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

Cappadocie · 29 Dec 2008 at 20:31

Hi everyone,

I need to put together a new system, so im looking to buy:

- Motherboard
- CPU (Intel)
- Graphics Card (Do not plat games, but watch a lot of H.264 files and stream to Playstation 3)
- Memory (8GB)
- Power Supply

It seems there are so many flavours of motherboards right now! What's happened!?? LOL...

There is G45, P45, X48, Nforce 780i, 790i...

Could someone kindly shed some light as to what the differences are?; And what would be the best board to go for?

Any ideas on the CPU?

Also is 8GB the maximum amount of memory any board can take?
Any advice on what brands, speed to go for?

Lastly power supply...I heard Corsair are pretty good.

Thankyou for your help and advice!

jak731 · 29 Dec 2008 at 20:39

budget?

suggestions

45nm intel dual core
p43/45 chipset, as i dont think you'll need crossfire
4670 GPU handles HD media, 7.1 surround sound via HDMI and capable of running games for when you get the urge to play something
pc2-6400 RAM if not overclocking
PC2-8500 RAM if overclocking
PSU 400-500W should be enough
some recommended brands
enermax
corsair
seasonic
be quiet
pc power and cooling

Cappadocie · 29 Dec 2008 at 20:45

Hi Jak731,

Thanks for the quick reply!

Budget is not really a problem, but within reason!

So what is X48, 790i etc...

I want something solid, very fast and super reliable!

jak731 · 29 Dec 2008 at 20:54

x48 is for people with plans for high end crossfire (supports 2x16xPCI-E electrical)
790i/780i is for people with plans for SLi
g43/g45/g35 are ideal intel solutions for a HTPC, meaning these could be the MBs your looking for ,but personally for a HTPC, i would go for a 780G chipset (AMD SKT AM2)

Cappadocie · 29 Dec 2008 at 21:14

Why would you go for AMD as opposed to Intel?

jak731 · 29 Dec 2008 at 21:21

onboard graphics on a 780G chipset based MB does everything an ATi 2,3 or 4 series card does apart from run games and since the is no seperate GPU, its also both cheaper, quieter and users less power

Cappadocie · 29 Dec 2008 at 21:42

What about the Intel Core i7 processors and X58 boards...
They seem to be great for stability and blistering spped?

UltimateBadger · 29 Dec 2008 at 22:09

Overkill for what you want it for Cappadocie...

Cappadocie · 29 Dec 2008 at 22:18

But is it not better to future proof myself a little now?
Thats all im thinking

broona · 29 Dec 2008 at 23:55

I'm using an Asus P5N7A-VM with onboard Geforce 9300, Nvidia's alternative to the G45, and a very good alternative in my opinion, worth looking at some reviews.

TheCenturion · 30 Dec 2008 at 00:02

Cappadocie said:
But is it not better to future proof myself a little now?
Thats all im thinking

I hear people wanting to future proof all the time, but if you truly want to get your money's worth, then there's no such thing as future proofing, as the tech you buy now will be available in 2-3 years for half the price. if you don't believe me, 8800 ultra was over £300 at launch, about 18 months ago, now people buy them for £80 off ebay. so tbh, core i7 is not needed if all you want to do is watch movies.

Korduo · 30 Dec 2008 at 01:59

then there's no such thing as future proofing, as the tech you buy now will be available in 2-3 years for half the price.

I totally agree with anant_shah94. It seems when ever I upgrade, after few months my system is already so yesterday. Technology moves so quickly its hard to keep up.

Like now I want something new to play with and been thinking about getting a 9550 to replace my Q6600, but then again should I move to i7 platform......
In the end I decided to spend the money on water cooling as I can use it when I do move to i7.

WJA96 · 30 Dec 2008 at 02:16

There used to be a saying that the PC you wanted always cost £2000.

If you buy a £1000 machine today, it will be last years £2500 machine. If you constantly buy a new £1000 machine, it's much more future-proof than the £2500 one you could have bought last year.

Get an Intel board for stability, and a quad-core for power. Make it a Q9xx0 series as they run cooler.

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.

Cappadocie · 31 Dec 2008 at 00:14

thanks for the advice guys...
Im going to go for an i7 board...But what boards out there support 24gb ram?
I know there is MSI...But not really a fan of their boards!

Dead Dog · 31 Dec 2008 at 10:28

Another vote for forgetting about future proofing.
If you get what was hot 6-12 months back it cost a lot less than whats hot now and bearly be out performed.

95thrifles · 31 Dec 2008 at 13:56

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

gazza0371 · 1 Jan 2009 at 23:25

I want something solid, very fast and super reliable!

This says to me that you should NOT go for i7; not saying that it is not reliable, but invariably new tech is less reliable - completely agree with previous comments about the futility of attempting to future proof - my idea of future proofing has changed over the last few years to be...

1. Get a good quality case that has loads of space for hard disks, full length gfx cards, large CPU coolers, etc.
2. A decent PSU that will last (ie. 650+ watts) - think Enermax and Corsair

The rest will be out of date shortly after you finished building it.

You mention supprot for 24GB of RAM - what do you plan on doing with this machine? If you are serious about needing that much RAM then a PC is probably not what you really need !

TheCenturion · 1 Jan 2009 at 23:33

Why in the world would you want 24gb? If anything, your system will be REALLY slowed down and bottlenecked, and probably require huge volts to overclock

fornowagain · 2 Jan 2009 at 00:02

gazza0371 said:
This says to me that you should NOT go for i7

I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop on my Ci7 build. I'm quite happy to report is very fast and stable. Of all of the first gen boards I've had its by far the most mature out of the gate. Did I say it was fast?

gazza0371 · 2 Jan 2009 at 14:32

fornowagain said:
I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop on my Ci7 build. I'm quite happy to report is very fast and stable. Of all of the first gen boards I've had its by far the most mature out of the gate. Did I say it was fast?

I guess I'm referring more to first gen gear having teething troubles and then essentially the next releases being slightly better tuned once the mass use in the market place reveals a few gotchas. I always work on the basis that first gen is good for early adopters but if you're looking for something a bit more long term reliable then best to wait for the second release.

I take the example of me with quads - I bought a QX6700 for tons of cash when they first came out, and a year later replaced it with a Q9550 which cost half the price, clocks a whole lot better, puts out far less heat, is more stable, etc.

Saying all that, personally I'd love an i7,but can't quite justify the mobo prices, DDR3, etc...yet...