Picking a Motherboard for less than $150

[darbius]

I looked around at the boards to see if I could find a solid opinion on a motherboard for less than $150, but many of the discussions tend to be in the higher range ($180+), so I thought I'd throw down a post here with the specifics. Any advice is much appreciated.

I'm currently looking at the following 3 boards:

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R ($130)
MSI P6N SLI Platinum ($140)
ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP ($150) (don't really need the wifi, but the non-wifi version looked like it had some weird stuff goin on with the heatsinks)

To give some background, I plan on using it for gaming (City of Heroes, Tabula Rasa, Company of Heroes, Warhammer Online - eventually, maybe UT2007 or Bioshock or something like that), but I don't care too much about SLI. I'm gonna go with just 1 beefy vid card instead. Also, while I don't need good on-board sound, it would keep me from having to buy another sound card.

My planned setup is:
Processor: Probably an E4500 or E6550 but that's not totally nailed down yet
Video: eVGA 8800GTS 640mb
Memory: 4gb G.Skill DDR2 800 (2 x 2gb)
Power: Seasonic S12 II 500W
HD: Seagate Barracuda 250gb

I am open to paying a little more (like $180) if people think there is something that makes it worth the jump in price and I am also willing to take a look at other boards if people have had good experiences, but at least the above is a good starting point. Thanks in advance.

 

[Heidfirst]

what features (other than decent sound) do you need/want e.g. firewire, RAID etc.?
Do you want to overclock?
Others worth looking at are the P35-DS3P & the abit IP35 series incl the $70 IP35-E if you don't neeed firewire/RAID..

 

[darbius]

I'm not really a big overclocker, but I might get into some light over-clocking. As far as firewire and RAID, I know I don't need RAID and I'm not entirely sure what I would use firewire for anyway. Thanks for the heads up though. I'll take a look at the IP35 and the P35.

Edit: I took a look at the IP35-E and it actually looks like a really great board for my uses. I'll keep lookin, but that one is definitely a contender. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[tropic]

The IP35-E has been a solid little board in our workstations, and a good overclocker to boot.

 

[Doclife]

I upgraded my system (from AMD Athlon single core +3700) 3 weeks ago with the following components:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R Revision 2.0 ($130, Clubit.com)
Processor: C2D E4500 M0 stepping ($130, Clubit.com)
Heatsink: Intel stock heatsink
Memory: 4GB (4X1GB) HP DDR2 667 ($10 for each stick after rebate, costcentral.com)

I'm very happy with the motherboard/CPU performance. The board is solid, high quality, and Revision 2.0 replaces the parallel port with 4 additional USB ports (8 USB ports total). The onboard Azilia sound is superb and I think it sounds on par or better than the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 audio card that I had installed on my other computer.

Since the E4500 CPU has a X11 multiplier, and I ssume that you will overclock, there is no need to buy the expensive DDR2-800 memory. I was able to overclock my E4500 to 3.0Ghz with the following settings:

Multiplier : X10
FSB: 300 MHz
CPU voltage: 1.35V
Memory multiplier : X2
Memory timings: SPD default

As you can see, with these settings, I don't even utilize the full potential of the DDR2-667 memory (memory is running at 300Mhz x 2 = 600Mhz). The system is stable with Ortho running for 24Hrs. If I have the time, I could probably optimize the settings a bit more but I'm happy with it as is, so why bother. The Northbridge heatsink is big and adequate for cooling. At first, I was thinking about replacing the northbridge heatsink with the Thermalright HR5 heatsink, but after running Orthos for several hours, the stock NB heatsink was warm to the touch (not too hot that it would burn your finger) so I was satisfied with it. The Intel stock heatsink is more than adequate for the E4500 at 3GHz. The heatsink fan is quiet even under load.

Overall, I like my setup because:

1. It is fast and easy to install/overclock
2. It is cool running. Thus, I don't have to buy expensive CPU heatsink, NB heatsink
3. The on board audio is superb ( I listen to music primarily). Thus, i don't have to buy expensive add on audio card
4. It is cheap. $300 for Motherboard/CPU/4GB memory

BTW, I suggest that you get the 8800GT 512MB video card instead of 8800GTS 640MB. It is faster and much cheaper. I think everyone on the web agreed that the 8800GT 512MB is the best bang for the buck. I'm glad that I sold my 8800GTS 640MB a few weeks ago for the same price that I bought after a few months of used .

For PSU, I suggest Corsair 520HX (520W, $94 free shipping Buy.com). It is efficient, quiet and have modular cables (made by Seasonic also).

 

[robertsu]

read my post at: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...word1=MSI+P35+platinum