LGA 775 Motherboard ? what would you choose if you were me?

[WaiWai]

LGA 775 Motherboard ? what would you choose if you were me?

My temporary list for my new computer:

CPU: Intel E2180
RAM: 2GB or 2GBx2; DDR2 667 or 800
Motherboard: not decided yet. Socket LGA 775
HDD: Western Digital WD6400AAKS (640GB, SATA2)
DVD-RW: not decided yet.
Display card: not decided yet. Perhaps HD2600Pro
Monitor: not decided yet. Two cheap 1680x1050 monitors
1 Modem card
1 FDD
1 Keyboard
1 Mouse
1 Speaker
Operating System: Windows XP Pro



Info

CPU & RAM:
I'm going to overclock my E2xxx using its stock cooler only to about 3Ghz.
FSB 333 x 9 multiplier = 2997Mhz. So the speed of my DDR2 RAM only needs to be 333 x 2 = 667Mhz. Am I right?

LGA 775 Motherboard:
Here's my initial (temporary) criteria for my motherboard:
* It has to be LGA 775 (to fit my E2xxx CPU). Support dual/quad-core CPU. Support 45nm/65nm CPU
* 4 DIMMs. Support DDR2 (and preferred DDR3). Support at least 8GB (preferred 16GB). Prefer to support dual channel
* preferred in-built sound card & LAN card

Questions:

Motherboard
1.What motherboard chipset should I get? The performance results shown from benchmarks appear to tell me that the difference is very minor, so I would better pick the cheapest motherboard. Agree?
2.I would like to get 2 PCIe slots just in case if I want to go for dual graphic card in future. But it's only a future-proof act. I don't have such a need anytime in near future. So if it's cheap to get 2 PCIe. I will do.
Either PCIe 2.0 or PCIe 1.0 is fine. The real-world difference should be very minor.
I believe I need 2 PCIe x16 if I go for dual graphic card, right?
3.What brand of motherboard should I get? Any recommendation?
What LGA 775 motherboard should I buy?

RAM
4.What brand of RAM should I buy? Is there any difference? Or should I just go for the cheapest?
5.What speed of RAM should I buy? I think I shouldn't buy DDR2 800 since I don't need such a high speed. What's more, DDR2 667 and 800 don't have any noticeable real-world difference. I should stick with DDR2 667. Agree?

DVD-RW
6.I'm going to get a DVD-RW drive too. But should I get a PATA / SATA / SATA2 drive? Any advice?

Thank you.

 

[iBPJohn]

1. P45 Motherboard should suite you well if you want to only do Crossfire, if you were thinking about doing SLI, then a 750i should be ok.
2. Different P45's have different PCI-E layouts, all of them are 2.0 I believe, the 750I SLI will have 2 pci-e x16 slots
3. I'm not particular to any certain brand
4. I usually go with the cheapest but not extremely cheap.
5. Get 800 since nearly everything uses it and it's virtually the same price anymore.
6. Get a sata version, it's a lot easier on cabling.

 

[toadeater]

If you plan on gaming, I don't recommend the HD2600Pro. Spend a little more on at least an 8800GT and you'll be much happier. A 9600GT would be a cheaper option, but still better than the 2600Pro. Also consider the new Radeon 4850 if you're willing to spend a little more.

 

[Dillybob]

I have had bad experiences with ATI cards dying fast in 2 different systems. Nvidia is much more stable. I would look into getting an Nforce board...my old EVGA 680i still works quite well. If you're not going to be gaming much, then I would go for a 750i...it has the ability to run 2 card SLI (not 3, though), and has PCI-e 2.0, but you can get 1 for about $150. It s also supports 1333mhz natively.

If you must go ATI, then P45 should work fine for you. But definetely don't go 2600 ANYTHING. For ATI, get at least a 3650....or 3850 with 512mb.


As far as the RAM, DDR2 800. You should be able to find a ratio that will keep it close to that speed no matter what FSB you use. I have had good experiences with Corsair and Patiot. You can get 2x2gb for about $100 (sometimes cheaper if the latency is higher). Lower latency only matters if you do a lot of RAM-hungry tasks, like gaming, or workstation programs....and it only helps a little bit there. The performance boost is minimal, but in some cases, worth the extra $10 (usually the difference is about that).

 

[WaiWai]

Currently my budget for motherboard is about US$40-80.
But if dearer motherboard proves its usefulness, I don't mind spending like US$20-30 more.
P45 / 750i seems to be more expensive.
I'm thinking about P965. It seems to be pretty cheap, and I don't see much performance difference for the more pricey motherboard.
So why not go for the cheaper ones? Any advice?

Is it possible to get Crossfire or SLI in a low budget? I don't really need 2 graphic cards anytime in near future. I buy it only for future-proof.

I don't play games much. As long as I'm able to run modern games in 1024x768 or 1280x1024 on the lowest, it's fine.
DirectX10 support shouldn't be my concern since my low-end graphic card will not be able to run any DirectX10 stuff anyway.
8800GT seems to be at least three times expensive than HD2600Pro, so it's a no-no.

Hmm... If I use DDR2 800, the FSB has to be 400. I will get 2800 if I use 7x multiplier or 3200 if 8x multiplier.
I would not be able to overclock to 3200 so I'm forced to use 7x multiplier.
A slower CPU seems to hurt more than a lower RAM.

 

[cactusdog]

My friend your thinking is a little out with a few things. The 800 Mhz will be better because it will give you more options/dividers to use while overclocking. You dont have to change CPU multiplier to end up with the right memory settings. You can change the memory divider, which you will have to do when u overclock.

The 2600 is a bad choice for video card, 3850 would be much better. Or the Nividia 9600 is cheap but performs well.

The E2180 is not a real core2duo, youre better spending the extra $25 on a E4600

The cheap motherboards dont usually have 2 pci-e slots, the P5k or P5Q or EPP45 DS3l is the lowest i would look at if you want to overclock but they have 1 pci-e slot. Your cpu is gonna bottleneck a crossfire setup so just get 1 decent video card like above.

I dont know where youre getting P965 boards from but all my suppliers dont have them anymore bcoz there are newer better ones for the same price. Also a newer motherboard will give you more features, better HD audio, plenty sata ports, newer faster ethernet, raid capability etc, support for more devices, and most of all the capability to upgrade your cpu later on.

Some 965 boards like the P5B will take a 45nm CPU but it doesnt leave any room for overclocking whereas a newer board will.

Anyway good luck

 

[WaiWai]

The 800 Mhz will be better because it will give you more options/dividers to use while overclocking. You dont have to change CPU multiplier to end up with the right memory settings. You can change the memory divider, which you will have to do when u overclock.

That would mean I have to run asynchronously. Running asynchronously is not optimal. The gain is negligible at the price of more heat and power consumption. I only use stock cooler so it's not preferred.

The 2600 is a bad choice for video card, 3850 would be much better. Or the Nividia 9600 is cheap but performs well

.

It appears a better video card is only needed for gaming. I play very few games. As long as I'm able to run modern games in 1024x768 or 1280x1024 on the *lowest*, it's perfectly fine. I believe HD2600Pro is able to do that so I'm going to settle on HD2600Pro (or any card within this price range). Currently HD2600Pro is selling at US$50-58 while 9600GT is selling over US$135. It is too expensive for a light gamer.

The E2180 is not a real core2duo, youre better spending the extra $25 on a E4600

What do you mean "not real core2duo"? After all, it's also 2-core and it can compete with E6xxx after overclocking with stock cooler.
I don't see there is any disadvantage. The only bad thing about E2xxx is it has 1MB cache. But it can be easily offset by a faster CPU speed.
E4xxx only give me 1MB cache more but the performance isn't that much so I'm going to stick with E2xxx.

I dont know where youre getting P965 boards from but all my suppliers dont have them anymore bcoz there are newer better ones for the same price. Also a newer motherboard will give you more features, better HD audio, plenty sata ports, newer faster ethernet, raid capability etc, support for more devices, and most of all the capability to upgrade your cpu later on.

It's still available in my stores. They are usually around US$38 - 51 while the current P35 motherboard is around US$90-110. So it's more than 50% off. I'm unsure if P35 motherboard can give so much more performance to justify paying more than 50% more. I would better get an old cheaper motherboard if it doesn't.

I think I'm ok with one PCIe. After all multi-GPU seems to be only for games and I play very few games. 2 Low-end graphic cards seemingly can't offer the performance of a single mid-range graphic card so it's pretty pointless for me to have 2 PCIe.