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Is there an under $150 C2D board that dominates the others?

W

WoundedWallet

Platinum Member
I'm going thru the upgrade pains and I'm getting sick of it already.

First I went with the Fry's ECS special, the P4M800. Everything was fine till the USB, mouse and keyboard ports stopped working. Kicked myself for falling prey to ECS again and made another bad decision in a hurry. Got an AB9 (non-pro) and the other necessary video card, RAM and power supply.

But I could not get RAID to work under Vista, even after buying another RAID controller, since the Jmicron controller drivers ssck.

Now I'm considering yet another motherboard, just don't know which one.

I have simple needs. Vista drivers, overclock, RAID 1, 1 IDE, 1 PCIx16, 2 PCI, and the other usual ports. That should be a piece of cake right?

But is there a clear winner in the under $150 category?
 
Nothing currently in the market, but I'm hoping DFI comes out with them NForce 650i SLI board with digital PWM. Their 680i board should be good too, but price-wise would be over 200.
 
Do you overclock?


If you overclock until more Nivida 650i boards come out look at the Gigabyte S3

If you overclock very little then look at the ASROCK 775 Dual VSTA
 
Thanks moosey. I was actually looking at the P5N-E. Someone at another forum mention that they are not OC friendly, but a good board nonetheless.

The S3 was my other choice before I went with the AB9. How is the RAID BIOS in this board? Do you know if Vista likes it?

Also what other nVidia 650s are coming out soon? I might be able to hold my horses for a couple months.
 
To be honest DS3 is one of the best in this range.
I'm running easily at 400 Mhz FSB with RAID 0. Everything's just peachy. The new BIOS (F10) apparently allows AHCI mode on all 6 SATA ports so you won't be short changed there...
 
Just wanted to say that I have apparently solved my problem. I got a SATA DVDRW and managed to go thru the installation as supposed.

It proved me that the AB9's IDE location is the least of its problems. Having to boot from an optical SATA to install in an IDE RAID (only one) is beyond moronic.

I'll keep my attention for the new boards coming out as I know I won't have any patience with this board anymore. If nothing else afordable comes along, the DS3 will be it. I like the serial port and the extra PCI slot.

Thanks for your suggestions.
WW
 
Originally posted by: yiranhu
To be honest DS3 is one of the best in this range.
I'm running easily at 400 Mhz FSB with RAID 0. Everything's just peachy. The new BIOS (F10) apparently allows AHCI mode on all 6 SATA ports so you won't be short changed there...
Click to expand...

Yiranhu, can you please explain what is AHCI mode? Does it ahve anything to do with drives shutting downa after restart?

I know this thread is for something else but please....
 
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