Budget motherboard upgrade?

[TBSN]

Hi all,

I haven't been on the forums for a while, but my friend is having trouble choosing what to get for his next system upgrade. He has an Asus 775 socket mobo, but with a Pentium D processor. It isn't compatible with the C2D or quads.

So what's the reigning favorite for a 775 socket mobo for gaming? He doesn't overclock or need SLI, but would (obviously) want a stable, quality mobo. He has a 7900GTX right now, but he'll probably upgrade the video card as well soon.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[o1die]

Newegg has an msi p35 board for $49.99 that will work fine. p35 boards have pci-1.0, but you won't notice the difference. Or, you can go with an open box board and order the backplate from the manufacturer. Be sure your case will handle a full size atx board; otherwise, go with a micro-atx board.

 

[TBSN]

Thanks for the suggestion! any second opinions? are there other ones I should take a look at?

 

[Sylvanas]

Yeah the MSI P35's are solid boards and they won't break the bank- they'll also do fine with a little overclocking. From memory the Neo2 FR and the cheaper Neo-F will be fine.

 

[TBSN]

Here I found the Neo F on newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813130095 . Couldn't find the Neo2 FR though. It looks good, all the necessary features and such. Do you think that it would manage some basic overclocking? It's not really necessary, but I'm curious.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: TBSN
Here I found the Neo F on newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813130095 . Couldn't find the Neo2 FR though. It looks good, all the necessary features and such. Do you think that it would manage some basic overclocking? It's not really necessary, but I'm curious.

That Neo-F will do all you need. There are some P45/43 boards you have look into aswell- basically an update of the P35 with PCI-E 2.0 and some other bells and whistles- for a little more. Here is the P45 Neo-F. MSI's 775 boards have been budget overclocking champs so not to worry in that department.

 

[TBSN]

Thanks for the info. I think I'm going to suggest he get the P45 based one. I don't really know the differences between the p35 and the newer p45 chipset, but PCI Express 2.0 is nice as well as a few more PCi slots. The p45 one has bunch of utterly useless pci E x1 slots.