Mobo Reccomendation for e6600, 8800gts

[Devoluti0n]

Hello all, I'm putting together the final pieces of a longed planned system and was looking for some reccomendations on a solid motherboard.

I am looking at a fairly simplistic gaming machine with many features not being needed. I don't ever plan on using SLI, or using RAID. That being said, I'm planning on using one sata hard drive, one sata dvd burner, a core 2 duo e6600, and a geforce 8800gts, and 2gb of ddr2 6400 all wrapped up in an antec p180b case.

I would like to overclock a bit perhaps, taking the e6600 to 2.8 to 3ghz.

That being said, my budget is in the 100-200 dollar range, but I'd like to save some money if I can, given that I don't need the features of the higher end boards. Cooling and quietness are important to me, as well as stability. Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[imported_mason]

not to hijack your thread... but i'm looking into the same setup, however i have an E6700.

i've been eyeballing the P5B-E vs. 680i LT

 

[Nials]

I'm in the same boat.

Any of the GA-965P boards look good and are in the low end of your budget. I have been considering the DS3 myself.

 

[Devoluti0n]

what do you all think of the Evga 650i Ultra board? It seems to have a decent feature set, although minimalist, but the lack of proper northbridge and southbridge coolers concerns me. These boards seem to overclock well in reviews, I'm just wondering if the temperatures on north and south bridge are of concern

 

[MarcVenice]

P5N-E SLI

I know it's SLI, but in reviews it simply is a very good board, for not a lot of money, and OC's pretty well, up to 500 FSB. Same as with the DS3 should keep you futureproof a little as well ... And theres nothing wrong with SLI, maybe in a year or two you can stick in another 8800 that you can then buy for 75$

 

[Devoluti0n]

Hah, ya there's nothing wrong with SLI so I won't rule out SLI capable boards. They just generally carry a price premium for a feature I'm not overly concerned with. Do boards like the gigabyte ds3 support future processors with 1333 fsb?

 

[MarcVenice]

the 1.3 and 3.3 revisions of ds3 boards do, yes.

 

[Devoluti0n]

after some tips and reccomendations I'm looking at the Gigabyte Ds3 and DS4, as well as the asus p5n-e SLI. The thought of the Evga 650i ultra is on the backburner as a cheap alternative. Any thoughts are welcome!

 

[Dashel]

I'm in a similar situation, I just saw the new motherboards based on "Bearlake" chips are due to be reviewed this month on the 21st:

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2980

So keep in mind that's around the corner if you're not in a rush to buy. The boards I was considering are the P5B Deluxe, the Gigabytes you mentioned and also the P5N32-E SLI. Now though I may just hold off the 2 weeks or so and hope the new boards trigger a price drop or offer better value.

 

[Simply]

But problem with new Mobos even if they sound good on paper till they been out a while they will have bios problems and need fixes. Do what you all want but i never buy a new mobo that not been out a few months so most of the bugs are worked out of it. But the evga good for 100 bucks on the egg but if want more go with MSi 650i plat or with the Asus commando.

 

[Devoluti0n]

I've been looking at bearlake chipsets out soon as well, and they're an interesting bunch. While I hope and imagine they would offer comparable or better performance, I really wonder what price point the varying p35 boards will be set at.

 

[Simply]

The bearlake if it has a lot of options will probably be 250+ depends what it comes with.

 

[Devoluti0n]

yea I imagine there will be a high price for initial release, and of course the BIOS will likely have to mature and work out the bugs. I may just order a board tonight on the Egg, keeping in mind their 30 day return policy