What motherboard to buy? Not sure of what's what!

[Cappadocie]

Well im still undecided...Going to go for i7 for sure but not sure of what motherboard to get...

Torn between Asus P6T (Is the OC palm thingy worth it?) Gigabyte X58 Extreme, DFI X58, EVGA X58...

Any ideas guys...Im looking for the best overclock...

Going to go for a ATI 4850...Not into gaming. Just want a very fast workstation

 

[fornowagain]

I guess I'm referring more to first gen gear having teething troubles and then essentially the next releases being slightly better

No, I'm the same. I bought a 975+E6600 on release and it was not that pleasant an experience. I bought Ci7, well because I could. Expecting all kinds of trouble. But its actually pretty darn solid, first bios troubles etc. But now its spot on, I'd not look back.

Torn between Asus P6T (Is the OC palm thingy worth it?) Gigabyte X58 Extreme, DFI X58, EVGA X58...

Palm thingy, no novelty soon wear off. Of the rest P6T or GA-EX58-UD5, EVGA for the support. DFI if you like headaches. Overclock is going to be pretty similar on all, with the IMC its far more down to the chip than the board.

 

[miniyazz]

I agree, you CANT future proof, and you dont need i7 by sounds of it, if you want to waste your money fair enough, a high end 775 machine will do you better though
And why on earth would you want 24gig of RAM? No need whatsoever, 8 is more than ample as is now anyway
If you do decide to go for 775 over i7, I'd agree with jak re your M/B choice, go for a P45, as you're not gaming or anything there is no need for X48 or nforce boards
You can prob put together a decent P45 based system for £700 tops that will more than meet your needs, but if you really want to waste your money and go and spank £1500 on an unnecessary i7 system just so you can say you have the latest shiniest thing then go for it

So I'd get an X48 motherboard, Q9450 CPU, 8Gb of decent RAM (Corsair would be my preference) and a 64-bit OS. You should be easily able to get something good for £1000.

If you want good X48 motherboard then I've had most of them, and I'd recommend the J&W X48 board as it's an Intel type board, well made with a good chipset cooling solution. It's not fancy, it's just ultra-fast and extremely reliable.

A decent i7 motherboard and CPU with 6GB RAM will set you back about £550 atm. Even after adding in gfx and psu, that's a far cry off £1500 or £1000. 'Low end' i7 is better value than high-end 775 IMO anyway.
I agree that getting a decent PSU is important here as it probably isn't a component you'll need to replace for ages, but you do not need an expensive graphics card - as mentioned, the ATI 4670 might be a good choice - because that is easily upgraded in the future if you then need more graphics power. Same goes for RAM - I can't see you needing anywhere near 24GB currently but in a few year's time, if you've still got this setup, most i7 boards seem to support 24GB, and DDR3'll be far cheaper in a few months time.

 

[gazza0371]

No, I'm the same. I bought a 975+E6600 on release and it was not that pleasant an experience. I bought Ci7, well because I could. Expecting all kinds of trouble. But its actually pretty darn solid, first bios troubles etc. But now its spot on, I'd not look back.

Glad to hear you've had good experiences. TBH I haven't heard anyone moaning about i7s so looks like Intel have hit a winner early on these.