Mobo to go with Q6600?

[liquidboss]

I have a buddy who saw the recent price cuts and it interested in building a new system around a Q6600. Any advice on what motherboard he should pair with it? System will mostly be used for poker and multi-tasking other things while playing poker. Almost certain SLI will never be needed, but he is interested in being able to use 3-4 monitors in the future. Will probably be starting with 2 and upgrading from there.

Any other advice is helpful as I haven't built a system in a few years and haven't been keeping up on current trends.

 

[jkresh]

does he plan on overclocking? Either way there is supposed to be a 680i/p35 roundup this week with q6600 overclocking might be worth waiting to see the results. If he doesnt want to oc then there are a variatey of options, if he is going for highest oc possible then right now it looks like a p35 board (probably asus p5k premium) would be his best bet.

 

[liquidboss]

He won't be overclocking, he doesn't know much about the guts of a computer, hence him asking me to help him out... heh

 

[jkresh]

If he wont be overclocking then it depends on if he wants to go with amd cards or nvidia. Since you dont think he is interested in sli/crossfire he could go either 650i or p35 but p35 is probably the better option. Then it just depends on features, gigabyte, asus and msi have a series of p35 boards that range from reasonably priced with a few features to expensive with everything (firewire,esata,semi discrete sound, wifi...)

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: jkresh
If he wont be overclocking then it depends on if he wants to go with amd cards or nvidia. Since you dont think he is interested in sli/crossfire he could go either 650i or p35 but p35 is probably the better option. Then it just depends on features, gigabyte, asus and msi have a series of p35 boards that range from reasonably priced with a few features to expensive with everything (firewire,esata,semi discrete sound, wifi...)

Abit IP35 Pro is $180 which is cheap for a board with all the above mentioned features (no wifi tho).

 

[Heidfirst]

what does he want to do on the 3 or 4 monitors?
If it's just 2D stuff then he could use a PCI card & a PCI-E card but if more demanding then probably a mobo with 2 physical PCI-E x16 slots would be better.

 

[liquidboss]

mostly 2D stuff, poker windows, statistics on players, internet, movies...