There are a lot of threads with the P5Q and P45 around here so I'd tack on to one of those (or start your own). I think I have even seen "Which P5Q series?" type threads.