I'm planning on building a system around an Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
It's the mobo that I haven't worked out yet. I've been away from the market for a while. My previous two mobos and CPUs were AMD based and not that recently either.
I'll have to get a new graphics card as my present one is a Radeon 9800, probably a Radeon 1950. I've not got strong views as to ATI or NVidia. I have no interest in SLI or Crossfire and I'd rather not pay for it unless it had everything else I wanted and there wasn't another way of getting there.
I'll have to get new RAM; reading these boards, Geil seems popular, though I've always done alright with Crucial, whether the cheap and cheerful stuff or Ballistix.
I've got an Enermax EG365P-VE (350W) and an Antec True 550P (550W) so I guess I'll be using the Antec.
I have two IDE drives and I'd rather not abandon them and the various IDE DVD and CD writers which I'd also like to carry on being able to use. So the only real limitation on choice is that the mobo must be able to offer both legacy ATA as well as SATA support. I'll probably get a SATA drive at the time of the new build but don't want to bin the older drives (I've seen on these boards suggestions that ATA's day has gone and they should be disposed of; I'd rather not, thanks). The alternative to having legacy support is moving stuff around via a USB drive, which I suppose is possible though far from ideal. I've never set up a network and it seems a lot of hassle for the sake of missing a couple of slots on the board. Would be interested to know if I'd suffer dramatically by having legacy support.
RAID isn't a priority though it seems widely available and I could pay for it as it doesn't seem to cost that much these days.
I see some of the mobos offer "fanless cooling". This makes me a little nervous, though maybe I'm out of touch. Quiet is nice but reliable is better.
Overclocking is not a priority though I may give it a go if it's as easy as the reviews say. Last time I tried was with a Thunderbird, so it's been a while
; didn't really try with the XP2200.
19" CRT monitor, USB HDD, kb, silly little speakers, FDD, will not be changing.
Budget is not such a limiting factor, but I'm not looking to be extravagant. I've been OK with MSI (twice), don't like EPoX, Tyan was OK (long time back). I hear good things about Asus; I don't know what DFI or Gigabyte's stuff is like.
The rig's stress point will be on-line gaming, though I play around with sound (not video) files a bit too. I'm planning on staying with XP for the time being, though wouldn't want to rule out Vista; very unlikely to be using linux.
The mobo doesn't have to be absolutely the very latest, I would rather it worked on delivery rather than relying on some hoped for BIOS update.
thanks in advance.
It's the mobo that I haven't worked out yet. I've been away from the market for a while. My previous two mobos and CPUs were AMD based and not that recently either.
I'll have to get a new graphics card as my present one is a Radeon 9800, probably a Radeon 1950. I've not got strong views as to ATI or NVidia. I have no interest in SLI or Crossfire and I'd rather not pay for it unless it had everything else I wanted and there wasn't another way of getting there.
I'll have to get new RAM; reading these boards, Geil seems popular, though I've always done alright with Crucial, whether the cheap and cheerful stuff or Ballistix.
I've got an Enermax EG365P-VE (350W) and an Antec True 550P (550W) so I guess I'll be using the Antec.
I have two IDE drives and I'd rather not abandon them and the various IDE DVD and CD writers which I'd also like to carry on being able to use. So the only real limitation on choice is that the mobo must be able to offer both legacy ATA as well as SATA support. I'll probably get a SATA drive at the time of the new build but don't want to bin the older drives (I've seen on these boards suggestions that ATA's day has gone and they should be disposed of; I'd rather not, thanks). The alternative to having legacy support is moving stuff around via a USB drive, which I suppose is possible though far from ideal. I've never set up a network and it seems a lot of hassle for the sake of missing a couple of slots on the board. Would be interested to know if I'd suffer dramatically by having legacy support.
RAID isn't a priority though it seems widely available and I could pay for it as it doesn't seem to cost that much these days.
I see some of the mobos offer "fanless cooling". This makes me a little nervous, though maybe I'm out of touch. Quiet is nice but reliable is better.
Overclocking is not a priority though I may give it a go if it's as easy as the reviews say. Last time I tried was with a Thunderbird, so it's been a while
; didn't really try with the XP2200.19" CRT monitor, USB HDD, kb, silly little speakers, FDD, will not be changing.
Budget is not such a limiting factor, but I'm not looking to be extravagant. I've been OK with MSI (twice), don't like EPoX, Tyan was OK (long time back). I hear good things about Asus; I don't know what DFI or Gigabyte's stuff is like.
The rig's stress point will be on-line gaming, though I play around with sound (not video) files a bit too. I'm planning on staying with XP for the time being, though wouldn't want to rule out Vista; very unlikely to be using linux.
The mobo doesn't have to be absolutely the very latest, I would rather it worked on delivery rather than relying on some hoped for BIOS update.
thanks in advance.
). 