Recommend a good quad core board - no overclocking

[JasonCoder]

Ok this should be pretty easy for folks on this forum. I just need a board for a Quad core and I could care less about overclocking. I'm after features and stability. Things I'd like it to be able to do:

- Run 4 gigs of ddr2
- SLI or 2nd PCIe slot would be cool for 2nd DVI card for triple monitor support
- Onboard GigEth
- ATX

The mother of all motherboard threads had this to say

If you are planning on no to mild overclocking and if you are not going to upgrade processor until the arrival of the Nehalem processor (Q4 2008), P965 motherboards may be your choice.

I've also heard

get the p35 since next year intel will release the peryn 45nm chip which is compatible with the p35

Thanks in advance for any advice you can contribute.

 

[renethx]

Well, if you have no particular P965 motherboard in mind, then you'd better choose P35.

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DQ6/DS3P

is a stable motherboard with a 2nd PCIe graphics slot.

 

[JasonCoder]

Cool, thanks! I've liked other Gigabyte boards I have owned.

That one looks like a crossfire board. Do I have to crossfire a couple of ATI cards to get the use of both PCIe slots simultaneously?

 

[lopri]

Bad Axe 2 is the most stable LGA775 board I've dealt with up to date. Although I use a 680i board for various reasons, for someone doesn't overclock and want a solid stock performance, there is nothing more mature than 975X chipset for C2D and C2Q - and Bad Axe 2 is the pinnacle of it.

 

[renethx]

Originally posted by: JasonCoder
Do I have to crossfire a couple of ATI cards to get the use of both PCIe slots simultaneously?

No, you don't have to have ATI cards. You can also use two NVIDIA cards for quad-display.

One caution: if you use the second PCI Expres x16 slot (x4 electrically), then you can't use any PCI Express x1 slot because there are only 6 PCI Epxress lanes in ICH9 among which 1 is used for IDE controller and 1 for Gb LAN so that there remain only 4 PCI Express lanes.

ASUS P5B Deluxe does not suffer from this limitation because you can choose either x4 mode or x2 mode for the second PCI Expres x16 slot (x2 is enough for 2D applications). P5B Deluxe supports FSB 1333 processors with the latest beta BIOS CPU Support List.

 

[JasonCoder]

Originally posted by: renethx

Originally posted by: JasonCoder
Do I have to crossfire a couple of ATI cards to get the use of both PCIe slots simultaneously?

No, you don't have to have ATI cards. You can also use two NVIDIA cards for quad-display.

One caution: if you use the second PCI Expres x16 slot (x4 electrically), then you can't use any PCI Express x1 slot because there are only 6 PCI Epxress lanes in ICH9 among which 1 is used for IDE controller and 1 for Gb LAN so that there remain only 4 PCI Express lanes.

ASUS P5B Deluxe does not suffer from this limitation because you can choose either x4 mode or x2 mode for the second PCI Expres x16 slot (x2 is enough for 2D applications). P5B Deluxe supports FSB 1333 processors with the latest beta BIOS CPU Support List.

That flexibility on the asus sounds nice. Hmm, decisions decisions.