Board selection for Q9550 - P35 vs. X38 vs. SLI, RAM

[Kadence]

I was all set to go with the the Q9550 with the expected price drop at the end of this month, and after some motherboard browsing was focusing on the Asus P5K-E.

Then I found out about P35/X38 Northbridge chipset and RAM compatibility issues (though I have no clue what a Northbridge actually is...). Which displeased me because X38 board I found, the P5E, cost almost $100 more than the P35 board and I don't have any interest in DDR 1200 RAM (I want 1066) or 1600/1333 FSB. And what's this Nvidia SLI stuff? The most reviewed LGA 775 board on newegg is a 650i SLI board, the P5N-E. I know that SLI is Nvidia's dual graphics card thing, and Crossfire is ATI's. But I have no idea what CPUs are compatible with this 650i card.

So I'm hoping to get some more info:
* What sort of boards would be compatible with the Q6600/Q6700, Q9450/Q9550 chips?
* Do you have to know what graphics card you want before selecting a mother board?
* I saw that on Dell's site, the configs have integrated audio and no sound cards. Do all the motherboards now have integrated audio, making sound cards unnecessary?
* Is there some sort of chart somewhere on CPU/motherboard compatibility? And maybe something like that for RAM brands and mobos as well. The prices on the Crucial site for DDR 800 RAM are comparable to Newegg, but for DDR 1066 they're almost double what cheaper brands have, but I can't seem to find 2GB DDR 1066 sticks for the boards I'm looking at on sites other than crucial.com; I tried the configurators at newegg and tigerdirect with no luck.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Not sure about mobo compatibility but ideally you want to keep the graphics card with the proper mobo chipset, but it gets more serious as if you wanted to do a xfire or sli, then you have to have matching graphics and mobo chipsets. most mobo's have on board sound, personally i never liked the quality of the ones ive used... always check the mobo's product listing page for compatibility.

 

[Kadence]

I ended finding out that you can use P45 boards for the Q9550, which are cheaper than X38 boards.

But I'm still having a really hard time with memory compatibility for pretty much every single motherboard I choose Is this even an issue? Will pretty much any DDR2 1200 memory work with an Asus DDR2 1200 board?

What about backwards compatibility - would lower speed memory sticks work with a higher board? For instance, would these DDR2 1066 chips:
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)
Patriot Viper 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)

Work with the Asus P5Q-E DDR2 1200 board?

Also - why would you want WiFi on a motherboard, and what's WiFi-AP?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

My knowledge about memory compatibility issues goes as far as, i picked what I wanted, A-Data Vitesta for my board, i didn't look to see if its compatible, and i've had no problems... I've actually never had to look for memory compatibility, I've just bought what I wanted, within the guidelines, and there is no reason why your memory wouldn't work on that board... Think of it like this, if you were a mobo maker, would you make your memory specific to just one vendor? That would limit peoples choices and possibly push sales down. The mobo makers are probably getting perks from the memory vendors to advertise things as compatible, which in itself could be counter productive as in your case. All the mobo makes are saying is 'this mobo will handle 1200 speeds' and think of it like this, if my 1066 can overclock to 1200 speeds, this board will handle it so its better to spend less on a lower rated memory module that'll overclock to that rated speed with PREFERABLY lower timings or just as low as say 1200 speeds... You gotta think of how these marketing schemes are played. I don't need a wi-fi board ..least not now anyways, and if i did use wi-fi, it wouldn't be on my gaming machine.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: Kadence
I was all set to go with the the Q9550 with the expected price drop at the end of this month, and after some motherboard browsing was focusing on the Asus P5K-E.

Then I found out about P35/X38 Northbridge chipset and RAM compatibility issues (though I have no clue what a Northbridge actually is...). Which displeased me because X38 board I found, the P5E, cost almost $100 more than the P35 board and I don't have any interest in DDR 1200 RAM (I want 1066) or 1600/1333 FSB. And what's this Nvidia SLI stuff? The most reviewed LGA 775 board on newegg is a 650i SLI board, the P5N-E. I know that SLI is Nvidia's dual graphics card thing, and Crossfire is ATI's. But I have no idea what CPUs are compatible with this 650i card.

So I'm hoping to get some more info:
* What sort of boards would be compatible with the Q6600/Q6700, Q9450/Q9550 chips?
* Do you have to know what graphics card you want before selecting a mother board?
* I saw that on Dell's site, the configs have integrated audio and no sound cards. Do all the motherboards now have integrated audio, making sound cards unnecessary?
* Is there some sort of chart somewhere on CPU/motherboard compatibility? And maybe something like that for RAM brands and mobos as well. The prices on the Crucial site for DDR 800 RAM are comparable to Newegg, but for DDR 1066 they're almost double what cheaper brands have, but I can't seem to find 2GB DDR 1066 sticks for the boards I'm looking at on sites other than crucial.com; I tried the configurators at newegg and tigerdirect with no luck.

Hi,

I will try to answer your questions. First of all, advertised memory speed (either for motherboards or memory sticks) usually means the part was tested up to that speed. So anything below that number should work fine. What you see on the motherboard (DDR2-1200 support) is most likely marketing decision in order to attract overclocking crowds.

What you must pay attention to is whether a board is supporting DDR2 or DDR3. Latest Intel chipset supports both memory standards, and motherboard makers choose which standard to support for their specific models. For example, ASUS P5E board is built around X38 chipset and supports DDR2 memory. ASUS P5E3 board is built on the same X38 chipset, but supports DDR3 memory. It can get confusing, because some motherboards or memory are advertised just with their speeds. There are both DDR2-1066 and DDR3-1066. Generally DDR2 tops at 1066 but some may go up to 1200. DDR3 starts at 1066 and go above from there.

DDR3 is relatively new, and memory and motherboards built to DDR3 standard tends to be more expensive. DDR2 has been around for some time, and is quite mature. Unless you're going after bleeding-edge or benchmarking, going with DDR2 route will likely be safer and less expensive.

I wouldn't list too many chipsets since you seem to be interested in a regular sized tower computer. Your choices are actually simple.

Intel X38/X48 (X48 is a slightly updated version of X38, no functional difference)
Intel P45/P43 (P43 is a cut-down version of P45)
NVIDIA 750i/780i

X38/X48 is Intel's 'Extreme Series' offering.
P45 is Intel's 'Performance' offering.
P43 is Intel's 'mainstream' offering.

780i is Intel's 'Extreme Series' offering.
750i is Intel's 'Performance' offering.

Do not bother to worry about P35 or 650i SLI. As you could imagine from the numbers, they are a generation-behind products.

SLI is NVIDIA's technology that lets two or more video cards work in tandem to get better 3D gaming performance and you need a 750i or 780i chipset board in order to get it to work.

With the above information, let's answer your questions.

* What sort of boards would be compatible with the Q6600/Q6700, Q9450/Q9550 chips?
- All boards built on the above chipsets (X38, X48, P45, P43, 750i, 780i) are compatible with those CPUs.

* Do you have to know what graphics card you want before selecting a mother board?
- Not if you're buying a graphics card today. Just make sure that your graphics card says 'PCI Express'. (most of them are)

* I saw that on Dell's site, the configs have integrated audio and no sound cards. Do all the motherboards now have integrated audio, making sound cards unnecessary?
- Yes. There are, however, sound card markets for professionals or users who desire higher quality sound. I personally think integrated audio is satisfactory for my need. Bottom line is that all modern motherboard come equipped with some kind of on-board audio, so you need not worry about not having sound. If you find the quality lacking, you can purchase and install a sound card later on.

* Is there some sort of chart somewhere on CPU/motherboard compatibility?
- Not for individual motherboards. But for chipsets, yes. Here and here.
You could look in to the every detail in the charts, but it's really quite simple when it comes to CPU/motherboard compatibility. All of the motherboards built on the chipsets discussed here are compatible with all Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Pentium Dual-Core series CPUs (Make sure it says LGA775). You usually have to worry about CPU-motherboard compatibility only when you try to mix older motherboards with newer CPUs. (another reason to avoid P35 or 650i chipsets)

 

[Kadence]

Thanks a lot BTRY B 529th FA BN and lopri, you've been very helpful

I think I got it all - the P5K-E I was originally looking at is bad because it's P35, but that's fine because other boards that are P45 aren't really much different in price. And because while those P45 boards may list a memory standard DDR2 1200 spec, they should accept lower speed RAM anyway. And don't worry about sound because it's built-in.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Np, glad I could help

 

[DCGMoo]

If you're looking at P45 (the only reason for X48 right now is Crossfiring multiple video cards)... might I suggest the P5Q series?

P5Q Pro ($149): http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131299
P5Q-E ($159): http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813131296

There are also slightly cheaper P5Q variations (search NewEgg for "Asus P5Q"), but the P5Q Pro is the board I was set on building my next computer with until I decided at the last second I wanted to make sure I had full Crossfire capabilities for the future.

Aside from 16x Crossfire... the P5Q Pro had everything I was looking for in a board. And yes, DDR2-1200 motherboards should handle DDR2-800 RAM just fine.

Moo.