Help out an old fart

Vertigo · 29 Jun 2007 at 11:03

I'm so old and out of touch

Am on AMD atm but going to switch to Intel come the price drops at the end of July. To this end I need a new mobo and I haven't got a clue what's what in the Intel world atm.

I take it the new P35 based boards are the ones to go for, is this the case? I'll be after a decent board for good performance and potential overclocking but don't need loads of extra features such as RAID or SLI/Crossfire.

Don't want to spend a fortune but am wary of going too cheap and cutting corners. Recommendations?

MeatLoaf · 29 Jun 2007 at 11:20

The P35 boards are nice boards and the cheapest is about £100, but you can equally decent 650i/965P boards which come in at £80 ish.

All 3 chipsets are decent overclockers.

Ive had 965P and 650i boards and both are easy to clock

Phunky Phish · 29 Jun 2007 at 11:27

Dont waste your money on SLI and Crossfire mate!
I run an SLI set-up and its very restrictive.
If I where you I would stick with 1 graphics card which will mean you can run any mobo you want and upgrade the graphics as and when you want. Also 2 cards can be both hot and noisy.
Mine are on water and I am regretting that as well now!
To play with anything I have to strip the whole loop down! Also I got dedicated blocks for 7900's at £100+ and now cannot use them for the 8800's that are out! (bummer

)

Vertigo · 29 Jun 2007 at 15:02

If it's only another £20 for a P35 board though, is that a worthwhile investment for the future - i.e. will it give me a bit more future-proofing?

Not interested in SLI at all so that's not an issue

BUFF · 29 Jun 2007 at 15:26

MeatLoaf said:
The P35 boards are nice boards and the cheapest is about £100,

you can get an abit IP35-E or Gigabyte GA P35-S3 for under £70.

Vertigo · 29 Jun 2007 at 16:00

The Abit looks tempting and I've had good experiences with them in the past.

Reckon the P35 is worth the extra over the P35-E? Willing to spend up to around £100 but not much more than that.

split · 29 Jun 2007 at 16:17

You pays your money...

The IP35 has most of the features that come with the Pro, but it's missing µGuru, eSATA, one of the PCI-Express x16 slots and also doesn't include 100% solid state capacitors. Even lower down the scale is the IP35-E, which also drops Firewire, two of the SATA ports, RAID functionality and the heatpipe cooling solution is also removed too.

Missing the heatpipe might hold your OC back.

Vertigo · 29 Jun 2007 at 16:27

split said:
You pays your money...

The IP35 has most of the features that come with the Pro, but it's missing µGuru, eSATA, one of the PCI-Express x16 slots and also doesn't include 100% solid state capacitors. Even lower down the scale is the IP35-E, which also drops Firewire, two of the SATA ports, RAID functionality and the heatpipe cooling solution is also removed too.

Missing the heatpipe might hold your OC back.

Well don't need the second x16 slot or eSATA - what do the 100% solid state capacitors give you exactly?

I'm thinking the P35 may be worth the extra over the E though for the reason you cite.

Topitoff · 29 Jun 2007 at 17:02

BUFF said:
you can get an abit IP35-E or Gigabyte GA P35-S3 for under £70.

With the S3 extra over the IP35-E (along with a few more £s cost) you get 6 SATA ports and Raid on 2 of them.

jamieoliver22 · 3 Jul 2007 at 18:20

Yeah, I am in a similar situation to you. I have an AMD Athlon at the moment, and I want to upgrade to an Intel Core2Duo and it is costing me somewhat

The main reason why it is costing me is because I game on my pc, so I have spent about £200 extra on the graphics card and a new PSU.

But I am going for the Asus P5N-E motherboard, and it seems to be a really nice board. The main reason why I have chosen this one is because it has two IDE slots, so I can connect my old hard drives and DVD-RW/DVD-ROM drives up. The motherboard does have quite some extras, but for £80, you can't really go that wrong.

Here is a link to it anyway: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-221-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=205

Jamie.

silversurfer · 3 Jul 2007 at 19:13

split said:
Missing the heatpipe might hold your OC back.

Nothing a fan cant fix if needed.

I have a p5ne, no complaints

Hamoodii · 3 Jul 2007 at 19:27

if you're getting a new C2D motherboard go for a P35 based motherboard

Vertigo · 3 Jul 2007 at 23:11

jamieoliver22 said:
But I am going for the Asus P5N-E motherboard, and it seems to be a really nice board. The main reason why I have chosen this one is because it has two IDE slots, so I can connect my old hard drives and DVD-RW/DVD-ROM drives up. The motherboard does have quite some extras, but for £80, you can't really go that wrong.

Cheers for that. Dual IDE slots is a factor as, although my hard drives are SATA, I have two optical drives which aren't.

Graphics aren't a problem as I upgraded those a few months ago and have been on PCI Express for a year so it's just cpu, mobo & memory. With the price drops on C2Ds come the end of July and the fact that DDR2 is dirt cheap atm, this should be a fairly cheap upgrade.

hp7909 · 4 Jul 2007 at 09:47

Vertigo1 said:
{snip}100% solid state capacitors give you exactly?{snip}

Solid state capacitors improve overall stability, and last significantly longer than the electrolytic variety.

More here

jamieoliver22 · 4 Jul 2007 at 17:50

Vertigo1 said:
Cheers for that. Dual IDE slots is a factor as, although my hard drives are SATA, I have two optical drives which aren't.

Just one IDE cable should be alright then - if you have only two optical drives, you can just put them both on a single IDE cable. I have 2 IDE hard drives and 2 optical drives, so that is why I mainly needed the extra IDE connector.