Which mobo/CPU/ram bundle?

[fish99]

Hi,

I've posted this in motherboard since it mainly comes down to a choice over motherboards.

Thinking of ordering a E6600 C2D / 2GB DDR2 / mobo bundle from OcUK. There's several around the £280-320 range, they all have 2 GB of CL4 ram, so the choice comes down to the board. We have Asus P5B, Abit AB9 Pro and Gigabyte 965P DS3. There's also the Intel 965P LT but I've read that doesn't overclock at all and it comes with CL5 ram, so that's probably not the one to go for. Also it must work straight out of the box, so no boards where a bios update is needed to make it post with a C2D.

So, is it necessary to buy a bundle for compatibility these days or does pretty much all ram/board combos work? And if you were choosing one of those bundles which would you go for? I don't need SLI or anything fancy, and I don't need astronomic overclocking potential, although a decent overclocker wouldn't hurt.

Enjoyed my last few Asus boards and heard good things about the P5B so inclined to go that way. Would I be right in thinking none of these board will do 1333 MHz FSB so I'm limiting future upgrade possibilities a little? I don't suppose that's really an issue when I could drop in a 1066 quad (assuming these boards will take one).

Wow, that's a lot of questions isn't it Any and all insight much appreciated
Cheers,
Simon.

 

[BUFF]

The abit & Asus will both run 1333fsb CPUs.
However, if buying now you may want to buy a P35 rather than 965 based mobo.
Again the abit, Asus & Gigabytes are all good.

 

[Rab]

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x1GB) £70.49
Abit IP35-E (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £70.49
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.66GHz (1333FSB) £125.71

£276.38 +£8 del

This More Upto date would say, new rig & also the board can take the next new intel chip. would give u 3.2ghz ++ easy would say & it in your price range or if u budget is £320 would add the extra with either higher end p35 board or very good cooler

 

[fish99]

Cheers guys

That set you posted really is a much better deal than the bundles, cheers Rab. Would it be worth spending an extra £10 on Corsair 4-4-4-12 ram instead of the 5-5-5-12?

Also how does cpu FSB and memory speed related on these boards? On my current system (a64 939, ddr400) it's straight forward, ram and cpu both run at 200 MHz, or when I was overclocking I would run the cpu at 240 and use a 5/6 divider for the ram to keep it at 200. I'm clueless about C2Ds, DDR2 and these mobos though. Presumably there's some divider that lets the chip run as 1333 MHz and the ram at 800 MHz? Is the cpu running at 333 and the ram at 200 then?

As long as it works that's all I need to know

 

[BUFF]

the CPU bus is quad pumped so 1333 is really 333 but the memory bus is only doubled so for DDR2 800 it's actually running a 400 bus.
There are a no. of CPU:RAM ratios but on 965 & P35 you can't go under 1:1 like you can on K8.

 

[fish99]

Okeydokey. So on default settings with a 333 cpu, does the ram run at 333 or at 400 on a 4/3 divider? Not that it really matters, I'm just curious.

 

[fish99]

Ordered-

Corsair 2GB 6400 TwinX 4-4-4-12
Abit IP35-E
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750
Corsair HX 520W PSU

Cheers for the help guys