Motherboard...

[tres]

How much influence does the motherboard have on the whole system, with regards to performance?

At the moment, i have a Q6600, 7600GT, 2gb ddr2, 500gb hard drive
and it's a budget motherboard... so cheap in fact, that when using a quad core processor, it drops the FSB by 5%.
So my quad beauty is running at 2.3ghz

Is it worth spending a bit on a new motherboard, to get a noticeable improvement?

Thank you!

 

[Wiggins]

If overclocking then yes, definately get a new board. Seems like a vdroop if your Quad is sat on 2.3Ghz.

Have a look at the P35 chipsets if you want your Quad at 3Ghz + speeds.