toronado97
Senior member
I've done as much research as I can, and I still can't figure out what to buy. I have a budget on the motherboard of 160.00 max. I want a motherboard that overclocks at least moderately well, doesn't have the glut of stability problems that seems to be plaguing the 680's, and that generally will be reliable.
I was looking at the Gigabyte P965 DS3, but Newegg is sold out and everyone else seems rather high in terms of pricing. Instead of the DS3 I was going to get the S3, but I'm not sure if there is any difference between the two other than the solid state capacitors, and does that really make a big difference in my situation?
Other options are the Asus P5B-E I think it is? Its listed at 150.99 on Newegg and it seems to have gotten some good reviews, but the on-board sound seems to be an issue on it, and as I don't have an addon soundcard that is an issue for me.
I've also considered the 650i offering from Asus, but most of the benchmarks I've seen have reported fairly major disk access and write issues in comparison with the P965 boards, so I'm not sure how safe that route is at this point. I would like to get this ordered by Tuesday, as my Athlon 3000+ is a bit long in the tooth at this point, so any help you can give me would be appreciated. 🙂
Edit: SLI is not an issue...if a board has it, cool, if not I don't really need it as I don't see myself using SLI anytime soon, if ever.
I was looking at the Gigabyte P965 DS3, but Newegg is sold out and everyone else seems rather high in terms of pricing. Instead of the DS3 I was going to get the S3, but I'm not sure if there is any difference between the two other than the solid state capacitors, and does that really make a big difference in my situation?
Other options are the Asus P5B-E I think it is? Its listed at 150.99 on Newegg and it seems to have gotten some good reviews, but the on-board sound seems to be an issue on it, and as I don't have an addon soundcard that is an issue for me.
I've also considered the 650i offering from Asus, but most of the benchmarks I've seen have reported fairly major disk access and write issues in comparison with the P965 boards, so I'm not sure how safe that route is at this point. I would like to get this ordered by Tuesday, as my Athlon 3000+ is a bit long in the tooth at this point, so any help you can give me would be appreciated. 🙂
Edit: SLI is not an issue...if a board has it, cool, if not I don't really need it as I don't see myself using SLI anytime soon, if ever.
