Newbie looking for good Core 2 Duo board for first build!

[toastncataracts]

I'm building from scratch for my first time ever. To be honest, i really dont know sh*t about building. I know what i need, i just don't know how to get it all working right. I'm pretty sure i can get it all together, as i know where to plug everything in, it's just working with the bios and getting everything running without having anything on the harddrive that will be a problem.

I'm looking for a good motherboard around $150 or less to run my E6400, 2x1GB Corsair DDR2 800. I might use SLI somewhere in the future, but i doubt i'll use crossfire. I've only OC'd my GPU as of now because the motherboard i have doesnt support anything else being overclocked. I want to OC my CPU and ram a little bit though, and i know i'll get into it enough as to where i'll want to squeeze a lot of perfomance out of my hardware.

Whats the best motherboard around that i can get that supports what i want, and will give me some freedom to OC? I need something stable and reliable seeing as its my first time building. I'm kinda drawn to the new P5NSLI, but i've heard it has some serious limitations on OCing. The nForce 4 series looks good, too. I just hope they wont be overshadowed in a few years.

Here's my build list so far @ newegg. http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wis...cWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=3151649

Thanks!

 

[toastncataracts]

bump for help.

 

[cmdrdredd]

SLI is not in that pricerange for C2D boards. I wouldn't touch Nforce boards at all for a C2D personally. My choice for you is the Asus BD5. It's just over $150 but is much more reliable than the Gigabyte DS3/S3 from all reports I've seen. It has some overclocking headroom for you too.

 

[toastncataracts]

ASUS BD5? can you give me a link to that on newegg? i cant even find that on asus' site.

 

[najames]

Probably means an Asus P5B.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?Item=N82E16813131030

I think you are overboard on the system. Just get one 320gig drive for $100 to start with, it should work fine. How about a Super Lan Boy case for about $40 on sale at times at Compusa, very good cases. Maybe a 19" monitor for half the cost instead of a 20.1". Try onboard sound first and if it is killing you buy a Chaintech AV-710 $25. I was buying them in Miami Tiger outlets for $19.99. Listening to one now in 2 channel.

Floppy for what? You can make bootable CDs with CDRW or even DVDRW. I haven't used a floppy in years. How about a Plumax case and a DVD burner for about $50, you have USB and firewire, use it anywhere. Mine works on Linux and WinBlows.

Use some cheaper RAM if you want. It doesn't make a difference if your buddy can overclock 200MHz more than you, who cares?

Now the shocker, for that kind of money you could buy a dual CPU board and stick on 2 dual core Opterons, use some of the cheaper parts and come out ahead.
There, I just saved you $500+.

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: najames
Now the shocker, for that kind of money you could buy a dual CPU board and stick on 2 dual core Opterons, use some of the cheaper parts and come out ahead.
There, I just saved you $500+.

The OP's wishlist link isn't working for me for so reason, so you'll have to fill me in: how did you cut out enough to wrangle almost $660 worth of processors (over the $250ish in the OP) and save $500?