Help with Motherboard Selection

qp

Member
Nov 26, 2004
40
0
0
Well I've started purchasing the parts for my new build and am down to deciding on a motherboard and a PSU. Here are the essentials:

Q6600
9800GTX
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 1066 (not firm on this, I can change)
WD 640GB SATA
One or Two Optical Drives
Dual 22" Monitors

So I'm looking for the right motherboard for me. I've never overclocked, but I see no reason not to do some simple, safe overclocking this time around. I don't plan to push the limits with this, so I don't think I need the top of the line motherboard.

I have read a lot of threads here, but I'll be honest, I don't even know a lot of the basics of motherboards to understand the higher level discussions. I'm one of those who just reads lots of opinions from the truly knowledgeable people like you all and then just builds with the highly rated hardware :)

I've been looking at the P35 and P45 boards, but I really don't know the difference. If you were in this situation, wanting a good value, but not wanting a cheap board you would regret, what would you go with? I really appreciate any advice!
 

SolMiester

Diamond Member
Dec 19, 2004
5,330
17
76
Quite happy with my board thank-you....(spec in sig) not sure about the differencing between P35 & P45...
Am currently running 9x333 at 47c load...easy OC on this board.
 

lopri

Elite Member
Jul 27, 2002
13,310
687
126
While my favorite Intel chipset is still the venerable 975X, at this point you may want to present/future-proof when it comes to PCIe Gen2. That leaves leaves X38/X48, P45 and 750i/780i/790i chipsets. Unless you plan to SLI, Intel chipsets tend to handle quad-cores better so you may consider that. Dual-cores are great on NV chipsets.