- Mar 21, 2004
- 13,576
- 6
- 76
After alot of reading I decided that the time has come to go with an intel CPU. I consider the Conroe CPU family the first time in years where intel one upped AMD (and boy are they whooping AMD with this one), and since its time to get a new machine I am going with a conroe. I am going to go with an E6300 and probably 633 ram, although 800 is an option.
The problem is the motherboard selection, I am really looking for a stable motherboard with good performance that has a PCIx16 slot for a SINGLE nvidia card (probably an eVGA 7900GS with factory OC) and hopefully gigabit network. And I am also looking for it to be relatively cheap. (around 100$ more or less, 150 is acceptable if its really good).
I might do LIGHT overclocking if the board excels in it, but this is NOT a considiration for buying the board. Its a "if it just happen to be really really good at it" sort of deal, and even then its a big if, so most likely no OC at all. (This is the main reason I had to start my own thread instead of just using the info posted in other similar threads). If I do end up OCing I most likely will just decrease the timing on the RAM rather then increasing the FSB.
The epox EP-5P945 pro seemed like an ideal choice after reading its review, unfortunately its not available anywhere (can find any of it in froogle, shop.com, or even newegg or tigerdirect, its just not carried by anyone as far as I can tell). The closest thing I can find is the epox EP-5P945 C in newegg, which isn't as hot (2 RAM slots, 100Mbs ethernet...), has not been shown to be "rock solid and good performer" by reviews and costs 90$. Now it MIGHT be as good, I just don't know anything about it (its not reviewed)...
Since my #1 priority on a mobo is quality of construction rather then performance i expect it to be:
1. From a manufacturer that supplies sufficient bios updates and has board autodetection and ideally autoinstall (from windows) of bios.
2. Highest compatibility with drives, expansion boards, etc etc... (I am sick of using cheap (ECS, etc) mobos where I have to spend 10 hours fiddling with the things trying to figure out things like: "samsung HDD do not work with this board FIRST idea chanel, and will be very slow on the second chanel unless set to slave", or "the duel channel capability only works on the second slot pair with this specific manufacturer")
3. Robust and single HDD controller (I use lots of HDD together, I can't stand incompatilities and issues with those, I don't really need more then 1 IDE slot though, and would rather not have multiple controllers...)
4. Cool (I live in texas, its hot in here, I can't have a mobo whose chipsets are blazing hot)
If I simply cannot find a decent board I MIGHT end up going for an el cheapo el crappo board with the intent of replacing it in half a year when boards get competitive. (or an even less likely but possibly scenario, shell out for a 200$ board).
Also, if someone happens to know of a REALLY rock solid AMD board circa 50$ (or 100$ if I can't find a decent conroe mobo) i might end up getting it with a X2 6200 or 6400 despite conroe's superiority. But the whole reason I even LOOKED at intel on this buy is because I noticed that none of the boards available for AMD ATM are any good (that I could tell).
I don't really want to delay the purchase much as I have been saying "I'll just wait till its the right time" for over a year now, and its to the point where my athlonXP2500+ burton is reaching 100% CPU usage when decoding a 720p movie... Not to mention my 9800pro is barely running newer games on minimal settings. But if nforce5 conroe mobos are JUST around the corner (less then a month) I might just delay again...
Current plan is:
CPU: E6300 C2D from newegg.com @ 180$
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-945P-S3 @ $91?
RAM: Patriot Signature 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model PSD21G667KH? @ 200$
Video Card: eVGA 256-P2-N625-AR OC @ 220$
PSU: SeaSonic S12-380 ATX12V 380W @ 77$
Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW @ 45$
Drives: use existing drives from current PC (i got lots of them and constantly upgrade them.)
Current Hours of Research (reading reviews): ~20 (two whole days and then some)
The problem is the motherboard selection, I am really looking for a stable motherboard with good performance that has a PCIx16 slot for a SINGLE nvidia card (probably an eVGA 7900GS with factory OC) and hopefully gigabit network. And I am also looking for it to be relatively cheap. (around 100$ more or less, 150 is acceptable if its really good).
I might do LIGHT overclocking if the board excels in it, but this is NOT a considiration for buying the board. Its a "if it just happen to be really really good at it" sort of deal, and even then its a big if, so most likely no OC at all. (This is the main reason I had to start my own thread instead of just using the info posted in other similar threads). If I do end up OCing I most likely will just decrease the timing on the RAM rather then increasing the FSB.
The epox EP-5P945 pro seemed like an ideal choice after reading its review, unfortunately its not available anywhere (can find any of it in froogle, shop.com, or even newegg or tigerdirect, its just not carried by anyone as far as I can tell). The closest thing I can find is the epox EP-5P945 C in newegg, which isn't as hot (2 RAM slots, 100Mbs ethernet...), has not been shown to be "rock solid and good performer" by reviews and costs 90$. Now it MIGHT be as good, I just don't know anything about it (its not reviewed)...
Since my #1 priority on a mobo is quality of construction rather then performance i expect it to be:
1. From a manufacturer that supplies sufficient bios updates and has board autodetection and ideally autoinstall (from windows) of bios.
2. Highest compatibility with drives, expansion boards, etc etc... (I am sick of using cheap (ECS, etc) mobos where I have to spend 10 hours fiddling with the things trying to figure out things like: "samsung HDD do not work with this board FIRST idea chanel, and will be very slow on the second chanel unless set to slave", or "the duel channel capability only works on the second slot pair with this specific manufacturer")
3. Robust and single HDD controller (I use lots of HDD together, I can't stand incompatilities and issues with those, I don't really need more then 1 IDE slot though, and would rather not have multiple controllers...)
4. Cool (I live in texas, its hot in here, I can't have a mobo whose chipsets are blazing hot)
If I simply cannot find a decent board I MIGHT end up going for an el cheapo el crappo board with the intent of replacing it in half a year when boards get competitive. (or an even less likely but possibly scenario, shell out for a 200$ board).
Also, if someone happens to know of a REALLY rock solid AMD board circa 50$ (or 100$ if I can't find a decent conroe mobo) i might end up getting it with a X2 6200 or 6400 despite conroe's superiority. But the whole reason I even LOOKED at intel on this buy is because I noticed that none of the boards available for AMD ATM are any good (that I could tell).
I don't really want to delay the purchase much as I have been saying "I'll just wait till its the right time" for over a year now, and its to the point where my athlonXP2500+ burton is reaching 100% CPU usage when decoding a 720p movie... Not to mention my 9800pro is barely running newer games on minimal settings. But if nforce5 conroe mobos are JUST around the corner (less then a month) I might just delay again...
Current plan is:
CPU: E6300 C2D from newegg.com @ 180$
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-945P-S3 @ $91?
RAM: Patriot Signature 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model PSD21G667KH? @ 200$
Video Card: eVGA 256-P2-N625-AR OC @ 220$
PSU: SeaSonic S12-380 ATX12V 380W @ 77$
Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW @ 45$
Drives: use existing drives from current PC (i got lots of them and constantly upgrade them.)
Current Hours of Research (reading reviews): ~20 (two whole days and then some)
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