SO lost looking for a new Motherboad

[toronado97]

I know there are a million of these posted a day but I truly am overwhelmed with choices, and underwhelmed with customer responses.

I will be upgrading to the following soon:

Intel C2D E7200 or E8400, not sure
AMD ATi Radeon 4850
2x2gb DDR2 Ram, pc800 most likely

I do not want to spend more than 160 dollars on it if I can help it. I know you pay for quality but my financial situation will simply not let me drop big bucks on this thing, and I'm basically without a computer currently so the sooner I get it the better.

I want to overclock it. I don't plan on trying to break speed records or anything but I would like to pull a 7200 up to 3.5 stable if possible.

I want reliability. I've got a Gigabyte P965 S3 right now that has worked fine until about a month ago, when all kinds of oddball things started happening to my system. Several other Gigabyte 965 users have reported the exact same types of symptom I've had, and I've also read Gigabyte has been having major Bios issues starting with boards manufactured about a year ago, so I'm kind of leery of making an investment in them again. Maybe this is unfounded or maybe I just have bad luck. I'm not adverse to trying one more time.

I thought about switching to Asus, but the choices are overwhelming me. They make 16 different P45 boards. Really? Bleh. Many customer reviews are talking about issues with certain versions of Windows, RAM pickiness, and bad sound drivers causing programs like WoW to run slowly. I play WoW a lot so this is a concern for me.

Frankly I don't know much about the other manufacturers. I don't plan on going Crossfire or SLI so that's not a concern to me. I really want to get a board that I can just plug into the chassis and go. I really hate flashing bios, and I hate it even more when I have to flash a bios just to get my current hardware to even be recognized and work correctly. I'm fairly computer savvy but not enough so to really be able to say hey I need a bios flash, or hey the hardware is just bad, or hey did that flash just RUIN the hardware.

Basically any suggestions would be appreciated. I've come to trust the Anandtech community for its knowledge and hunches one way or another. If it matters, I may be reusing a pair of G.Skill DDR2 800 1GB sticks for a while in it until I can upgrade.

 

[zerogear]

If that is your price range, then you can't really go wrong with a P5Q-E. Anything more might be overkill. It also depends on how many drives you want to run internally. But generally I never had trouble with P45 (but I'm on X48 now)

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: zerogear
If that is your price range, then you can't really go wrong with a P5Q-E. Anything more might be overkill. It also depends on how many drives you want to run internally. But generally I never had trouble with P45 (but I'm on X48 now)

Seconded. I have the P35 variant

 

[stuff311]

Biostar has seen major improvements in their recent mobos. This one fits your price range, and has quite an array of accessories. Not to mention it supports the latest 45nm procs and can hit over 500fsb. I know you don't want a massive OC, or xfire, but this board leaves those options open, while attaining your original goals. As for reliability, I've only had my biostar for a couple weeks, and I'll never go back to Asus again. This would easily net you 3.5ghz on a 7200.

 

[toronado97]

I've had several Biostar boards in the past, and I doubt you could sway me to go back. Thanks though Stuff.

About the Asus P5Q-E, will DDR2 800 RAM be a hurdle for me? I was planning on getting some Corsair XMS, probably a 2x2GB kit for it as I think the current RAM I have is the source of my system instability. Just wanted to make sure it would be compatible as I believe that board says 1066 native or 1333.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Umm typically it's always safe to use memory that's slower, and PC6400 is fast enough for most people, you can always tighten the timings and such if you want it to be faster. The P5Q-E seems like a solid choice for your budget, if not a Gigabyte board that's P35/P45, around the same price as the P5Q-E.