EVGA 650i is a good deal but only at stock speed with 4-pin fan. The board cannot control the speed of 2-pin/3-pin fans. If you want to push this board above 300MHz FSB, then you need to improve cooling at the NB and SB. EVGA uses the lowest cost components to save $. The chipset is capable of ~500MHz FSB, with a FSB hole between 420 and 450MHz. I think fair value is around $60.
The Abit IB9 is good up to about 360MHz FSB. BIOS is a little buggy, but still useable. Price is only $64. It runs cooler than the EVGA. Also has 100% Japanese caps vs Samxon for EVGA. A good match with the E4300 or E4400.
Abit's IP35-E is the best balance between price and performance. At $110-$120, the board will run any capable C2D chip up to at least 488MHz FSB. The board's sophisticated fan control will work with 2-pin, 3-pin, and 4-pin fans. It also runs cool. Board/BIOS is very stable. Only downside it the double post issue (common with all P965 and P35 chipset). PC will start-stop-start during a cold boot, which will add about 14 seconds to the boot time. No double post if your RESTART from windows.
I like KINGSTON DDR2 800 ValueRAM with "N5" in the part number. All four kits managed to hit 580MHz with 2.1Vdimm and 5-5-5-18-2T.
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2063989&enterthread=y
Performace is very similar between all C2D E4xxx and E6xxx chips at the
SAME CORE SPEED. Most of these chips will top out between 3.2 and 3.6GHz on air. Again, you can't tell the difference between 3.2 vs 3.6GHz without benchies. The best value is the E4300 with L2 stepping. Look for SL9Tx on the box or chip. These chips should be able to do 3.0 to 3.2GHz with 1.4Vcore.
I would avoid any CPU with 7x or 8x multi. Too much stress on RAM and MB.
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